#457 – Dick Bernard: Newly released book "FOOL ME TWICE. FIGHTING the ASSAULT on SCIENCE in AMERICA" by Shawn Lawrence Otto

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Judging by the response last evening, this new book by Shawn Otto – its title describes it well – will not only be worth the read, but will provide a very useful springboard for informed discussion.
And there is a great need for informed discussion.

Acknowledgment: while I have the book, I just purchased it a few hours ago and obviously have not read it myself. I have read random portions. But the accolades the book has already received, including the effusive and lengthy introduction of Mr. Otto by long time Twin Cities media personality Don Shelby this evening, help to move me to pay especially close attention to its contents. This is a serious book about a serious topic recommended by serious people.
There appeared to be well over 100 of us in a packed room at Minneapolis’ Loft Literary Center this evening.
More details on the book are here.
Being that this book encroaches on politics, always a dangerous area these days, there are negative reviews along with the positive at places like Amazon, but they don’t destroy the authors basic premise that science, the source of so much that has been helpful in this society of ours, is now under assault, and if the assault is successful, our society as we know it is in deep trouble. (About those negative reviews: I’ve recently learned that ideologues seek to undermine books that they deem in opposition without even bothering to read the book. This is very simple to do on line. I’m pretty sure this dynamic will be in place in some reviews of this volume.)
Indeed, challenging politicians and the major media to again start seeing Science seems to be a major reason for this book. Science is under attack and despite its long and proud history and increasing relevance, it is derided by politicians or political candidates; or its revelations avoided by them. To embrace even well-settled science these days is politically very risky. Fool Me Twice covers a great deal of ground in what random segments portray as being very readable and easily understood, and I predict it will become a basic text for becoming grounded in the issues and the arguments – on both sides – of this contentious debate.
Waiting for the authors talk to commence I read a segment which he later emphasized in his own presentation: “In late 2007, the League of Conservation Voters analyzed the questions asked of the then candidates for president by five top prime-time TV journalists…By January 25, 2008, these journalists had conducted 171 interviews with the candidates. of the 2,975 questions they asked, how many might one suppose mentioned the words “climate change” or “global warming”? Six. To put that in perspective, three questions mentioned UFOs.”

As I listened, I couldn’t help but think of the rather bizarre intersection we Americans have reached in this time in history: at the same time in history that science is positioned to make a huge and positive difference for everyone; there is active advocacy for going back to the dark ages where belief trumps reason. Examples are easy to find.
But the message will be in the heavily footnoted 376 page document. And as Beny Bova, award-winning author and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says on the book jacket: “Before you vote in the next election, read Shawn Lawrence Otto’s Fool Me Twice.”
I’ll say no more till I’ve read the book, except to recommend a visit to an important associated website I learned about tonight: ScienceDebate.org . Check it out. It sounds most interesting.
Now to the book….
UPDATE October 25, 2011: Lori Sturdevant of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote this commentary on Otto/Fool Me Twice in today’s paper.

