#1082 – Dick Bernard: Paris, the 6th day.

New Post Nov. 20: Let us all make a Happy Thanksgiving
Postnote from Dick, Nov 19, 2015: Today we were at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis, for a magnificent performance of Tchaikovsky’s magnificent Symphony No. 6 in B minor Opus 74, Pathetique. In the November 2015 program notes (p. 18) was an Essay, “Thanksgiving” in French, by fellow French-Canadian friend Dan Chouinard. The essay seems especially apropos as the first week after the tragedy in Paris comes to an end. Read the essay here: Thanksgiving 2015001 (the program notes for todays concert are also included, as a bonus.)
Maybe Marco Rubio said it best yesterday (without intending to do so): He said that if there was a single terrorist among the 10,000 refugees, none should be allowed into our country. What about the 9999, Marco? What about the 9999 everywhere – the rest of us?
This is a time when people of good will must speak out. Don’t let the haters have the last word, of any nationality or belief. This is not a time to be silent.

Comment from Jeff Nov. 18: Recommend [this, from Dwight Eisenhower] … and its your time period,, I was born a few months after this speech. From Dick: My memory years, grades one through college, were of Harry S. Truman, and Dwight David Eisenhower, with a few months of John F. Kennedy…. Thanks, Jeff.
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My thoughts about Paris on November 13 can be read here. I quoted my friend in Paris in the earlier post. This morning came news of the shootout with alleged perpetrators of 11-13 in St.-Denis, suburban Paris.
My friend lives about 25 miles from St.-Denis, not all that far away….
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Last night on a news show came up a graphic of the United States, with 31 of the 50 states shaded: These were the states whose Governors, all but one Republican, are united in common cause, to keep Syrian refugees outside their borders, presumably to keep their citizens safe.
My own state, thankfully, is one of the “islands” whose Governor didn’t take the bait.
The 31 Governors are engaged in a stupid, collective, act. It is an orchestrated and outrageous extreme over-reaction, totally politically motivated. Of course, it will play well in certain sectors, which is the reason for doing it in the first place….
This mornings paper revealed that a grand total of about 2000 Syrians have come into the U.S. in recent years, most of them women with children; for Minnesota, there have been 9. The process of immigrating is rigorous. U.S. law does not allow Governors to decide who crosses their borders: we are a country after all; not a collection of fiefdoms. Actions like this increase the odds of future incidents, rather than decrease them.
European leaders have a far more difficult task to manage than we do, but for the most part are performing admirably and charitably. That’s how leaders should be.
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Here at home:
Many of our own red-blooded patriotic Americans are far more armed and potentially dangerous than most any of those immigrants with sometimes funny names and languages.
Anyone can look at the data: we revere weapons. Killing people is as American as Apple Pie. Going to war is easy, armed to the teeth.
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In my previous post, I suggest that the cynical opportunism of our leaders in response to 9-11-01 has aided and abetted the tragedies in Paris and other places. We have little “cover” on that score: Iraq wasn’t involved n 9-11, but early on became the target. It takes little scholarly research about what happened afterwards.
There have been other home-grown tragedies here in our own country. I recall specifically Oklahoma City April 19, 1995 which killed 168 people and wounded 680 others.
Back then I heard about it on the radio, initially, and initial reports suggested that a middle eastern appearing man was a person of interest.
Soon enough the actual perpetrators were in custody: two anti-government white American citizens, Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols, part of the underground in this vast country of ours.
Fast forward to 9-11-01 and the frantic days immediately following:
About two weeks after 9-11, I was in a laundromat, doing one of those “honey do” tasks: washing some heavy rugs. The TV channel did not interest me, so I looked at the magazines lying nearby.
A US News and World Report caught my eye (more interesting than Good Housekeeping), and I picked it up, and looking at the table of contents noticed something very odd: there was not a single mention of 9-11-01.
I looked at the cover, and the issue date was September 25, 2000 – a year earlier.
The magazine did have a very interesting and long article about our U.S. underworld of Neo-Nazis, part of our own home grown terrorists. Here is the entire magazine article, to get the entire context: Terrorism Report US News and World Report001
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Personally, I believe the national and the international response to the current crisis in France is appropriate and necessary.
The world is a complex place, and there are true evil-doers out there (including amongst our own citizens).
Soon, Paris will be off the front pages – such news never lasts – to be replaced with the next tragedy of the day.
We’re a good country filled with good people, but you’d hardly know it by headline news each and every day.
Have a great Thanksgiving.
POSTNOTES:
1. A couple of weeks ago, and again last night on national news, I heard a similar message: “those Syrian men [those refugees’] should stay at home and fight their own battles.” The suggestion is, it’s their mess, they should clean it up.
Oh, if it were only that easy. One of the correspondents with the complaint was a dear friend of ours who grew up in Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Her Dad, an engineer by trade, refused to join the Nazis. This was a dangerous act, and he was drafted into the German Army as a road engineer and ultimately died, they think, somewhere in Russia near the end of the war.
Once the Nazi threat was truly known, by the Germans themselves, it was dangerous to as much as complain to a friend, or even family, about the party. It was a death sentence. So it is for the people who live in places like Raqqa. Become a soldier against Daech and you and your family prospectively have the same fate.
2. Nov. 7, a friend sent me one of those “forwards” with the purported truth about Muslims. You can read it here, including a brief analysis. It first started whirring around the internet about 2009.
A couple of weeks earlier, I was asked to introduce a young Muslim woman, Mnar Muhawesh, at a meeting in Minneapolis. I met Mnar 15 minutes before I introduced her. There were about 35 of us in attendance, and she gave a powerful commentary which seems to fit well with this post. You can watch the video here. Of particular interest is her own life story growing up in the U.S., then several years in Palestine, then back to the U.S. after 9-11-01. There is a great deal of food for thought
3. October, 2015: President Jimmy Carter’s framework for working towards peace in Syria, here.

#1061 – Dick Bernard: September 11

NOTE: I’ve added a postnote to this post.

