#72 – Dick Bernard: Lindsay's 23rd birthday, and some other 23rds

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Today is my oldest grandchild’s 23rd birthday.  This birthday causes me to think back…and ahead. 
August 22, 1986, when Lindsay was born, means of communication differed from today.  There was no public access internet; public e-mail was several years in the future; cellular phones were just beginning to be talked about.  When I called to congratulate Lindsay’s Mom and Dad on August 22, 1986, I used a pay telephone in downtown St. Paul MN.  Pay phones?????  They are few and far between in this day of cell phones.

Calling Congratulation August 22, 1986

Calling Congratulation August 22, 1986


The number “23” doesn’t stop at 1986.
23 years earlier, in August of 1963, I was newly married, a soldier in the U.S. Army playing war with the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized).  We were on maneuvers in the state of South Carolina.  I would guess that few of us in that Division realized that we were helping prepare for the Vietnam War, which was then still cool (in more ways than one), but which would soon erupt into a twelve year conflagration in southeast Asia.  We lost that war; today efforts are being made to ‘rehabilitate’ that history, and make it seem as if we won.
While we were slogging through rural South Carolina, learning first-hand about what segregation really was, elsewhere preparations were being concluded for a massive civil rights demonstration on August 28, 1963.  It was on that date that a young Dr. Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech before a massive audience on the National Mall in Washington D.C. It was truly a watershed moment.  You can revisit that major event at http://tinyurl.com/5f46w9. 
1963 was an important year for the American Civil Rights Movement .  It was the year of Martin Luther King writing his famous “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”, and many other events.  He wrote about 1963 in his 1964 book, “Why We Can’t Wait”.  I wonder what Dr. King would be thinking and saying today.
Go 23 years further back, to 1940, and I made my appearance in the world, in the time right after the Great Depression, and right before the U.S. entered World War II.  People of my generation are called the “Silent Generation” – we were too young to impact on WWII, too young to have lived through the Great Depression.  But we were deeply impacted by those events through our parents, relatives and surroundings.  Those really hard times became part of our very beings.
I wonder, this day, what things will look like for Lindsay and her generation, and their children, 23 years from now. 
The odds are almost certain that I won’t be around to see 2032.  Without the very active engagement of Lindsay’s generation, the times ahead promise to be unsettling and uncertain.  I’d like to feel hopeful.  But we’ve made a big mess of things, generally, especially the future, and those following us have got to turn things around for themselves.
Whatever I can do to help Lindsay and her cohort, I will do.  But we need to work together.
Happy birthday to you, Lindsay.
Happy future to you and all now and tomorrow.
A car with a message: LaMoure ND August 18 2009

A car with a message: LaMoure ND August 18 2009

#65 – Dick Bernard: The latest Poll…and the "protests".

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Other posts on this topic: July 24,26,27.29,30,31,August 1,2,6,7,10,15
The latest Poll.
Towards the end of last week news reports were that the public was becoming disenchanted with President Obama’s performance on the Health Care Reform issue. 
His poll numbers had dropped to the point that as many people disapproved of his performance, as approved: 46% to 46%.  He had gone from superhuman to merely mortal.  Basically, that was where the visible coverage (the coverage people notice because that’s what the media intend) ended. 
I decided to look up the specific poll.  It seems to have been a TIME Poll for July 27-28.  1002 people participated in the poll, with the results + or – 3%.  In other words it was a statistically valid poll.
You can probably still see the complete results of the poll, if you wish, at the  website pollingreport.com, then go to the surveys on health.
The TIME poll appears to have been one of those mind-numbing polls to answer, with Health Care Reform only one portion of the poll, and the Health Care portion having as many as 21 questions.  Whoever agreed to participate spent a long time on the phone, hopefully at a time they weren’t busy with something else. 
The specific question whose responses led to the headlines was apparently the first one in the Health Care Reform category: “Do you approve or disapprove of the job President Obama is doing in each of these areas…handling health care policy.”   
The questions all appear to have been forced choice, rather than graded response (“on a scale of 1 to 10, etc.).  Judging from my own very limited experience in responding to such phone polls – I can recall one seemingly interminable one some years ago – there is no room for reflection, or changing one’s mind.  It is a test of first impressions given to a sample of about a thousand people nationwide.  Valid?  Sure.  But truly useful information?  Probably not, unless you want to find some way to formulate the questions and then interpret the information to fit your own bias.
Down the road in the 21 poll questions is this one: “Who do you trust more?”  Obama 46%, Republicans 32%, Unsure 14%.  Error + or – 3%.
The “Protests”
“The days of rage” have apparently returned, NOT.
I put the word “protests” in quotes because the assorted expressions of anger at the back-home meetings, all breathlessly reported, are not protests at all…they are scripted, orchestrated and probably rehearsed street theatre. 
Personally, I think these “protests” will backfire on the organizers – most people want to hear rational discussion of the issues – and my guess is that as the month goes on the “protests”, while they will not disappear, will become less visible, including in their local areas.  I doubt that any of the politicians being targeted are befuddled by the protests.  Stay tuned.
“Protests” are not an exclusive province of the Right, of course.  Neither is the long term tactic of “P. R everything – disrupt – confuse – display anger” something new and innovative.  I put those words in quotes because they were part of an organizing strategy used against an organization I was part of in 1974, 35 years ago.  Years later I became a colleague of one of the organizers who had used those and other organizing tactics against us, and he gave me a copy of the notes he had taken at a training session he had attended in another state.
So, the protests we are seeing are really very old (and very tired) tactics.
Were I to be in a position to plan counter-“Protest” strategy, I would organize things to dissipate the energy/effectiveness of the protestors, without making the “protestors” seem like victims.  There are things that can be done.  I’ll feed in some suggestions….