#453 – Dick Bernard: Occupy Wall Street

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As I write, October 13, the Occupy Wall Street initiative seems to be gaining momentum.
Two weeks ago, September 30, I submitted an opinion piece on the issue to my local newspaper at a time when the metro newspapers were ignoring the happenings in New York. I was motivated by the video clip of the folks on Wall Street balconies sipping drinks while overlooking the protestors below. You can view the clip here.
My op ed, “Wall Street Protests Matter to Us”, appeared in yesterday’s Woodbury Bulletin, and speaks for itself.
Tomorrow there is a demonstration in Minneapolis which I will likely try to attend.
The protests are spreading.
But I am reminded of some cautionary thoughts, which seem different, but to me are very directly related.
1) Right or wrong, the Wall Street folks feel that they deserve their excess wealth. This time of year is bonus time “on the Street” and (I hear) $1,000,000 bonuses or more are not uncommon. Folks who get these bonuses are slaves to making money, and labor very hard to make that money for whomever, and have come to expect this wealth, whether deserved or not. If the bonuses are cut somewhat (a likelihood this year), you will hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth all the way out here in the hinterlands.
I recall conversations with a woman about my age at a workshop thirteen years ago. Her daughter was a young analyst on Wall Street, and the previous year had made $800,000. The number sticks in my mind because I was a hard-working guy, in what I felt was a pretty well paying job at the time, and this young woman’s annual take was ten times my own annual salary.
The Mom got some benefits from her daughters success, and who of us can argue when one of our kids makes good? And in our society, the almighty dollar is the usual evidence of making good.
As I say, “right or wrong, the Wall Street folks feel that they deserve their excess wealth.”
(There is nothing intrinsically wrong with money, in my opinion. The ‘devils in the details’ are abundant, however. First is greed, which affects not only aspiring billionaires, but can take root far down the economic ladder as well. As important, if not more, is the lack of long-term vision when it comes to money policy. Wall Street has come to look on this as short-term (annual bonuses for performance, for example); and has imposed even more harsh markers on Business. Talk with anyone in big business, and the “quarterly numbers” will come up. One doesn’t achieve long term goals by being stuck on short-term thinking….)
2) As for protests, they can be good, a means to an end, but they cannot be the end in themselves: (Here is a fascinating column about the New York City Occupy Wall Street group.)
As noted it is possible that I’ll be at the event in Minneapolis tomorrow, but it is unlikely that I will be there for more than that single event. It is a big commitment to drive a distance to such things, and there are competitions for one’s available time and resources.
The protests, which were largely invisible in the national news media when I wrote the op ed two weeks ago, have now become very visible, and they are spreading, and that is good.
But sooner than later they will ebb and once again become invisible on the national media screen. The opposition – the rich 1%ers – know this reality: you simply have to wait out the protests and go on with life as usual.
If the organizers and supporters of these protests are wise they are already planning the next steps beyond the protests.
Next steps include things like I did: submitting a letter or an opinion to the local paper; communicating with others we know, including lawmakers, etc., etc.
The reality is that the ‘system’ we love to hate will ultimately have to create a reasonable solution. Anarchy or the like isn’t a viable option, even though it’s fun for awhile.
3) Finally, there is an argument about “class warfare” out and about.
I don’t doubt at all that there is such a war, and it was a preemptive strike by the privileged 1% against the rest of the population.
But it is important to remember that those 1%ers are not a monolith, all thinking alike.
Always keep in mind the folks like mega-billionaire Warren Buffet who are out there, doing their part as well, and moderate views are an extremely important part of this struggle.
Protests are good, but they are only one tactic in what is a very long term struggle.

#430 – Dick Bernard: 9-11-01 to 9-11-11. Have we learned anything these last ten years?

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UPDATE September 12, 2011: There have been a large number of comments on this post. They are in a separate post for September 11, 2011, here. Additional comments will be added to this post, as received.
September 9, 2011
Dear Family and Friends:
One of the indelible memories of my life came on my 60th birthday, May 4, 2000. We spent the entire day at the horrific Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland. Entering one of the first buildings with the awful artifacts of the final solution – hair, shoes, suitcases… – was a sign with this quotation:
“Those who
cannot remember the past,
are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
We Americans – every one of us – have created what became the ten years after 9-11. We are well advised to remember Santayana’s admonition as our future begins with President Obama’s address to Congress a few hours ago.
Everyone has their own perspective.
Here’s how I remember the last ten years, and how I hope we work for a better future.
*
Here are two snapshots I took of the as-yet incomplete twin towers of the World Trade Center 39 years ago, in late June, 1972. (click to enlarge). (The Statue of Liberty photos later in this post were taken the same day.) This was my first and to date only visit to New York City. I remember the day vividly.