Nuclear weapons, from display at Hiroshima Nagasaki Exhibit at Landmark Center, St. Paul Aug 23, 2015

Nuclear weapons, from display at Hiroshima Nagasaki Exhibit at Landmark Center, St. Paul Aug 23, 2015


Seventy years ago today, September 11, 1945, my mother’s brother – my Uncle and Navy Lieutenant George Busch – was on board the Destroyer, the USS Woodworth, which had anchored the day before in Tokyo Bay. (WWII was over, the surrender signed nearby on September 2, 1945.)
I know this from the ship daily log books which I had requested back in the 1990s. Uncle George was on the Woodworth, from January, 1943, through the end of the war, till docking in Portland Oregon October 20, 1945, thence reentering into American civilian peace-time society.
Presumably on September 11, 1945, those on the Woodworth had an opportunity to take a look at what was left of Tokyo.
from Bombers over Japan WWII, Time-Life Books 1982, page 198

from Bombers over Japan WWII, Time-Life Books 1982, page 198


Perhaps some of them – perhaps my Uncle George? – did as my Dad’s cousin and best man, Marvin, an Army veteran, who was field promoted to Colonel by the end of the war, and was for a short time head of a Prefecture on Japan. He told me once that his first act on reaching Japanese soil was to “piss on it”. So it is with showing dominance over enemies after conquest, and disrespecting the vanquished, even though his Prefecture was far from the seat of things militarily – it was just a rural area in northern Japan.
The war in the Pacific had been a vicious one for all, and in addition, Marvin’s cousin, my Dad’s brother Frank, had gone down with the Arizona at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
Marvin and Frank, circa 1935, probably Oakwood ND

Marvin and Frank, circa 1935, probably Oakwood ND


There have been lots of September 11ths before and since 1945.
September 11, 2015, in addition to the obligatory nod to THE 9-11, will probably feature, on TV tonight, the endless commercials attacking one of our MN Congressmen who apparently is not condemning the Nuclear Agreement with Iran and is viewed as politically vulnerable. One ad ends with a horrific fireball, a “mushroom cloud”, as if it is some unique invention to be pioneered by the Iranians if we don’t see to it that they’re kept under our heel. Such propaganda is expensive and persuasive. We have become slaves to sophisticated media messages which are difficult to escape.
But there are alternative realities as well. Tomorrow somewhere in the Twin Cities a large number of new citizens will proudly take the oath, and graduate to full citizenship in the United States. It is doubtless a ritual shared in all countries, all that differs is the precise way it is done.
And these new citizens will be proud of their new citizenship, as they’re proud of their own homeland, and are likely more aware than the vast majority of us about what it means to be an “American”. They’ve had to study our system, and they are knowledgeable. Sorry, more of us aren’t as aware….
We all will do as we will do today, and tomorrow and next week and on and on and on.
Three simple suggestions:
1. To become acquainted with the organization Green Card Voices, which is doing very significant work to bring to life those who have spent years as Green Card holders in the U.S. enroute to citizenship.
2. If you’re in the Twin Cities, take time to go to the Landmark Center in St. Paul, and see the exhibit provided by the City of Nagasaki about the bomb and its affect August 9, 1945. It is a relatively small exhibit, but if you pay attention to it, you’ll easily be there more than an hour. It’s on till November 28. The schedule is here:
(click to enlarge)
Hiroshima Nagasaki001
3. To pick up and reread, or read for the first time, George Orwell’s “1984”, published in 1949, which I probably didn’t see till college days. It is rather disquieting to translate his novel to present day American terms: actors like “telescreen”, “Proles”, and all of that. (I looked up September 11, 1984, and there really wasn’t all that much happening that particular day. But Orwell was in many ways a visionary, and most of us are todays Proles, who allow life happen to us without much regard to the consequences.)
Each one of us has a certain command of our own “ship”, and we can impact positively or negatively on how it sails, and how it impacts ourselves, and others.
Have a great day.
Same source as above, Aug. 23, 2015

Same source as above, Aug. 23, 2015


POSTNOTE: After publishing the above I watched the 9-11-2015 evening news which, as expected, emphasized again, on this 14th anniversary of 9-11, the continuing national mourning of what seems to be our now perpetual “Pearl Harbor”.
No “mushroom cloud” ads appeared, as erroneously predicted by myself, perhaps because a concerted effort to stop the deal failed in the U.S. Congress on Sep. 11 – a date probably specifically strategically selected for the vote.
No doubt, we experienced a tragedy 9-11-01, but the biggest tragedy of all is our continual obsession of the need to be in control; and the seeming narrative that the only way to prevent war is to be stronger and more threatening than the other party in preparing for the next war…more or less the narrative of George Orwell’s 1984. We seem to need to have an enemy to validate our existence. We are made to live in constant fear of some other.
9-11-01 took the lives of 3 Minnesotans, it was reported tonight. In the 2000 census there were 4.9 million Minnesotans. (There were 281 million Americans in 2000.) After 9-11 has come continuous war, Iraq, Afghanistan, ISIS/Syria, with all the attendant loss of life and disruption of normal lives, including the present day refugee crisis. ISIS/ISIL is a direct outgrowth of our actions in Iraq, including regime change.
We don’t seem to learn, we need to change the conversation, beginning within ourselves.
I wonder if we have the capacity to do this….

#1032 – Dick Bernard: Catching a Moment in Time. Saturday, March 18, 1905

Visiting the graves of Ferd and Rosa Busch, and three of their children, Verena, Edithe and Vincent, Berlin ND St. John's Cemetery, May 24, 2015

Visiting the graves of Ferd and Rosa Busch, and three of their children, Verena, Edithe and Vincent, Berlin ND St. John’s Cemetery, May 24, 2015


Seventeen of us gathered at the old Ferd and Rosa Busch farm in Henrietta Township on May 24. It was the end of an era: for 110 years the farmstead has been owned, and for the vast majority of that time occupied, by Ferd and Rosa’s family. Now the old place is up for sale, and at some early point new occupants will take over the newly re-surveyed 10 acre farmstead, 10 miles northwest of LaMoure, 5 miles northeast from Berlin, about the same southwest from Grand Rapids ND.
Saturday a few of us were doing the last run through of the artifacts now stored in the metal machine shed.
One item remaining was the formidable wooden packing crate which brought the Busch possessions from southwest Wisconsin via Dubuque in March of 1905. For years the crate resided quietly in the attic in the old house; thence in Vincent’s bedroom in the new. It had been opened previously, but not examined in detail.
This day, we took out everything, including Grandma’s wedding dress, in near perfect condition after 110 years.
But there was something else I noticed in a box within the crate. There were a couple of old newspapers, used for packing back then. I took them out: one of them was a pretty well crumpled newspaper in German from November of 1904; the second was the Dubuque Morning Telegraph for Saturday, March 18, 1905. Grandma and Grandpa married on February 28, 1905, and I knew they hadn’t left immediately for North Dakota. I can now deduce from the newspaper date that they probably left for the prairie shortly after March 18.
That was only the first piece of “news” from that paper….
(click to enlarge)
Dubuque Morning  Telegraph, page one, Saturday, March 18, 1905