#63 – Jim Reed and Carol Ashley: Comments on the American narrative and the demonization of words

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This is post #7 of 13.  The others: July 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, August 2,5,6,7,10,15.
Moderators note: During the posting of this Health Care Reform series, a number of individuals wrote me on various aspects of the problem.  James Reed and Carol Ashley had two quite different takes on the target (my opinion) of this intense debate: “middle class” American people.  Both Carol and Jim make important points.  The reader can interpret.  Both posts are shared with the writers permission.
James Reed, July 29, 2009:   The greatest obstacle to overcome is the public’s belief in America’s exceptional-ism, the belief that the American version of any endeavor is necessarily the best.  That belief projects America’s military forces as the most capable, its schools and universities the most instructive, its products the most inventive, its sports the most entertaining, its care for the young and old the most comprehensive, its economic system the most fair, its lifestyles the most advanced, and by extension, its health care services the most beneficial.  Those beliefs underlie all the arguments against change and undermine all efforts to introduce change.  Those beliefs allow stories of failures in other health care systems to be accepted without question while stories of America’s failures are dismissed out-of-hand.  Those beliefs make statistics on America’s health system meaningless except for the few cases, like number of treatments for prostate cancer, where America claims superiority.
Unfortunately, America’s middle class are those most entrenched in American exceptional-ism.  Taught so throughout our school system, we in the middle class hold tightly to that belief because the belief adds status to our lives.  Whatever our life history, occupation, or economic status, we belong to the best system the world has ever seen.  What change could be necessary in a system that produces the best?
The challenge for those seeking change to the health care system is then to devise change in a way that continues that sense of exceptionalism.
Carol Ashley, July 30, 2009:  I’ve been on Medicare for a very long time due to disability. I’m very grateful for it.
But what I really want to shout into some reporter’s mike is that we have a lot of socialism going on.  Do people want unsocialized police departments, fire departments, court systems, roads, education?  If we didn’t have socialism in these areas, rural areas like mine wouldn’t have or would have inadequate police departments, fire departments, etc.  And can you imagine paying tolls on all roads?  I wonder how many people would like that?
And there is non-governmental socialism in existence like car insurance (though mandated and regulated by government) and our local electric cooperative.  Yes, in the latter, we each pay our own electric bills according to usage, but that covers getting electricity restred to places when it doesn’t affect me.
Right now, we have a form of socialism called private health insurance which pays for emergency room visits from the non-insured through increased costs.  The public pays in very indirect ways through multitudes of bankruptcies that occur due to lack of or inadequate health insurance.
It’s time for people to stop panicking on the socialism thing and to decide when, where and how they want it.

Memorializing Eternal War?

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UPDATE: August 14, 2012: This post was written July 23, 2009. Last month, James Skakoon visited the ND-Manitoba International Peace Garden, had the same general feelings I had, and when he came home searched the internet to see if he could find any opinions which were similar to his. He found my post, we got in correspondence with each other, and as a result, he submitted his own opinion, which was recently published in the Bismarck (ND) Tribune. You can read it here. (The text of this column is included at the end of this post.)
This is yet another reminder that results are possible: sometimes they just take a little while.
The original article follows:
See Updates at end of the original post.  Specific links, including contact information, are at the very end of the post.
A reader requested specific information on the location of the International Peace Garden.  Here is the link: http://www.peacegarden.com/maps.htm
international-peace-garden-day-pass-july-18-090021
The first 25 years of my life – 1940-65 – I was a resident of North Dakota.  During that time, or since, I had never visited the famed International Peace Garden, which forms part of the boundary between North Dakota and Manitoba.  (The story of the Peace Garden, which was dedicated in 1932,  is at http://www.peacegarden.com .)

International Peace Garden North Dakota-Manitoba July 18, 2009

International Peace Garden North Dakota-Manitoba July 18, 2009

July 17-18 I was at a conference at Belcourt, ND, and noted that the Peace Garden was only 35 miles or so away.  On July 18, a beautiful summer day, I decided to leave my conference early, drive up to the Peace Garden, and then head back to Winnipeg, where we were visiting relatives.
I found a most beautiful, serene and interesting place…with some dissonance.
The Peace Garden essentially consists of two parallel sidewalks, straddling the international border with beautiful gardens in between.  Off to the sides, on both sides of the borders, are scenic drives.  I had time to do the approximately one and one-half mile walk, from end to end.
About half way down the American side, off to my left, I saw a pile of what looked like construction debris.
Coming closer, I saw a plaque with the headline “Let Peace Prevail“ which described the rubble: “The International Peace Garden represents a unique and enduring symbol of the strength of our friendship as nations, our mutual respect and our shared desire for world peace.
“The events of September 11, 2001, failed to shake the foundation of our shared vision of peace and prosperity for all the word’s people.
“This cairn, composed of steel rescued from the devastation of the World Trade Center in New York , ensures the memory of this tragedy will not be lost and reminds us to cherish tolerance, understanding and freedom.
“Officially unveiled by the Honourable Gary Doer, Premier of Manitoba, September 11, 2002.”

Girders from the Twin Towers at International Peace Garden July 18, 2009

Girders from the Twin Towers at International Peace Garden July 18, 2009

It startled me to see this symbol of what seems to have become justification for Eternal Fear and War occupying this place of Peace, but there it was.  The park brochure, which I looked at later, announced that “in 2010, visitors will see the creation of our 911 Memorial Contemplative Garden sponsored by Rotary Clubs International….”
I continued my walk, reaching the halfway point at the Peace Chapel, near the Peace Tower and straddling the border.  The Chapel was dedicated in 1970 and is sponsored by the General Grand Chapter Order of the Eastern Star.  http://www.ndoes.org.
The walls of this simple and beautiful chapel include 56 quotations all on the most peaceful topics…but in each of the corners were displays of many front pages of international newspapers for September 12, 2001 all, of course, featuring the World Trade Center towers in flames.  To me, it was dissonance.

One of many worldwide newspaper front pages on display in the four corners of the Peace Chapel, primarily from September 12, 2001

One of many worldwide newspaper front pages on display in the four corners of the Peace Chapel, primarily from September 12, 2001

I am glad I went to the Peace Garden, and I do think that its basic message remains as it was when it was dedicated July 14, 1932: “To God in His Glory.  We two nations dedicate this Garden and pledge ourselves that as long as man shall live; we will not take up arms against one another.”  It is “enobling peace”, but its overemphasis on the 911 tragedy is troubling, especially since that tragedy was used almost immediately to justify a war against Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with 911, and the war left huge moral and financial consequences for ourselves and countless other innocents.  “Peace” and “War” became synonyms, in effect.
All the way back to Winnipeg I kept thinking of those 9-11 displays.  I am still considering the letter I plan to send to the assorted officials connected with the Memorial.  I think I will suggest that it is time for those newspapers to leave the Peace Chapel; and that I hope great care is taken to not let a message of fear and war creep into the 911 Memorial Contemplative Garden which likely will surround the twin towers debris.
The drive from the Memorial back to Winnipeg was long and peaceful.  Entering the Red River Valley west of Cavalier on highway 5 I spied a gigantic concrete structure a mile or two off the road.  I knew it was there – I’d seen it before: a visible symbol of an earlier era of fear and loathing, during the 1950s era of guided missiles aimed at the Soviet Union from numerous places in North Dakota.  I went up and took a look.
Here it is:  The story is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguard_Program.  Scroll down a bit for more on this particular site.