Twin Towers nearing completion late June, 1972 (see construction equipment on top of one of the towers)


New York City skyline from ferry enroute to Statue of Liberty late June, 1972


I also remember vividly 9-11-01: The death toll that day was approximately 3,000. Each of those people died tragically and needlessly. This doesn’t make them unusual. Thousands of others die tragically and needlessly every day, everywhere. How we have elected to hang onto the circumstances of the death of these 3000, and what it has done to us as a nation, is what makes this ten year commemoration unusual. (See NOTE FROM MADELINE SIMON at the end of this post).
The ten years since 9-11-01 are ten years we should all also remember vividly:
– We’ve been in two wars, now ten years old, with no end in sight;
the price of 9-11 has been dreadful;
over 100,000 dead in Iraq, 25,000 in Afghanistan; – hundreds of thousands of people displaced; plenty of anger against the United States by these people;
– over 6,000 U.S. dead in these wars;
– Over 3 trillion of our dollars ($3,000,000,000,000) spent, not counting huge and certain future costs even if the wars were to stop today;
– incalculable ruin to our national reputation – a reservoir of ill-will which will not be forgotten.
And the War continues….
In my opinion it need not have been this way:
Here’s my personal recollection written a few days after 9-11: September 17 and 24, 2001, a letter to family and friends reflecting on 9-11-01. (Entire letter here Post 9-11-01001.)
9-11-01 was my second day on the job as a volunteer on a Habitat for Humanity house in south Minneapolis. A large crew of us from Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis volunteered for one or more days during our two week commitment. Per previous plans, Cathy, my wife, and son-in-law John also joined that crew the week of 9-11. I was there the first week.

Habitat Home Stevens Ave S Minneapolis MN Sep 11, 2001


After 9-11 we were overrun with unexpected volunteers coming off the street to help – their way of dealing with grief, I suppose.
This urge to do something positive was a very normal immediate outcome of the shock of 9-11, as it is a normal response after any tragedy.
For many years I have kept a handout from a long-ago workshop I attended which explains the normal human response to crisis very well (click to enlarge). Note: the time period to recovery is described in months, not years:

OUR RESPONSE POST-9-11-01
Rather than normal and positive resolution of grief, and closure, after 9-11-01 we in the U.S. chose to go to war. It was and is a disastrous decision.
We Americans* almost unanimously supported war as a remedy. Afghanistan Oct 7 2001001
One wonders what would have happened had we chosen to respond as Norway did in the wake of their July 22, 2011, terrorist attack.

After 9-11 we were largely kept in the dark about specifics of war plans. Five months after 9-11, a column (2002001) I wrote for the Minneapolis Star Tribune (published April 20, 2002), does not even mention the word “Iraq”. Iraq was not on my radar screen then, and I was an engaged citizen then.
In April, 2002, the official roll-out of the Iraq War was nearly a year away.
But we now know the Bush administration focus had almost instantly shifted to Iraq after 9-11, even though Iraq, and no Iraqis, were involved in 9-11. We took the deadly fork in the national road which we still live with today.
At the same time we launched this war, we were encouraged to get on with life, to go shopping, and we happily obliged during the decade. Vice-President Richard Cheney famously noted that “deficits don’t matter….” (see 18th para beginning “In his own account…”).
War almost instantly became an opportunity to implement the dreams of the Project for a New American Century. Its principles are worth rereading, as are the names of its signatories. Most of its signatories likely still believe its false premise: America once and forever King of the World. Too many of us still have visions of a permanent American empire. (My opinion: We could not effectively conquer Iraq, a place similar in size and population to California. Our vision of world dominance was false then, and still is. It is rapidly killing us.)
In October, 2002, Congress issued what turned out to be a blank check to wage war on the national credit card. (You can see how the political parties voted on that resolution in 2002 at the preceding link.)
We, the people approved that action; indeed, it can fairly be said that we insisted on war. It was politically very dangerous for a politician to be against this War on “terrorists”. We the people bought the idea of war, and thus we own its consequences.
We’re still at war in Afghanistan, the place we attacked first, 10 years ago. Much of our national debt flows from war, not only unpaid for by any national sacrifice when it happened, but accompanied by huge and continuing tax cuts for everybody; and unfunded, large and politically popular Medicare improvements. To this day, we refuse to pay for that credit card debt of ours. As a nation we are still very deep in denial.
We effectively demand even more tax cuts and to slash our government (our state and national infrastructure) even further, rather than using our still great national wealth to work on reducing our debt. Going broke is a deliberate political strategy of the many current government leaders who follow Grover Norquist, whose anti-tax mantra has long been to starve government “until it can be drowned in the bathtub”. There is no negotiating with such an ideology.
We didn’t know it 9-11-01, but 2001-2011 became a highly radical Republican decade all the way up to the present moment where the avowed and very public aim of the Republican leadership is to make certain that President Obama fails to generate jobs for national recovery. “Give us another chance”, they seem to say. “See him fail.” The same characters in charge will bring the same results as in the past, I say. Watch their real response to the Presidents request last night over the next months to discern their priorities.
The Republican leadership of the last 20 or so years is not cut from the same Republican cloth as my father’s or grandfather’s generation, nor my own. The current Republican leadership bunch worships power and control for its own sake. (For a dozen years my own political “best friend” was a former Republican Governor until he passed away several years ago. He would not be welcome in today’s Republican party.)
Today’s Republican strategy is led by amoral radicals** whose sole interest is permanent majority and raw power, rather than the long-term health of this country.