Dubuque Morning Telegraph, page one, Saturday, March 18, 1905


There were four pages from the newspaper, pages 1, 2, 7 & 8.
The main headline on p. 1 immediately caught my attention: “GENERAL KUROPATKIN IS DISMISSED IN DISGRACE”, followed by the sub-headlines so common in papers of that day: “Gen. Linevitch in Suspreme [sic] Command” “…withdrawing what is left of the great Army of 250,000, men hemmed in on all sides, confronts him.” “Czar shows no signs of yielding” “Preparation for carrying on the war on a greater scale are made by Russians-Oyama in Mukden”.
The front page news in Dubuque was about a war being waged between Russia and Japan in the far eastern reaches of Siberia.
Places like Harbin and Vladivostok were mentioned. Dispatches were included from London and Berlin sources. You could see the same kinds of headlines in today’s newspapers….
In this issue, the Russians were – the Czar was – being defeated.
This defeat was a harbinger of the Czars becoming a thing of the past; Communists were a part of the future. The German-Russians, Lawrence Welk’s kin, probably didn’t know it yet in 1905, but they were all being squeezed out of Russia to new homes, a great many of them migrating to North and South Dakota.
The other stories on the front page had a deja vu aspect to them. A law passed in Delaware to “Abolish Pillory” “inhuman” punishment; in Peoria IL an oil “pipe line across certain highways” hit a snag (“Strikes Snag in Illinois” read the headline); there was a “scheme” by powerful interests “to grab Niagara” Falls, threatening the tourist attraction with extinction.
It was announced by Secretary Taft of the Theodore Roosevelt administration that the U.S. “will retain the Philippine Islands” for perhaps at least a generation. And a fascinating headline prominent at the top of page one said “Castro is preparing to send an Army of 30,000 to take New Orleans to demand Indemnity.” This was not Fidel Castro, rather the then President of Venezuela.
There were no pictures on this front page: it was all news. Other headlines at the bottom of the page: “Sold Wife for $10” (the deal was legal, and okay with the wife, apparently); “Missouri legislature Passes Law Against Bookmaking”. A Baltimore Whiskey maker won a trademark lawsuit against a clever impostor in Brooklyn who had borrowed part of its name.
And so it was, on and on, in Dubuque, Iowa, and the world right after Grandma and Grandpa Busch were married, February 28, 1905.
It was like opening a time capsule….
Some of those at the small reunion at the Busch farm on May 24.  From left Pinkney's, Dick Bernard, Bill Jewett, Carter Hedeen.

Some of those at the small reunion at the Busch farm on May 24. From left Pinkney’s, Dick Bernard, Bill Jewett, Carter Hedeen.

#1022 – Kathleen Valdez: A Surprise Find from a DNA Analysis.

PRE-NOTE FROM DICK: For some time I’ve been thinking of having an ancestry DNA analysis done.
A short while ago, the inclination racheted up quite a bit with this e-mail from an out-of-the-blue e-mail from Kathy (Corey) Valdez, an Oregonian whose Mom Ellie Lemire Corey was (she thought) from primarily French-Canadian roots from Quebec to Minnesota to North Dakota.
Here’s Kathy’s e-mail, with followup comment, all from Kathy, passed along with her permission:
March 24, 2015: “In going through mom’s letters, I felt I needed to tell you about the DNA discovery I’ve made and how it’s all come about through the Spirit. You know, the Spanish have a word that is much richer in meaning for our word- coincidence. The word is diosidencia – google it!
In my DNA (autosomal – half from mom and half from dad), I found among the English, Irish and Western European that I was 19% Iberian Peninsula. I first thought, “I don’t have Spanish blood- I’m all French on Mom’s side with some Native American mixed in.”
About 3 weeks ago, I came across a French-Canadian Project for Aunism…Spanish Jews who fled to France as a result of being targeted in the Spanish Inquisition. Yep, that be me!
[NOTE from editor: here is a general link to the topic.]
I cross-referenced the 50 or so names of those on the list of Sephardic Jews who fled to France and then 400 years later to settle New France and I found 18 surnames on my Lemire/Parent family tree!
My great uncle Arthur Parent (Mom’s uncle on her mom’s side) passed on to his descendants that they had Jewish blood in their ancestry but I dismissed it because the ‘reporter’ (uncle’s daughter) was way off on some of her other information. She also liked to sensationalize information.
Well, my DNA test showed she was right!”

I asked Kathy for more info, and got her permission to pass on her information:
March 27, 2015: “I first had my test done through Family Tree dna because they test Y and Mitochondria chromosomes as well as the more general testing for autosomal. You are able to find your closest matches in the database and contact these matches, hoping they have some sort of family tree to see where you connect.
Ancestrydna did my second test and it’s more ‘user friendly’ to the public and only tests autosomal. Autosomal is the test for ‘ancestral place’. It goes back 4-5 gen. and matches you with other people who have been tested so you can contact each other.
So both test autosomal and give matches for you to contact but only Family Tree dna finds your Y dna (males) back to the beginning of humankind. Both men and women have the mitro. (X) and everyone has autosomal (half from your mom and half from you father).
Autosomal: It’s a toss up as to which genes you inherit (crap shoot:) Your sibs inherit different combos unless you’re identical twins. I just attended a LDS Conference in Forest Grove last Sat. and a woman from Ancestry was keynote – excellent! She said that AncestryDNA altho has only been around 3 yrs. is growing faster than Family Tree and for all intent and purposes the autosomal is the only test you need….unless you want to find your deep, deep roots!
Ancestry DNA usually has specials from time to time – I think before Mother’s/Father’s Day..$79
The Ancestry.com woman said you’d have to test no less than 5 sibs to get a clear picture of your parent’s dna. Except for Tim, my sibs are reluctant so I guess I need to pay for their tests 🙂 If both parents are alive, that’s all you need to test (not yourself as it’s all there 🙂 Test your oldest relatives.
If you’re a member of Ancestry (AARP membership- I just joined last month because of this) has 10% off membership so I pay $209 annually now as opposed to $299 when you subscribe annually)….on Ancestry they have tutorials about dna that they archive. If you want, I can notify you when specials are happening:)”