Cold War Relic (still used for something) off Highway 5 west of Cavalier ND July 18 2009

Cold War Relic (still used for something) off Highway 5 west of Cavalier ND July 18 2009

“Let Peace Prevail”?

 

Display of a 1960s Minuteman Missile LaMoure ND August 17 2009

Display of a 1960s Minuteman Missile LaMoure ND August 17 2009

Update August 5, 2009:
On July 23, I wrote the CEO of the International Peace Garden, Mr. Doug Hevenor (text below).  I copied the ND Governor, Manitoba Premier, Grand Secretary of the ND Order of the Eastern Star and the President of Rotary International.
On August 5, Mr. Hevenor graciously responded to my letter.  I will post his response here if/when I have his permission.
A few days ago, Madeline Simon posted as follows: “Having looked at the Peace Garden website and checking out the “What to See” item and the listing for the 9/11 memorial, I found that the winners of the competition for a design were listed with this statement:
“On November 26, 2002, their design, with the message of recall, reflect, remember, understand, forgive, and grow selected as the first place winner.”
Thus far, the first three of these are directly reflected as the titles of the three interdependent chambers titled Recall, Reflect, and Remember, and they appear to be soliciting funds for the project.” (emphasis added)
On July 30, Bob Heberle said this: “Loved and agreed with your disappointment with the Peace Garden between ND and Canada.  The use of 9/11 is appalling and irritates me too.  It’s the very subtle way of totally misdirecting our thoughts and energies.  It is not too dissimilar to the change of the original meaning of Armistice Day by converting it to Veterans Day.  This was done in 1954 by President Eisenhower at the insistence of many military lobbyists.  It is easy to see how by simply adding the word, “veterans” where “Armistice” once was so easily manipulates the thought and changes the idea of honoring perpetual peace to honoring war.  After all, soldiers are for the most part considered warriors.  With all due respect to the honored warriors of native American tradition, Veteran’s Day now promotes glorification of war.
This is why our local, now national,  Veterans for Peace group encourages us to salute November 11 as Armistice Day and ring bells eleven times in honor of the peace pledges of the world that were orginally honored.  We do not encourage the firing of rifles nor fly overs for obvious reasons.
So, for me to turn the Peace Garden into a memorial for 9/11, changes entirely the notion of peace to reminders to avenge.
Relevant portions of letter to International Peace Garden and other officials from Dick Bernard, July 23, 2009:
“The Peace Garden is a beautiful place, but I am concerned about the emphasis on and symbolism of 9-11-01 at the Peace Gardens.
I have no concern whatsoever about 9-11 as a reminder of a departure from Peace.  Indeed, when I developed my own website in March, 2002, the peace and justice section of the website featured two snapshots I had taken of the Twin Towers in June, 1972…I write about 9-11 there: www.chez-nous.net/tree_radio.html .
I am no stranger to the power of symbols.  My uncle Frank, my Dad’s brother, eternally rests aboard one of those symbols: the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.  The Arizona was his home for the last six years of his too-short life.  Each December 7 I see his home blow up.
My concern with the Peace Gardens I saw [July 18] is the distinctly negative symbolism that 9-11-01 has come to represent after 2002.  It has been and still is used as a reminder to fear and despise others, rather than as a symbol of Peace.
Of course, I am only one person, with a very limited ability to influence decisions.  But I hope those of you receiving this letter will pay more than casual attention to my concern.
*
More specific info on who manages the International Peace Garden and about the 9-11 project at:
http://www.peacegarden.com/gardeninfo.htm
http://www.peacegarden.com/allpdf/911%20recall.pdf
Mailing address for letters Mr. Doug Hevenor, CEO, International Peace Garden, 10939 Highway 281, Dunseith ND 58329.
October 9, 2009: Relevant portion of letter sent to all 16 members of the Board of the International Peace Garden.
“,,,The matter of the Peace Garden focus on 9-11-01 is never far from my mind.
I think the seeming continuing emphasis on the terroristic aspect of 9-11 is inappropriate at this stage in our history (if it ever was appropriate), and sends a message contrary to the very mission of the International Peace Garden.  9-11 has come to be a symbol of war and enmity more than of peace and reconciliation.  It is most especially inappropriate at a place of peace, as the Peace Garden is supposed to be.
At the absolute minimum, I would ask that the website reference #mce_temp_url# be cleaned up and expanded to include all aspects of the proposed memorial*.  But I’d like the efforts to go beyond just that.
I am very well aware that actions such as implanting girders from the World Trade Center complex are, once taken, often difficult to impossible to reverse, for all sorts of reasons, good and not so good.  It is easier to dismiss solitary objections like mine, than to seriously look at their possible validity.
About all I can do is to call attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Dick Bernard
* – This page at the website gives only passing, almost invisible, mention to the other three components of the 9-11 Memorial at the Peace Garden: UNDERSTAND, FORGIVE and GROW.  They are mentioned in the letter, but given no emphasis whatever, compared with the other words.
Crisis Sequence handout also sent to the Board.  This is a handout from some long ago workshop I attended, and it well identifies how human beings normally react to major crises (like the World Trade Center attack) – it’s a matter of months, not years.  I prefer to use the original somewhat ragged copy, rather than reconstruct it.  Succinctly,  a continuing crisis needs to be nurtured, and that is what I think has happened with 9-11.  The words are not visible below, but in the heading, and the line, where the two words are circled, these are the words, from left to right:
Phase: – Impact – Recoil-Turmoil – Adjustment – Reconstruction
Time Period: – Hours – Days – Weeks – Months
The other lines:
Time Perspective: – Present – Past – Future
Emotions – Fight-Flight – Rage-Anxiety-Guilt-Depression – Hope
Thought: – Disorientation/Distractibility – Ambiguity/Uncertainty – Problem-Solving
Direction: – Search for lost object – Detachment – Search for new object – Re-attachment
Search Behavior: Reminiscence – Perplexed Scanning – Exploration – Testing