Ten years after 9-11, we’re still at it even though, for all intents and purposes, our country went bankrupt “going shopping” for everything we desired, getting big tax breaks and unpaid for benefit increases, and making war on credit***.
Now the narrative that I hear from the political radical right about our current national malaise is: “It’s all Obama’s fault, just give us another chance….”
This is insane.
So, what does this all mean? I removed from the title of this post these words: “A squandered decade.” But that is exactly what 2001-2011 has been: a squandered decade. And we continue the waste.
When will we Americans get a grip on reality?
Ten years ago we were caught unawares, and our emotions were easily manipulated and used.
Will the coming ten years be more of the same?
We are still “going shopping”.
Ten years from now, where will we be?
Are we going to continue down the same destructive road which has all but destroyed us; or will we commit to positive change? It is we citizens who will decide the future of our children and the generations to follow.
It is we as individuals who will be determining the answer to that question.

Same former Habitat house in South Minneapolis Sep 11, 2010. It continues to look the same in September, 2011, and to my knowledge remains occupied by the same Somali family for whom it was built ten years ago.


Statue of Liberty New York City harbor late June, 1972


Joni and Tom Bernard at Statue of Liberty, late June, 1972


NOTE FROM MADELINE SIMON received on August 8 prior to publication of this post, and included with her permission. Madeline is a long-time good friend, very active in Justice and social concerns issues with her Church. I met her through my involvement with the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers. She sent this item to persons she knows:
Last night, I happened to catch part of [PBS] Frontline, titled “Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero.” [NOTE: this is can be watched online here] Representatives, particularly clergy, from the three major religions all talked about the very real, scary dark side of religious zeal, equally lethal in their respective religions. One, who shared the podium at a 9/11 memorial service with clergy from other religious traditions became the receiver of hate mail from members of his own clergy. They were incensed that he would give any degree of validity to another religion and its followers, and he was asked to resign as a minister of their absolute truth faith.
One woman related that in an interview with Putin, he said that to the 9/11 hijackers, the people in the towers were “just dust.” In the Nazi era, Jews were considered less than human by some supposed Christians; in the U.S. pre-civil rights era, some Christians considered blacks less than human; and some Israeli Jews treat Palestinians similarly. Much evil has been done throughout history in the name of God, and it continues today.
No doubt that the extreme religious right in our country is dangerous, used and exceedingly well-funded by greedy corporate America who demand laissez faire–no government-by-the-people regulation of their excesses, and they should not be allowed to control government at any level. Our government, federal and local, are already dysfunctional, preferring to be insanely destructive rather than lose power in the interest of the common good.
We have much important work to do before the next election, none being so important as reminding the country of our common humanity, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and our interdependence, on each other and the well-being of our small planet. As Unitarian Universalists and a 501(c)(3) religious organization, we can’t advocate for or against candidates, but issues are fair game!!!
FOOTNOTES:
* – This commentary is written to “we, the people”. We are a society that likes to blame somebody else for our problems. The collective credit or blame lies with everyone of us, so long as we are fortunate enough to have a democracy (that is at risk).
** – “ends justify the means, politics is war, winning is all that matters” seems the dominant ethic. It is amazing, and very discouraging, to see the kind of racist, false and malicious information that is passed along, computer to computer, these days. Media advertising is as bad. It is far worse on the Republican side than on the Democrat. A recently retired 30-year GOP staff member in Washington recently wrote very candidly about this problem. You can read it here.
*** – even considering today’s relatively high unemployment, America is an immensely wealthy nation with far more than sufficient resources to recover from a problem we never should have gotten into. But to do so requires our political will, and the congressional leadership feels the problem is more beneficial to their interests than a solution.
There are many directly related posts, if you wish, beginning with June 27, 2011:
I will write a followup to this post, most likely on Monday, September 12, 2011
June 27, 2011: Killing the President, and many posts in the weeks that followed.
July 23, 2009: International Peace Garden