COMMENTS:
from Jeanne: There will be a DNA round table at Minneapolis Central Library: Genealogy Research: DNA Testing Discussion Minneapolis Central Library • N-402 • Share Tuesday, June 9, 7–8 p.m.
from Christine: These Jews were called the Maroons in Spain and in France later. This is a well known migration of population in Europe. They have become Catholic and gradually lost their Jewish practice.
This search of your DNA and origins is very enriching.
from Marshall: It is funny you mention DNA. We have been curious for a while on our own DNA, and Carole and Karen (twins) sent in swabs for “zygosity” testing, meaning the absence or presence of twinship. To my surprise, they are certified identical. Their DNA markers were expressed as numeric, and some were 7 or 8 digits long. Being identical twins, their markers were identical with no deviations. Case closed.
My own DNA testing was through Ancestry.com. Here are my results (for me only).
Great Britain 54%
Iberian Peninsula 18%
Europe West 15%
Ireland 5%
Europe East 3%
Scandinavia 2%
Italy/Greece 2%
Finland/Northwest Russia 1%
From what I know about my family, I expected a higher percent for Europe West (the French influence). The Iberian Peninsula includes western France, the Basque area, Portugal, and Spain.

#917 – Dick Bernard: The Hermit as Metaphor for US. With Comments from Wilhelm and George about Israel-Gaza and the Ukraine-Russia situation.

My summer has taken on something of a theme: most of my thinking, and a great deal of my time, has related to an old farm 310 miles away. My Aunt Edithe, born there in 1920, died in February; and her brother, my Uncle Vince, is in Nursing Home Care and no longer can even visit the farm on which he lived for over 81 of his 89 years.
It’s fallen to me to deal with the multitude of issues that relate to such a transition. This is not a complaint: it is simply a reality.
On the road there’s no computer for me (a deliberate choice), and usually no TV (too tired), and ordinarily no newspaper either (available, but otherwise preoccupied). So in a small sense I’m like that hermit I came across in the Tarryall section of the Rocky Mountains during Army maneuvers in 1962. He lived in an isolated log cabin, no electricity, no phone, and once a month he walked to the nearest town far off in the distance, to provision up. One of his provisions was the entire previous month issues of the Denver Post. Each day he would read one of the newspapers. So, he was always up to date, just 30 or so days behind.
(click to enlarge photo)

Hermit Shack at Tarryall Rocky Mountains Colorado June 1962.  Dick B in photo.  Visited with the hermit, but didn't have the nerve to ask to take his photo.

Hermit Shack at Tarryall Rocky Mountains Colorado June 1962. Dick B in photo. Visited with the hermit, but didn’t have the nerve to ask to take his photo.


In the hermits mind, perhaps, what happened out there in the world was not his concern. He had his patch, his cabin with door and window, his dog, his goat, and all was okay. Some day he’d die and when he didn’t show up in town, somebody would go out to recover his carcass.
His life was in control. He seemed pretty happy, actually.
Sometimes I think we Americans, in general so privileged and so omnipotent in our own minds, think that we can pretend that what’s happening inside our tiny sphere is all that matters; and if we do care, in any event, we can’t do anything about it anyway, so why bother?
Of course, it matters, and we can impact on it, but once settled in to routine, as the hermit was, we tune out. In the end, it will be our own loss that we didn’t pay attention.
In recent weeks I’ve written here about the Central American immigrant crisis; and the Israel-Gaza catastrophe at the same time as the downing of the Malysian Airliner over the Ukraine.
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Even when I’m off-line the material just keeps flowing in to my in-box, and back home I take some time to just scroll through. Sometimes something catches my attendtion.
For instance, yesterdays Just Above Sunsets here goes into a too-little known facet of certain Christians and Israel.
A friend, Wilhelm, who grew up in Germany, made some pertinent comments about how he sees the Israel situation.
“I feel I have to reply to [some] remarks [seen quoted in] “My favorite blogger’s commentary about the Israel-Palestine situation”
According to [the quote] the Germans had the right to defend themselves against the French Resistance or the Russian Partisans even if it was inadvisable or strategically not the right thing to do. Or even the final destruction of the Ghetto in Warsaw after several and seemingly unending up risings. But maybe I have it all wrong here. The difference might be the reason why people are put into a ghetto in the first place. Some reasons might be legitimate, some might not? I really do not know.
But the I read the following: Israeli lawmaker Ayelet Shaked published on Facebook a call for genocide of the Palestinians. It declares that “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and justifies its destruction, “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.”
She quoted Uri Elitzur, who died a few months ago, and was leader of the settler movement and speechwriter and close adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”
It strikes me that this could have emanated from Berlin at a earlier time just as well .
But if I am right then this is also relevant:
“Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be “governed” without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes – crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure – reach the light of day?” First Leaflet -The White Rose Society – Munich, 1942