Crisis Sequence circa 1972

Crisis Sequence circa 1972

James Skakoon column in August 13, 2012 Bismarck Tribune (direct link is at beginning of this post):
The International Peace Garden lies in the Turtle Mountains between Manitoba and North Dakota. Its long central garden parallels the border, with one half in Canada, one half in the United States.
Approaching the Peace Garden from north or south, one can drive unimpeded into the garden grounds. Returning to either country, however, requires re-entering through Customs at the border crossings. This suggests that the International Peace Garden sits outside any national boundaries and is thus devoid of political and national conflict.
I recently visited the International Peace Garden. Although I had been there many times before, it has been some 40 years since my last visit. My expectations, however, had not changed. I expected a pleasant, beautiful, calming place where I could experience positive thoughts of peace and good will.
My expectations were quickly dashed upon seeing a gruesome memorial to 9/11 within the International Peace Garden. The memorial is centered around a mass of 10 damaged, twisted girders salvaged from the World Trade Center rubble. I was appalled to see something so incongruously out of place in a space dedicated to peace. The sight of these girders is hardly calming and not at all peaceful.
To be fair, the Carillon Bell Tower at the Peace Garden is dedicated to war veterans, perhaps suggesting a precedent for other memorials on the garden grounds. It was erected by the North Dakota Veterans Organization in 1976 as a bicentennial project. Also to be fair, an attempt has been made by the Peace Garden to make something positive, if not quite suggesting peace, out of its 9/11 memorial. For example, the headline on a placard at the display reads, “Let Peace Prevail.”
The winning entry of a student design competition for the area around the girders offered a message of “recall, reflect, remember, understand, forgive, and grow.”
This compassionate entry is the theme for the final display areas around the girders. But neither these elements, nor anything else about the memorial are likely to change our automatic emotional reaction to 9/11, and a memorial to veterans such as the Carillon Bell Tower is unlikely to evoke a similar reaction.
September 11th and its aftermath represent religious zealotry, terrorism, revenge, destruction, political strife, military and civilian casualties, hatred, and war. And yes, heroism, service, bravery, and loss as well. One peace-like word, cooperation, applies to the Western world’s response to 9/11 (although it was largely one nation imposing its political will on others). Then again, this cooperation led most prominently to waging a war.
At a Sept. 10, 2003, ceremony at the Peace Garden remembering the terrorist attacks, Kent Conrad, a U.S. senator from North Dakota, said of 9/11, “It was a day that roused a mighty nation to anger, and to action.“
None of this relates to peace, at least not now or in the foreseeable future.
I have no untoward contempt for memorials to human tragedies, wars, and other catastrophes. In Berlin, I visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Holocaust Memorial). I cried. I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. I cried there, too.
I visited Wounded Knee, S.D., the site of an 1890 massacre of Native Americans by U. S. Cavalry. I cried again.
These memorials are either in their original locations or in spaces dedicated to and evoking their purpose. The same is true of every other memorial I have visited or can think of. Removed from its immediate context, the Peace Garden’s 9/11 memorial poignantly accomplishes its mission.
The articles of incorporation for the International Peace Garden, which was dedicated in 1932, state the purpose as “Creation and maintenance of [a] garden or gardens…as a memorial to the peace that has existed between the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada.” The inscription on the stone cairn at the entrance to the Garden pledges eternal peace between Canada and the United States: “…as long as man shall live we shall not take up arms against each other.”
A June 3, 2002, Manitoba government press release quoted then Manitoba Premier Gary Doer as saying, “The International Peace Garden is a magnificent and unique site and I can think of no place more appropriate or fitting for a memorial of this kind.”
Although Doer surely intended a purely positive comment for the 9/11 memorial effort, perhaps he should have examined the garden’s purpose beforehand. Everyone is allowed his or her opinion; some are quite different.
When I explained about the 9/11 memorial on the Peace Garden grounds to a friend, he replied, “9/11 doesn’t have to be everywhere.”
What 9/11 has to do with peace is beyond me. Visitors to the International Peace Garden should not have to be reminded of terrorism, hatred and war. This memorial does not belong there.
(James G. Skakoon is an engineer, inventor, and author. He was born and raised in North Dakota and now lives in St. Paul.)

#54 – Dick Bernard: "The Eagle has Landed", and Walter Cronkite

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Forty years ago today my attention was riveted on a man setting foot on the moon.  Six years earlier, November 22, 1963, a television news anchor named Walter Cronkite helped us through the agony of one of the darkest moments in my lifetime: the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  Somehow it seems almost fitting that the anniversary of the moon landing (July 20) and the death of the broadcast icon (July 17) came within days of each other. 
Recollection of these separate events brought attention to the past, and to inevitability of time passing, and with it, change.
I was a young school teacher the day President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas.  My even younger wife had a few weeks earlier left her own teaching position due to what turned out, less than two years later, to be a terminal illness.  November 22, 1963, she was pregnant with our first child.  
November 22, 1963, we lived in an upstairs apartment in a house near my school, and a short time before that sad day we had purchased (on credit) a 9″ black and white television.  At $10 a month, the television payment stretched our meager budget, but it was at least a window to the outside world for my wife.
That time in history is well documented and I would not pretend to add to any accounts about the person, Walter Cronkite, or the event on which he reported that day, the assassination of a President.
In those years, long before cable, internet, and hundreds of television channels, most country folks lucky enough to have television, perhaps had access to one or two channels whose signal came from very high transmission towers many miles away.  What we saw, then, would not pass anyones muster for quality in this day and age.  I know we received CBS, and thus heard and saw Walter Cronkite’s reporting  on the unfolding events during that dreadful time in our nation’s history.
Cronkite died last week at 92.  Shortly before November 22, 1963, he had celebrated his 47th birthday.  He seemed like a pretty old guy to me, then.  Our first child, Tom, was born February 26, 1964.  At his last birthday Tom turned 45, nearly Cronkite’s then-age.  Time flies…one notices….
July 20, 1969, is another day vivid in my memory.  I was enroute home from a visit with my parents in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and following the moon landing on the car radio.  Sometime in mid-afternoon, along U.S. Highway 2 between Grand Forks and Bemidji MN, I pulled over along the highway at the exact time the actual drama of the moon landing took place.  It was a powerful moment.  I had only the announcer and my imagination to help me live that moment.
Back home in suburban Minneapolis a few hours later, I watched Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon: “that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.  I did my best to take a photograph of the television screen when Armstrong was on the moon.  Somewhere I have a copy of that photograph, in what passed for color in those days.   The image I saw that night has been replayed numerous times this day.
Those events in 1963 and 1969 were only two of the innumerable memorable events of the 1960s.  It was in many ways a tumultuous decade, but even more significantly it was a relatively carefree and simple time.  The seniors in the high school classes of 1964 were the first high school graduates of the post-war “baby boom”. 
With all the problems of the decade, people had a sense of optimism about the future.  1984, the year portrayed in George Orwell’s novel of the same name, was 15 years in the distant future when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.  Today, that same year is 25 years in the past and we have come too close to experiencing some of the prophesies of that story.
Next year ends the first decade of the 21st century.
How will future generations remember us?  How optimistic about the future can todays youngsters be?