A little later, Wilhelm sent this:
Chris Hedges as usual cuts through the fog of propaganda and handwringing. His article is well worth reading!
Then, last night, George, a retired electrical engineer and native of Hungary, wrote about his experience as a young man in the Hungarian Army, then part of the Warsaw Pact nations.
There is nothing unusual here, especially for anyone who’s been in the U.S. military, but George’s commentary gives an unusual perspective into the relationships between powers, and how people in the military operate:
“Even in the old Warsaw Pact Countries, like Hungary, ROTC University students received training in operating and servicing anti-air defense/attack systems. During summer we did our practical training. As an EE [Electrical Engineering] student I was training to both eventually manage the servicing and train regular enlisted men to operate this kind of equipment at the combined arms battalion level while being assigned as a technical officer to the staff of a combined arms division. If I did my job properly by age 30 I could have been promoted to a Brigadier (1 star) general level and be in charge of the ‘heavy arms artillery regiment’ of the division (ground attack mobile rockets and long range artillery).
The Soviet military and its Warsaw Pact allies after WW2 were gradually reorganized into combined arms divisions (tanks and mechanized infantry) using the old WW2 German Panzer Division as the model!
To save on costly training and extra manpower the country’s civilian and military manpower was completely integrated based on the University trained ROTC graduates. University education was free and was supported by free scholarship to all accepted into a university program. Women were encouraged to go into medical and law professions and did not go to summer training camps. We did have several women in my EE faculty who attended military class-room instruction but not the summer’s practical training camps.
I don’t know what they did instead of learning how to goose-step, learn to live with an always dirty rifle (as per my drill-Sargent), and go on 3AM to 9PM full backpack load walkabouts! — George (ex-staff Sargent of the ex-Hungarian Peoples Republic Army)
PS. The only time Soviet military’s training, tactic and weapons systems were tested was the 1973 war waged by Egypt and Syria against Israel. These armies were trained and equipped by the Soviet Union. Initially they beat the Israeli army and air force. On the Golan, Syria’s Russian Style Army took the Golan Heights and was within ~20 miles from reaching the Mediterranean Sea. Its APC [Armored Personnel Carrier] mounted mobile SAM’s [Surface to Air Missiles] managed to neutralize Israel’s vaunted Air Force and only because the 2nd-wave Iraqi Divisions were halted by the Kurdish army in the mountains of Northern Iraq did Israel survive! They were eventually destroyed by the Israeli army reinforcements from the Egyptian front. The Egyptian Army was also trained and equipped by the Soviet Union. They re-crossed the Suez canal and their light infantry used Soviet wire guided infantry portable missiles to hold back the Israeli tanks while the Egyptian Soviet T55 tanks were also shipped across using Soviet bridging equipment and barges. This deployment was covered by Russian heavy SAMS from fixed positions on the Egyptian side of the Suez Canal and also destroyed most of the Israeli air force! The Israeli army had to withdraw into the Sinai mountains and because of a technical problem of the T55 tanks they managed to halt and eventually destroy the Egyptian Army. The T55’s guns could only be elevated ~15 degrees because they were designed for the flat German and Russian plain. The Israeli tanks looked down on them from the Sinai escarpment and destroyed most of the Egyptian tanks at long distance who could not even defend themselves! Also the heavy duty Russian SAMs were not mobile and could not protect its mobile tank units when outside their range. So now the Israeli air force came back into action and completed the destruction of the Egyptian tanks! An Egyptian general predicted the outcome of this battle but President Nasser, with Soviet advice, overruled him.
After the initial battles both sides were fought out and needed new equipment to continue. President Nixon did not believe the huge losses suffered by Israel and did not want to completely destroy Egypt, a Russian ally! He was worried that the Soviets would directly intervene by sending troops and that the local war could grow into WW3! We sent our U2 spy plane to survey the battle field as did the Russians send their equivalent plane. Both the USA and Russia started resupplying their respective allies and also ‘advised them’ to start peace negotiations! The most complicated position was that of President Nasser’s whose direct order, against those of his general’s led to this disaster! So the Egyptian public was never told about the disaster that was disguised as a great victory! This was also the reason why President Nasser was the only one on the Arab side who accepted the Israeli Peace offer, originally proposed by Secretary of State Kissinger. He even went to Russia to start the negotiations on behalf of President Nixon.

George’s comments remind me of our own longstanding relationship with Israel, an unhealthy co-dependency which enables the current behaviors. History dies hard (but in this business of killing each other with every more sophisticated means must end, otherwise we’ll all be goners.)
*
Then, there is the radical rabble that is feeling its oats in our own United States. Given their own surface-to-air missile, they’d launch it somewhere on our own ground.
There is an interesting, troubling video about goings on at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, the monument to where President Kennedy was assassinated. You can access it here. Its a ten minute watch, and one can only wonder what goes on in these folks minds….
We are a nation, and a world, of very decent people.
But sitting on the sidelines is an invitation to extremists to take over.

POSTNOTES:
From Wilhelm, Jul 26:
“If I was an Arab leader I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal, we took their land. It is true that God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we come and we have stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”
That statement—which would certainly outrage the current government of Israel and most of its supporters–was made by David Ben Gurion (1886-1973), revered as the father of the State of Israel.
If that is the case where is the call for justice
No peace possible without justice.
In light of what Ben Gurion admitted it sounds a little timid to ask for divestment or boycott of anything associated with Israeli Settlements. It seems the whole State of Israel is responsible for the policy and should be held responsible. This means any action has/ should include all of Israel or it is but self serving window dressing. Another action that says we are ding something and occupy the moral high ground but we are not doing any harm or damage.
The above quote was taken from the article:
OK. So, What Would You Do About Hamas? By Barry Lando
Just something to consider as one ponders what to do, what to do ….
Wilhelm

#911 – Dick Bernard: Those "illegal" children: whipping up the hysteria.

The below letter of mine, published in the July 9, 2014, Woodbury Bulletin seems to fit todays post about the so-called crisis at the Mexico border. My letter was about war versus peace; the letter to which I refer in my letter was about revulsion towards a certain flag that represented “utopian” ideals. No matter, it all basically is the same story: fear and hate sells easily with predictably negative results.
(click to enlarge)

Letter to Editor, July 9, 2014, Woodbury MN Bulletin

Letter to Editor, July 9, 2014, Woodbury MN Bulletin


The past week I spent most of my time out of sight of the internet and even newspapers and other media. I was 310 miles away in North Dakota: I’ve been to the ancestral farm many times in recent months, many more trips to come. As I’ve come to say, frequently, I can’t make the 310 miles (5 1/2 hours at my pace via freeway) any shorter. It is as it is.
I arrive at both ends, tired.
Enter the latest fear and hate issue: “illegals” pouring across our precious border with Mexico, but they’re not even Mexicans this time.
The recent news narrative, near hysterical in some quarters, has been the seeming flood of children from certain distant Central American countries. Were the scenario not so tragic – four year olds and younger (and older youngsters, too) facing immediate deportation, and apprehension by latter day militia at the border – it would be so absurd as to be amusing: hordes of children racing hundreds of miles across an entire country to the sacred destination of the United States of America.
I believe the real story in this case is hidden behind the reported story. I certainly don’t know the facts; but neither do the hysterical ones.
In my college years I was very much into geography, and out of these came a desire to seek a bit of context.
So in this case, children apparently traveling from places like El Salvador and Honduras to U.S. border states, it seemed useful to do a sketch map, using as base a page from my 1961 Life Pictorial Atlas of the World. (I added the map of Minnesota, simply to get an idea of scale).
Adaptation of an old map to show relative scale of Central America to Minnesota.  1961 maps

Adaptation of an old map to show relative scale of Central America to Minnesota. 1961 maps


Minnesota, north to south, is just over 400 miles, 90 miles further than I travel to North Dakota.
For these poor families coming north through Mexico has to be a daunting trip of its own. I am not prepared to believe any story about how they were convinced to leave and came to take a trip with a certain unhappy ending.
There are elements of this story that literally smell of “false flag” – a situation set up by unknown parties designed to make a problem, then confuse and inflame emotions over immigration reform efforts in the United States. Some in Congress say that $2.7 billion is too pricey to emergency fund the agencies that have to deal with the refugees. Some quick arithmetic reveals that comes out to about $9 per American.
Yet we can spend trillions (three more zeroes than a billion) to war on Iraq and Afghanistan, and not bat an eye.
One will need very hard evidence to convince me that someone with impure motives is neither funding nor encouraging illegal immigration of mostly young people to whip up the fear (hate) in far too many people north of the border in the U.S. just in time for the 2014 elections. Add in President Obama (considered the deporter-in-chief by some) and this reeks of political motivation, in other words. NO, I can’t prove it. But it is as strong a possibility of any other theory advanced by anyone.
Whipping Americans into a frenzy is nothing new, of course. Think of 9-11-2001 for starters.
The poor people who were the cast of characters for John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” were not met with open arms when they entered California during the Dust Bowl. We banished Native Americans to the left over lands with hardly a tear; starving Irish arrived in the U.S. to less than a warm welcome.
There are endless stories.
Some, like our response to 9-11-01, solved nothing. 9-11’s cost short and long term is measured in the trillions of dollars, and this doesn’t even include loss of Americans and those in other countries which far exceeded the number of casualties during 9-11. After 9-11 we engaged in an endless war with no “win” at the end, except in the minds of certain folks defending their stupid decisions back then.
As I said, a 310 mile drive is no cakewalk, even on a freeway in an air conditioned vehicle.
Believe the narratives about the children from Central America invading the U.S. if you wish.
There is a much larger story behind this tragic migration, I submit.
PS: I predict that this latest issue will magically disappear after the 2014 election, and simply be replaced by some other outrage of choice afterwards; and perhaps be ginned up again in time for 2016.
A common sense suggestion: ignore the certain propaganda.

#903 – Dick Bernard: St-Jean Baptiste Day June 24. Adding to a conversation about heritage and culture.

In Minneapolis, this Tuesday, June 24, the Canada Consul-General is hosting a celebration of St-Jean Baptiste, sponsored by Alliance Francaise de Minneapolis. The flier is here: La St-Jean Baptiste la Fete Nationale du Quebec. All are welcome, at a very moderate cost. Unfortunately, I’ll be out of state at the time of Fete de la St-Jean Baptiste. Otherwise, no question I’d be there. It will be a festive event.
My father, Henry Bernard, is 100% French-Canadian, thus qualifying me…and since 1980 I’ve been actively involved in family history matters relating to Dads Quebec (to Dad, always, refered to as “Lower Canada”).*
In 1982, Dad and I and four others traveled to rural Quebec, including Quebec City and Montreal, to make a first visit to the land of our ancestors (QC, Ile d’Orleans, St. Henri, St. Lambert et al). I had, then, only the most basic notions of the family history and traditions of my French-Canadian heritage. Dad was 74, then, which happens to be my current age….
After soupe aux pois (pea soup) at a festive weekend event of La Societe Canadienne-Francaise du Minnesota, some days later we all arrived in Quebec City on the evening of St-Jean Baptiste Day (StJB), Thursday, June 24, 1982. StJB is a major festive event in Quebec, a holiday, always June 24**.
I know Dad pretty well: arriving on the Lower Canada home soil from which his father had come in 1894, (and his grandparents on Grandmas side, 40 and 30 years earlier) was, for him, like arriving in Heaven.
Being a novice in the matter of ancestry at the time, the experience was less intense for me, but no less profound. Three times since I’ve been back, and later immersed myself in family history and the hobby of editing a little newsletter called Chez Nous.
(click on photos to enlarge them)

St. Jean-Baptiste side altar at Cathedral of St. Paul, June 23, 2013

St. Jean-Baptiste side altar at Cathedral of St. Paul, June 23, 2013


In Quebec, this year as all years, June 24 is a major day of celebration. The official notice is here, in French. The document can be translated into English, here. But, no question, they consider this a French-Canadian day***.
So far, I describe a Quebec holiday, primarily French-Canadian, celebrated this year at the home of the Canadian-Consul General in Minneapolis, sponsored by a French-related organization, Alliance Francaise de Minneapolis. We French-Canadians frequently have held smaller celebrations here, most recently June 24, 2013. I wrote about aspects of last year here.
For those with intense feelings about matters French, French-Canada, Canada, and England, (and “Americans”, and “Yankees”, etc) the preceding words can excite some interesting conversation.
An alternative welcoming French word “rapprochement” comes to mind….
Enjoy June 24 and St-Jean Baptiste!
As it happens, I became involved a bit in the “drama” of French and Canadian on St. Jean-Baptiste Day a year ago, after the event of the brand new French-American Heritage Foundation, on whose Board I have served since its founding in 2013.
A year ago, I stopped by the Cathedral of St. Paul to take the above photo of St. John the Baptist, one of the six side altars devoted to national groups, primarily Catholic, who settled in the Minnesota of Archbishop John Ireland’s day.
IMG_1707
I had long known of the altars existence but this day was different: for the first time, then, I really noted the signage identifying the altar:
IMG_1704
It came time to correct, I felt, an error in the sign, and on July 1, 2013, I wrote a letter to the Rector of the Cathedral, Rev. John Ubel, in part, as follows:
As you know, Archbishop Ireland, whose project it was to build the Cathedral in the early 1900s, had a great affection for both France and the French-Canadians who migrated here in the tens if not hundreds of thousands in the early days of the then-immense Diocese.
It is true that St-Jean Baptiste was a French patron, and it was through the French settlement of Quebec, that this same Saint became patron of the French-Canadians. So, the French part of the sign is correct.
The problem comes with the “Canadian” portion of the sign. It is misleading. Recently I was reviewing the 1940 United States Census form, where census takers were instructed as follows: in the column heading “Place of Birth”: “Distinguish Canada-French from Canada-English, and Irish Free State (Eire) from Northern Ireland“.
In the classic book, Maria Chapdelaine, (Louis Hemon, 1913), there appears this phrase on p. 89 of my English version: “When the French Canadian speaks of himself it is invariably and simply as a “Canadian”; whereas for all other races that followed in his footsteps, and people the country across to the Pacific, he keeps the name of origin: English, Irish, Polish, Russian; never admitting for a moment that the children of these, albeit born in the country, have an equal title to be called “Canadians.” Quite naturally, and without thought of offending, he appropriates the name won in the heroic days of his forefathers.
I understand that this may not rise to the top of your list of priorities, and perhaps more evidence is reasonably required, but at minimum I would hope you review this matter
.”
In the manner of such things, I had no expectation of a response from Rev. Ubel, but he did respond quite quickly and said my argument made sense, and they’d be looking into the matter.
Months passed by. Then, in the mail May 2, 2014, was a handwritten note from Rev. Ubel: “I do wish to write to share with you that we have completed the work to change the signage at the St. John the Baptist Shrine Altar. You were correct and we made the correction.
Many thanks for your patience. We decided to go with French-Canadians, though I certainly understand other arguments. French and Canadians is clearly wrong. We looked at our own historical records of the Chapel.