Two 1960s postage stamps

Two 1960s postage stamps

#51 – Dick Bernard: Death: Michael (Jackson), Robert (McNamara), Sarah (Palin)

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Yesterday while I was donating blood, I asked the nurse if she had watched any of the Michael Jackson memorial or other goings on surrounding his death.  Mostly, she was non-commital, but her response was pretty succinct and wise.  There are two things certain in our lives, she said: we are born, and we die.  This led to a little sidetrip for the two of us into another reality: unless someone really truly plans their death, none of us know when or how our end will come.  All we know for sure is that there is a temporal end.  We agreed that is good that we don’t know the details about our dying….
Of course, nobody knows what’s on the other side of life.  There is endless speculation, and opposing absolute certainties, expressed about that too.
About all that matters, some of which is within our control, happens between the beginning and the end.  In this middle is where we make our mark, whether for good or ill or not at all (by taking a pass from working for change we feel is important.) 
Michael Jackson (51) and Robert McNamara (93) walked into the unknown in recent days.  Sarah Palin walked into another kind of potential – and horrible (for her) – death.  Political death.  All of them are celebrities; all of them are more a window into who we are as a people, than personalities unto themselves.
Of the three, certainly Michael Jackson got the most attention.  Probably Sarah Palin came in second; Robert S. McNamara third.  Full disclosure: I never followed Michael Jackson, and saw only snips of the service yesterday; I have gained a certain amount of respect for McNamara, solely because he seems to be the rare individual, especially a powerful one, who’s willing to expose the possibility that some of his decisions were flat out wrong.  Palin?  I think that when the dust settles – I give it a year – she’ll have made a few million, and be yesterday’s news. 
There are millions of other deaths too, of course; some make the papers, most don’t.  But these three dominated recent news.  I don’t pretend to have anything other than my own opinion, and I’ll take them in order, very briefly.
Michael Jackson was immensely talented and ultimately a victim of our societies slavish devotion to celebrity.  He reached the pinnacle, and what did it get him in the end?  Our celebrities become our targets.  He’s dead now, and his riches (or his debt) is of no personal concern to him.  People will make a mint off of his memory and fight over the remnants of his economic carcass, like so many vultures.  What was good or bad about him will be flogged mercilessly for as long as it will attract attention. 
Robert S. McNamara was brilliant and loyal and what did it get him in the end?  He took a huge cut in pay to leave a high-paying corporate job with Ford Motor Company to become Secretary of Defense in early President John F Kennedy times.  In a temporal and governmental sense he was powerful, and trusted.  He thought he knew what he was doing; his certainty(and that of others) ended in disaster.  He rose and fell during my early adult life.  I will mostly remember his documentary, “The Fog of War”, as well as a commentary of his, published in August, 2003, entitled “We must minimize cruelties of war” (reprinted at the end of this post.)  At the end, his certainty was replaced by his doubt.  He will be judged on his certainty.  “As I speak”, there’s teams of people attempting to rewrite the history of Vietnam, so that it seems like a necessity and even a success.  I wonder what McNamara would say. 
Sarah Palin ?  In a physical sense, she is very much alive.  But I can’t escape the thought that when she resigned from the Alaska Governorship this past weekend, she effectively committed political suicide, one of the more horrible deaths: yesterday’s darling, tomorrow’s irrelevancy.  Oh, initially she’ll make a ton of money inspiring her base, but even they will tire of her, sooner than later.  And she won’t have the Michael Jackson legacy to bank on.
So it goes…life and death, in all their many forms.
There is something to be said for lacking fame, and not being well known.  Best that we do what we can in our relative anonymity.  In the end, what little we seem to do can make as much or more difference, than that of the celebrities and those seemingly more “powerful”.  It just doesn’t seem so.
FOOTNOTE:
Robert S. McNamara: “We must minimize cruelties of war” as printed in the St. Petersburg FL Times, August 8, 2003.  Many thanks to Eugenie Fellows, who sent me this article years ago.
On the night of March 9, 1945, when the lead crews of the 21st Bomber Command returned from the first firebombing mission over Tokyo, Gen. Curtis LeMay was waiting for them in his headquarters on Guam.  I was in Guam on temporary duty from Air Force headquarters in Washington, and LeMay had asked me to join him for the after mission reports that evening.
LeMay was just as tough as his reputation.  In many ways, he appeared to be brutal, but he was also the ablest commander of any I met during my three years of service with the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II.
That night, he’d sent out 334 B-29 bombers, seeking to inflict, as he put it, the maximum target destruction for the minimum loss of American lives.  World War II was entering its final months, and the United States was beginning the last, devastating push for an unconditional Japanese surrender.
On that one night alone, LeMay’s bombers burned to death 83,793 Japanese civilians and injured 40,918 more.  The planes dropped firebombs and flew lower than they had in the past and therefore were more accurate and more destructive.
That night’s raid was only the first of 67.  Night after night – 66 more times – crews were sent out over the skies of Japan.  Of course we didn’t burn to death 83,000 people every night, but over a period of months American bombs inflicted extraordinary damage on a host of Japanese cities – 900,000 killed, 1.3 million injured, more than half the populaiton displaced.
The country was devastated.  The degree of killing was extraordinary.  Radio Tokyo compared the raids to the burning of Rome in the year 64.
LeMay was convinced that it was the right thing to do, and he told his superiors (from whom he had not asked for authority to conduct the March 9 raid), “If you want me to burn the rest of Japan, I can do that.”
LeMay’s position on war was clear: If you’re going to fight, you should fight to win.
In the years afterward, he was quoted as saying, “If you’re going to use military force, then you ought to use overwhelming military force.”  He also said: “All war is immoral, and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”
Looking back almost 60 years later – and after serving as secretary of Defense for seven years during one of the hottest periods of the Cold War, including the Cuban missile crisis – I have to say that I disagree.
War may or may not be immoral, but it should be fought within a clearly defined set of rules.
One other thing LeMay said, and I heard him say it myself: “If we lose the war, we’ll be tried as war criminals.”  We would have been.  But what makes one’s conduct immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?
The “just war” theory first expounded by the great Catholic thinkers (I am a Protestant), argues that the application of military power should be proportional to the cause to which you’re applying it.  A prosecutor would have argued that burning to death 83,000 civilians in a single night and following up with 66 additional raids was not proportional to our war aims.
War will not be eliminated in the foreseeable future, if ever.  But we can – and we must – eliminate some of the violence and cruelty and excess that go along with it.
That is why the United States so badly needs to participate in the International Court for Crimes Against Humanity, which was recently established in The Hague.  President Clinton signed that treaty on New Year’s Eve 2000, just before leaving office, but in May, 2002, President Bush announced that the United States did not intend to become a party to the treaty.
The Bush administration believes, and many agree, that the court could become a vehicle for frivolous or unfair prosecutions of American military personnel.  Although that is a cause for concern, I believe we should join the court immediately while we continue to negotiate further protection against such cases.
If LeMay were alive, he would tell me I was out of my mind.  He’d say the proportionality rule is ridiculous.  He’d say that if you don’t kill enough of the enemy, it just means more of your own troops will die.
But I believe that the human race desperately needs an agreed-upon system of jurisprudence that tells us what conduct by political and military leaders is right and what is wrong, both in conflict within nations and in conflict across national borders.
Is it legal to incinerate 83,000 people in a single night to achieve your war aims?  Was Hiroshima legal?  Was the use of Agent Orange – which occurred while I was secretary of Defense – a violation of international law?
These questions are critical.  Our country needs to be involved, along with the International Court for Crimes Against Humanity, in the search for answers.