I went back to the Cathedral, to see what had been done with the signage:
May 4, 2014

May 4, 2014


I look at this story as not a battle won in any national war; rather an effort to revisit a long history of too-often fractured relationships.
And this year I’ll really appreciate a great deal the efforts of Canada, through Consul General Jamshed Merchant, and Alliance Francaise de Minneapolis, and hope to see continuing and increasing efforts at rapprochement (what a wonderful word!)
* Mom was 100% German ancestry; her ancestors coming to Wisconsin between 1840s and 1860s from what was then Westphalia and Hanover states.
** A week later comes Canada Day, celebrated each year across Canada on July 1. I’d imagine this is a pretty big vacation week in Canada, not just Quebec.
*** St. Jean-Baptiste was early on a favored patron of France, from which my and others French-Canadian ancestors migrated beginning in the early 1600s. One story of that relationship is here.

#879 – Dick Bernard: Beginning the Future; Passing the Torch to a New Generation.

(click on any photo to enlarge)

A portion of the group at World Law Day, Minneapolis, May 1, 2014

A portion of the group at World Law Day, Minneapolis, May 1, 2014


It was about 6 p.m. on Thursday, about the time scheduled for people to gather at Gandhi Mahal for a meal at about 6:45, and a World Law Day program featuring a panel of young people scheduled for 7:15, speaking to elders about the following question: “How do you and the young persons you know see global relationships and interdependence at this stage in your life and what are your hopes for the future of the planet?” (Here are brief bios of the panel members and facilitator: World Law Day bios)
The panelists May 1, 2014, from left: Emily Balius, Stephen Eigenmann, Janelle Shoemake, Tea Rozman-Clark, Md Abdullah Al Miraz (speaking)

The panelists May 1, 2014, from left: Emily Balius, Stephen Eigenmann, Janelle Shoemake, Tea Rozman-Clark, Md Abdullah Al Miraz (speaking)


Ehtasham Anwar facilitated May 1 panel, and gave a very interesting history of May Day, here and around the world.

Ehtasham Anwar facilitated May 1 panel, and gave a very interesting history of May Day, here and around the world.


My RSVP list showed about 35 or so persons in my general age-range, a reasonable number for such an affair, and while I knew the event had been advertised on Facebook, I didn’t really grasp what was ahead when the first solitary young woman, college-age looking, walked across the street to our meeting room about 6 p.m.
Then a minor flood began: more than twice as many people as we anticipated, almost all of them in the high school and college age range, the room crowded by 6:30. More than two hours later, long after dinner and the panel had concluded, there was still an electric buzz in the air, the kind of feeling you get when something has really worked.
People connecting with each other.
The ones who can best tell the story of what happened May 1 are the ones who were actually in the room; and hopefully they will ‘tell’ it by sponsoring a similar experience for another group where they live. And continue the process, on, and on, and on.
One persons comment, in an e-mail when she got home: “What a great event tonight!! It was packed, including so many youth!!! All of the panelists were passionate and insightful!”.
(Her son is in college, somewhere.)
There are times things come together, and Thursday evening at Gandhi Mahal seemed to be one of those times. I gave volunteer and expert facilitator Ehtasham Anwar, Fulbright/Hubert Humphrey Fellow for Law and Human Rights from Pakistan, a ride home after the program, and he asked how this event came together. I had organized it, but I couldn’t give an easy answer. It defies simple definition; on the other hand it was exceedingly simple: make it possible for the next generation to do the program; feed them; and be willing to listen actively, and learn. Here’s the program (which was modified on the run): World Law Day Prog 14001
Long and short, two days later, I would say this: truly value the opinion of young people, and publicize and do the event on their terms, and there will be a success.
This simple request is a long, long stretch for we gray-hairs, accustomed to controlling in one way or another the youngers with all the sorts of “powers”* we all too easily recognize (and fail to acknowledge)…and are reluctant to give up. But it is important to remember that the youth are the ones who are about to run things, and in fact they are comfortably occupying an alternative universe from we elders already, concerned about their own futures; using their own powerful means of communication.
A Panelist said most kids don’t even do Facebook anymore – that’s their parents medium. We Twitter…. That’s just a start.
At the same time, I noted that a Facebook event page started by one of the panel yielded more results in three days, than my old ways reservations system to old-timers had yielded in a month.
Time to catch up.
I consider a good evening one with at least one “aha” moment. May 1 there were several…. Thank you, panel and facilitator!
POSTNOTE:
The following day, Friday, I was privileged to help out at panelist Tea Rozman-Clark’s Green Card Voices booth at the annual Festival of Nations in St. Paul. There were many visitors there.
Tea Rozman-Clark in the Green Card Voices Booth at Festival of Nations May 2, 1014

Tea Rozman-Clark in the Green Card Voices Booth at Festival of Nations May 2, 1014


Today, Ehtasham Anwar, Lynn Elling and myself, plus hundreds of others bade farewell to Peacemaker, Minister, Father, Grandfather, Leader and Friend extraordinaire, Rev. Lyle T. Christianson, 87. Lyle Christianson 5-3-14001
Lyle had introduced speaker former President of the American Bar Association, David Brink, at the 2013 World Law Day one year earlier in the same room at Gandhi Mahal.
It had only been a year.
I feel the future with the young people in charge is in good hands.
Here’s the last photo I have of Lyle Christianson, with his daughter Janet Johnson, at the Nobel Peace Prize Festival March 8, 2013. The kind of man he was shows in this photo.
Janet Johnson with her Dad, Lyle Christianson, March 8, 2013, at Nobel Peace Prize Forum/Festival at Augsburg College

Janet Johnson with her Dad, Lyle Christianson, March 8, 2013, at Nobel Peace Prize Forum/Festival at Augsburg College


* – “Powers”
A tiny list:
1. The money to pay for tuition
2. Living in your parents house
3. Working as a subordinate for a boss
on, and on, and on….

#861 – Dick Bernard: A Nation of Immigrants. "Footprints in the Snow"

June, 1972

June, 1972


June 1972, with Joni and Tom

June 1972, with Joni and Tom


Today is St. Patrick’s Day. In a sense, everybody is Irish on this day (or the weekend preceding or following), for assorted reasons. Yesterday at Church was the annual moving rendition of “Danny Boy”. Here’s a recent version from New York City I saw on YouTube: “Danny Boy”. I don’t have a lick of Irish in me, but I wore green yesterday; today they’ll be serving green bagels at the bagel bakery next to my coffee shop…on the other end of the spectrum will be the buses taking patrons from pub to pub…a bad hangover in the offing for many who, like me, have not a lick of Irish in them….
We are definitely a nation of immigrants. Most of us of very mixed heritage. “Americans”.
And the stories are not all pleasant or nostalgic.
The Irish began to flood the U.S. in the 1840s, and the reason was they were being starved to death back home. Here’s Timothy Egan in yesterdays New York Times.
African Americans are descendants of “immigrants” – slaves of course, counted in our constitution as 60% of a person with no rights whatsoever, only as property value to their owner. Article I Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution makes this very clear early on when it defined persons: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
“[A]ll other persons” equaled slaves, of course.
Of course, Indians were an entire other category – they didn’t count as persons at all (The Amherst Smallpox blankets, and such). Natives just didn’t count. As some would still say: “they lost the war. Get over it.”
Amendments 13, 14 and 15 to the U.S. Constitution, all from the 1860s, began to change the reality, but not very well, as we all know.
Some still fight these battles.
Back in November, 2013, an old guy who apparently hates President Obama, got in a little back-and-forth with me, including this gem: “The only reason [President Obama] was elected, was the fact that he is half black. You never hear him talk about being half white.”
Then there’s “Footprints in the Snow”, heading this post.
I’m half German, half-French-Canadian ancestry. Both sides Catholic, which remains my denomination of choice.
Saturday I had a conflict: I was chairing a still-forming organization to celebrate persons who are celebrating various aspects of French-American heritage at the exact same time I had planned to attend a program, “Tracks in the Snow”, sponsored by a group founded in early 2001, in the twin cities, IRG, the Islamic Resource Group.
I’ve enthusiastically supported IRG for several years – I think they serve an important role in helping build inter-cultural understanding.
Their program was very intriguing to me, and I had reserved to attend. It was about 20 minutes from my other meeting.
invitation for email invites jpeg
But I had this conflict.
As the French-American group knows, I finally decided to preside at the first part of the meeting, and ask a colleague, Pierre, to take the last part. Such was agreed, and I managed to visit both.
The speaker at IRG was excellent, and at one point talked about the still-conflict in the interpretation of the word “American” in the United States. We are “Americans”, but as in the days of our founding, there are still these psychological barriers by some to accepting certain others as fully a part.
Enroute home I got to thinking about the title and the artwork for the IRG presentation. I remembered something similar from before.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s I had edited a little newsletter for and about French-Canadians in the Twin Cities, and still have the 1000 or so pages, indexed and organized.
It was easy to find the article, “Footprints in the Snow”, and it is presented here for any who wish to read it: Footprints 1986001*
One program talked about Moslems in America since 1880; another about the French-Canadians in America.
I see some similarities.
Have a good St. Patricks Day.
Here’s to understanding, not enmity amongst peoples.
* – (Betty Morency Hudelson did the art work for Footprints in the Snow. She lived on the Mesabi Iron Range in northern Minnesota. Dr. Benoit, who commented on the article, remains a primary authority on the French-Canadian presence in the Midwest, still a resident of Red Lake Falls MN; Dan Gendreau lived in Blaine MN.)
POSTNOTE: Today is 11th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. Yesterday came an interesting transcript from 11 years ago. You can read it here.
There are still some who think we “won” that war, or at minimum, we should keep at completing the win….

#854 – Dick Bernard: GreenCardVoices.com: A Project to Document our Nation of Immigrants

One week from today, Wednesday, March 12, a fundraiser to celebrate the power of immigrant stories will be held at Target Field, Minneapolis. You are encouraged to attend, and make others aware of this important event as well. All details, including bios of the speakers, are here.
Your RSVP is requested.
Ours is a nation of immigrants: this is such an obvious fact that it often escapes notice. My own American roots are France (via Quebec) and Germany.
I was reminded of the extent of the immigrant population a few months ago. In the summer of 2013, I had reason to access the 1940 census of the tiny town of Sykeston ND, the place from which I graduated from high school in 1958. In that tiny town (pop. 274, in 2010, 117) in 1940, of the 161 adults 16 listed other states as birthplaces, and 11 were born in countries other than the U.S.
As late as 1940, one of six adults in the town were not native, even, to the state of North Dakota. I wrote a bit about this here, including the worksheet from the actual census here: Sykeston ND 1940 CensusRev, see page 3.
Tiny Sykeston was just one town, then.
Every reader could tell their own story: family members, ancestors, neighbors, friends….
We are a nation of immigrants.
Which leads again to Wednesday, March 12, 2014, 6-9 p.m. at Target Field in Minneapolis MN.
On that day, three immigrants to the U.S. will introduce GreenCardVoices.
All projects have their stories, and GreenCardVoices is no different. This new project already has a history.
Some years ago Laura Danielson, chair of the Immigration Department at Fredrikson and Byron, Minneapolis, decided that the stories of immigrants she knew were so interesting that they deserved retelling, and a coffee table book, Green Card Stories, was published in January, 2012.
The book did well, but over the subsequent months, Laura and others engaged with the book and its stories came to a conclusion: print books, however attractive, have their limits, particularly in these days of exploding technological capabilities to share information far beyond one home or one office coffee table, and Green Card Voices was born just a few months ago.
The project is described here, including a video (this is a video project, after all!).
The dream of the project is to video-document first generation immigrants with more than five years in the U.S. from all of the world’s countries (196 in all). These stories can then be shared broadly in various ways. It’s a very ambitious undertaking, but doable with adequate funding support from persons like ourselves.
By happenstance, I was in attendance at one of GreenCardVoices first public presentations at Hosmer Library in south Minneapolis November 2, 2013. Theirs was a fascinating program, and I am certain the program at Target Field next Wednesday will be fascinating as well. (Roy Woodstrom, librarian at Hosmer Library, is a child of an immigrant – his mother is German). The person who invited me to the presentation is a child of Swedish immigrants. And on we go.
Shepherding the project is Dr. Tea Rozman-Clark, native of Slovenia. Her bio is here.

Tea Rozman-Clark, Feb. 25, 2014

Tea Rozman-Clark, Feb. 25, 2014


RSVP for the Target Field event Wednesday, March 12, 2014.
You’re in for a treat.