#50 – Mary Ellen Mueller: Back to the future with Technology.

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Moderators note: Mary Ellen apparently had e-mail long before I knew what it was.  She defines for me the best among the many ‘progressives’ I know: “with it”, but carrying many bedrock ‘conservative’ values as well!  Thanks, Mary Ellen!
Mary Ellen: I was amused to see my ancient email address mentioned in [your] P&J#2028A [an e-mail network on Peace and Justice issues: “P&Jer’s Grace Kelly and Mary Ellen Mueller were busy photo and video documenting the [Al Franken] event [July 1]…. Mary Ellen has easily the oldest existing e-mail address that I know of: it consists of 9 numbers #####.####@ compuserve.com I seem to remember her telling me once that she and her husband never got around to joining the 21st century and giving themselves a name. Who said Progressives were “progressive”?!”]

Here’s the story:
There are many progressive values. We were progressive enough to have one of the first email addresses in the 1980s. There are other factors involved here.
We are fans of historical technologies, with several examples to show the evolution of mimeographs, typewriters, and various computer systems (from the Zenith Z-100 dual floppy computer my husband built from a kit in 1983 – running C/PM and Z-DOS 1.0, to a 286 running DOS 5.x, and a 1996 laptop running Win95.) We volunteer at the Minnesota Streetcar Museum, and Newspaper Museum at the Minnesota State Fair.
Last year I brought our Win95 laptop with dialup modem to show my 7th graders. It was older than them, and they couldn’t imagine computers without Twitter, FaceBook, or wireless Internet access. (Volunteers at historic house museums report that rotary dial phones confuse children.)
We use the best of the technologies when appropriate, both historical and current. I also have a solar radio, windup lanterns, and a solar oven used every sunny day. We also have Windows XP computers.
If we changed our email address, I would lose a lot of people. People claim they can’t keep track of my house address because I move so often. My last move was 27 years ago. Given that, how many would keep track of my new email address? The nine digits remind them I am contrary.
Avoiding aggravation is the main factor. Dealing with ISPs is such a nuisance, so “if it still works fairly well, don’t change it.” The thought of converting my existing system makes me want to scream and run out the door. I don’t like the idea of computer systems being obsolete so quickly, so I wait to see what new features I will actually use. I’m tired of being a guinea pig, so I wait to see when new features work correctly and reliably. That way I keep things out of the landfill, and more hair on my head. I also avoid being a “fool and her money are soon parted.”
I value my time, and try to spend it wisely. Computers can eat up huge amounts of my time. So I limit myself to a certain amount of Internet time each day, just to keep my life balanced.
My husband and I decided to have one person use the Internet at a time, for the same reason we have one car. We have to talk to each other more often, and coordinate our time and schedules. It sounds unnecessary and odd, given the technology advances, but it improves our lives.
Retired telegraphers are amazing. They will always have the latest technology. Telegraphs were the cutting edge in communication technology at one time, and telegraphers know how quickly it all changes. So they keep current with their profession’s innovations. I bet the telegraphers use Twitter!
Moderators PS:  July 4, we breakfasted with my cousin who has long association with the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting  http://www.pavekmuseum.org/; and The Bakken Museum of Electicity http://www.thebakken.org/, both in the St. Louis Park MN area.  If Mary Ellen hasn’t been there (I’d bet “yes”), she’ll be there soon.
 
 

#48 – Dick Bernard: the 4th of July

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For several years now, we’ve gone to the annual 4th of July Parade in nearby Afton MN.  Afton is a tiny place on the St. Croix River, part of Minnesota’s eastern border, and mostly known for its big Marina and as  an artsy place.  Yesterday we were there.
On the 4th of July Aftons population increases dramatically for the noon-time Parade, which is the only one I know of which goes to the end of Main Street, then doubles back.  The spectators can thus see the parade twice; the participants in the Parade can actually “watch” it themselves as the units return on the other side of the street.
The latter fact would have been approved by my Grandpa Bernard who had a 1901 Oldsmobile (it’s still a working automobile in California), and was often asked to drive it in the local July 4th parade in his town of Grafton ND.  He rarely took the bait for this since, he would complain, “I can’t watch the parade, only the back-side of the unit in front of me“.  Those days – he died in 1957 – there weren’t means of recording the parades for replay back home on cable television or otherwise.  You saw it in real time, or you missed it. 

Grandpa Bernard (in the suit) in his 1901 Oldsmobile, Grafton ND July 4 parade, sometime in late 1940s or early 1950s

Grandpa Bernard (in the suit) in his 1901 Oldsmobile, Grafton ND July 4 parade, sometime in late 1940s or early 1950s


I have sometimes walked in parades, usually for political candidates, so I understand Grandpa’s complaint. 
I like parades.
Yesterday’s, though, for some reason seemed a bit flatter than usual.  There were fewer units and less enthusiasm. 
As is usual, the parade was headed by a couple of old (my age) military veterans carrying the U.S. flag.  People, including myself, stood, doffed their hats, and applauded either the veterans, or the flag, or both. 
Following behind was a gigantic Armored Personnel Carrier, and behind, and included with, it a troop of Boy Scouts.  It was a rather odd combination, I felt, but I’m used to odd combinations.
Back home, afterwards, the cacophony, and dissonance, of the internet brought endless competing views of what July 4 means, or should.  Some enterprising bunch was selling robo-faxes at a steal, to send fax’ed tea bags to every member of Congress (it’s worth a blog entry of its own, to follow tomorrow): an anti-tax protest on the 4th of July.  A patriotic piece came around that caused me to check on the urban legends website, and indeed, the piece was part fact, and part fancy, with no effort to separate myth from real.
On the other side, came an appeal to do more Peace vigils in the coming months.  Etc.
The President weighed in with a brief statement of the signicance of the day with the concluding sentences “It is a day to celebrate all that America is.  And today is a time to aspire toward all we can still become.” with an ending “P.S — Our nation’s birthday is also an ideal time to consider serving in your local community.  You can find many great ideas for service opportunities near you at http://www.serve.gov. “
Last night  there were the annual fireworks in a nearby park.  A particularly loud crescendo of the traditional “bombs bursting in air” woke me from a sound sleep.
I think, wouldn’t it be nice if some day in this country, the Parade would be headed by some kind of group carrying a World Peace flag, and people were applauding them.  
To hear John Denver sing “Last Night I had a Strangest Dream” go to http://www.amillioncopies.info.  Click on Denver’s image at the left of the home page.  And wander around in the website for a bit….
UPDATE 5:20 p.m. Sunday, July 5, 2009
Immediately after clicking ‘publish’ on the above, I went in to my Church, Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis, for the usual Sunday Mass.  Basilica is a very large and very diverse Parish, at the edge of downtown on downtowns historically premier street, Hennepin Avenue.  Typically Basilica has lots of visitors; it is conservative and it is liberal, rich and poor.  On a typical Sunday, a fair number of homeless show up for coffee and donuts.
Basilica is also a Peace Site, and a year ago made a formal commitment to Peace as a key part of its Centennial celebration.
Today I saw that commitment before and during the service.  A large “Peace” sign welcomes people to the church (see photos from Basilica calendars at the end of this article.)
In today’s service, the opening song was Sibelius’ “This is My Song” from Finlandia: (“But other hearts in other lands are beating, with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”)  In the sermon, a key part of the message was recollection of a young man at a July 4 celebration who carried a sign “God Bless the whole world.  No exceptions“.  The intercessions included prayers for Peace and for those in service to this country of ours; the recessional was America the Beautiful, and the Postlude was Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever.
I had nothing to do with how today’s service was put together.  But I liked it, a lot.
In short, Basilica seems to cover all the bases towards a better world.  Basilica is a formal Peace Site, #419 at http://www.peacesites.org/sites/map

Art Work on 2007 Basilica of St. Mary annual calendar. Note Peace sign in lower left.

Art Work on 2007 Basilica of St. Mary annual calendar. Note Peace sign in lower left.

 

Peace Pole featured on Basilica of St. Mary calendar for September, 2009

Peace Pole featured on Basilica of St. Mary calendar for September, 2009

#47 – Dick Bernard: Driving up the negatives

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Less than 24 hours after I’d heard soon-to-be Senator Al Franken speak at the State Capitol, the home town St. Paul Pioneer Press carried a short article headlined “Poll: Franken’s national numbers are negative“.
Reading further in the six paragraphs, the numbers gleaned from the national survey (Rasmussen) showed 44% of those surveyed had an unfavorable view of Franken, 34% had a favorable view, and 22% didn’t have a view of him at all.
The article didn’t say how many were polled, but typically less than a thousand are asked to respond to such questions.  If that number is somewhat correct, 20 Minnesotans (out of 5,000,000) were asked to comment; how those 20 felt wasn’t part of the report: too tiny a sample.
The article was a waste of perfectly good newsprint.  Or maybe it served a more useful purpose: to drag down the public opinion of the new Senator before he even takes his assigned seat in the U.S. Senate.   As of a few minutes ago, he’s not even listed as a Senator by the U.S. Senate – I checked.
Negative politics is nothing new in this country.  I well remember touring the exhibits in the basement of Ford’s Theatre (where Lincoln was assassinated), and seeing an 1860 political poster for Lincoln with the caption “political campaigns of the mid-19th century featured parades and pagaentry and vicious attacks on the opposition.  Campaigns offered people a major form of entertainment.”
Tomorrow’s July 4th events will represent what passed for political theatre back then.
Of course,  there was no radio or TV in 1860, and political decision making was still made by the privileged few, basically white, male, literate, property owners.  In the 1860 election, only a few million out of the total national population of over 30 million were even eligible to vote.  Women, slaves and similar officially lesser persons were denied the franchise, and it was not until 1920 that women even secured the right to vote. 
The Nov. 2008 Smithsonian magazine had a most interesting article about the election of 1860, when Abe Lincoln won his first term as U.S. President at age 51.  

Among many interesting tidbits from that article: In 1860 the candidates for President did not campaign at all once the nominations were made by the respective party conventions.  About four million white men were eligible to vote in 1860.  Lincoln got about 40% of the popular vote, and a majority of the electoral votes.  (The remaining votes were split among three other parties.) 

Some would say, today, that those were really the “good old days”….
Today, of course, the environment is different.  Most everyone who is an adult has the opportunity to be well informed and a theoretical right to cast a ballot for his or her representatives.  There are plenty of efforts to disenfranchise certain kinds of people, but those efforts need to be more covert.
Virtually everyone is susceptible to bombardment by “information” conveyed through newspapers, magazines, radio and television, computers and other means.  We are awash in good information and bad, and the information is not always shared by people with our best interests at heart.
“Caveat emptor” – “let the buyer beware” – is good advice.  The public is daily played for fools, and needs to take responsibility for their own actions.
Polling a national audience, then publicizing the poll, about a United States Senator who has not yet even arrived in Washington makes no sense other than to attempt to drive up the negatives for future political advantage.
The soon-to-be Senator is likely well aware of this.
It is good for us to be aware of this as well.

Ford's Theatre Washington DC June, 2006

Ford's Theatre Washington DC June, 2006

#45 – Bob Barkley: Guns and America

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Moderator:  A previous writing on this general topic is at #3, published April 3, 2009.

Guns: Guns are used for sport. I have absolutely no interest in such sports. But as long as my safety is not seriously threatened, I believe individuals should have the right to engage in such sports and use any reasonable sporting guns they choose to.

 

On the other hand, I do not support guns in homes—and certainly not other than under lock-and-key – and in no way do I support assault or other military weapons in the possession of civilians. To paraphrase Bierce, “guns are instruments used by supposedly civilized peoples in order to settle disputes that might become troublesome if left unadjusted.” This points out the absurdity of violence as a means of generating peace. The use of guns indicates a reliance on force when there is little competence or inclination to rely on the power of more civilized means. I have little tolerance here, and the international data—viewed over time—demonstrates without question the ridiculousness of the US fascination both with weapons and with force.

To give a little context to this issue, “Guns Take Pride of Place in US Family Values” by Paul Harris, and published in the UK Observer on October 14, 2007 stated, “Guns, and the violence their possessors inflict, have never been more prevalent in America. Gun crime has risen steadily over the last three years. Despite the fact that groups like the NRA consistently claim they are being victimized, there have probably never been so many guns or gun-owners in America – although no one can be sure, as no one keeps reliable account. One federal study estimated there were 215 million guns, with about half of all US households owning one. Such a staggering number makes America’s gun culture thoroughly mainstream. An average of almost eight people aged under19 are shot dead in America every day. In 2005 there were more than 14,000 gun murders in the US – with 400 of the victims children. There are 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents in an average year. Since the killing of John F. Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century.”  
And later Harris adds, “But the key question is not about the number of guns in America; it is about why people are armed. For many gun-owners, and a few sociologists, the reason lies in America’s past. The frontier society, they say, was populated by gun-wielding settlers who used weapons to feed their families and ward off hostile bandits and Indians. America was thus born with a gun in its hand. Unfortunately much of this history is simply myth. The vast majority of settlers were farmers, not fighters. The task of killing Indians was left to the military and – most effectively – European diseases. Guns in colonial times were much rarer than often thought, not least because they were so expensive that few settlers could afford them. Indeed one study of early gun homicides showed that a musket was as likely to be used as club to beat someone to death as actually fired. But many Americans believe the myth.”
Recently it was reported that if you have a gun in your home there is 22 times as great a likelihood that it will be used against you or someone you know than against an intruder/criminal. And as the New York Times reported on April3, 2009: “Contrary to gun lobby claims, the evidence suggests that permitting concealed weapons drives up crime rather than decreasing it.”

The second amendment recognizes the need for a “well regulated militia” being the only basis for the possession of arms. With the abundance of formally organized and regulated police, safety, and military forces in the US—none of which existed at the time of the amendment—it is a huge stretch to use this amendment to suggest that it provides for random and indiscriminate individual possession of arms. It does not. And the Supreme Court, is dead (no pun intended) wrong! We must move into modern civilization and seriously regulate arms possession and use. However, the fundamental right to bear arms—as long as they cannot be used to threaten me and mine—remains a matter of individual choice and intelligence. We cannot legislate wisdom – or even common sense it appears.

 

And to expand on the Second Amendment arguments, it is only those who are ignorant of, or choose to ignore history, that fail to recognize that the founders were strongly set against a standing army.  They considered it a horrendous threat to the future of the democratic republic they envisioned.  And it was solely because they anticipated no standing army that they endorsed ordinary citizens owning and learning to use muskets so that they might be called upon to defend our country if needed.

 

Thus, we have ended up with two violations of our founder’s intentions: 1) the presence of a standing army of gigantic excess, and 2) the support of the people’s license to possess arms of unlimited dimension for reasons that no longer exist.

 

Jane Smiley, novelist and essayist, in April 2007, had this to say about the subject, “…guns have no other purpose than killing someone or something. All the other murder weapons Americans use, from automobiles to blunt objects, exist for another purpose and sometimes are used to kill. But guns are manufactured and bought to kill. They invite their owners to think about killing, to practice killing, and, eventually, to kill, if not other people, then animals. They are objects of temptation, and every so often, someone comes along who cannot resist the temptation–someone who would not have murdered, or murdered so many, if he did not have a gun, if he were reduced to a knife or a bludgeon or his own strength. I wish that the right wing would admit that, while people kill people and even an “automatic” weapon needs a shooter, people with guns kill more people than people without guns do.”

 

But above all else, I am swayed to my negative thinking regarding guns by the following: “In the U.S., 12 children each day die from gun violence. Homicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 24 in 2001, with rates 10 times that of other industrialized nations.” (Source: Marianne Williamson of The Peace Alliance.) No sporting interests can trump that revelation.

 

I also believe that everyone that purchases or owns a gun should be forced to buy special insurance to cover its misuse or accidental injury. Why not? Isn’t auto insurance the same thing?

 

Individual rights—particularly when it comes to minority interests—are what our nation was founded upon and those rights must take precedence over ideological preferences. Nevertheless, it is my considered belief that many people are pretty dumb and guns have a way of helping those people prove it.