#427 – Dick Bernard: I breathe union

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Labor Day, I was caught in the magnetic pull of the Minnesota State Fair. It was the last day of the great Minnesota get-together, and I went on a whim. It was my second visit in the Fair’s 12-day run. I have rarely if ever missed a Fair in 46 years in Minnesota.
I’m one of those creatures of habit at the Fair. The Education Building is most always the first stop. And the first stop there is the Education Minnesota – state teachers union – location, which has been at the same prominent place for many years. (Until 1998, it was called “MEA” – the Minnesota Education Association booth.) The two state teacher unions merged in 1998, now also part of AFL-CIO, and so it goes.
I worked for NEA affiliate MEA/Education Minnesota for 27 years, and I know the history very well. The state fair booth is very popular – a must stop for many – because of the free calendars it gives away. Labor Day I happened by the location when the line was not too long, and got my picture taken (here it is, this year: EdMinnCalendar2011002.)
There was a time in the early 1980s when MEA was considering giving up the space because it was expensive and of uncertain value. When the free calendar idea was first tried in the late 1990s, that too was a risky financial proposition. But both traditions continue.
Today, I would venture a guess that nobody at Education Minnesota considers dropping either. The space is a positive magnet for thousands of visitors.
These days, of course, “union” is used as an epithet by those who feel labor should not organize.
I spent well over 30 years active in the organized public school teacher movement. Most of that time my employer was called “Association”; at the end of my career, it was called “Union” (there is no operative distinction between the two words, nor in what we did and do, which was to represent the interests of hard-working people who cared deeply about their profession, their occupation.)
What pains me most, now, is that some of the anti-Union, anti-Obama hate mail that comes my way through those disgusting ‘forwards’ comes from people who have directly benefited by the efforts of Unions over the years, including my own. To borrow the words of Diercks Bentley’s popular country-western song: “what are they thinkin’?”

The tycoons who are bankrolling the bust government, bust the union gig have to be laughing up a storm. Best that we learn exactly who the enemy really is, and it is NOT the unions.
A shadowy segment of the fat cats is the bunch committed to use the middle class to destroy the Middle Class.
No, I can’t prove that, though the above referenced link is pretty strong evidence of who is bankrolling what these days.
During the recent extremely expensive Wisconsin Recall election across the river from me, one of the most common ads against the Democrat challenger Shelly Moore was her fire-breathing comment “We breathe union“. She was made to appear as a thug when in reality she was a laid off teacher and local teacher union leader. Of course, her comment was only part of what she actually said (Scroll to the last paragraph of the article. The videos are no longer on line.) The anti-Moore ad was not a locally produced Mom and Pop anti-union ad.
So, did Moore say what she was quoted as saying? Yes. Was her quote fairly used? No. It was intended to mislead and to incite anger against Unions.
I applaud Shelly Moore for her comment.
And, yes, I breathe union, and have breathed union since I first became actively involved about 1968.
And we in the body politic had best pay very close attention to who we are listening to and who we are supporting in coming days and months towards election 2012.

#421 – Dick Bernard: "Be SEEN, Be HEARD"

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One of my favorite volunteer duties is usher at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis MN. Through the doors of that magnificent place come people at all places in their faith journey, the welcoming and non-judgmental mantra of the Parish.
The Sunday just past I was working at the back (main) entrance to the Church, and I saw a plainly dressed gentleman standing in the back. He was wearing a purplish tee-shirt, on the back of which was written, in easily seen letters:
Be SEEN
Be HEARD
That powerful mantra got me curious. I moved a little closer, and in smaller letters I saw “NWCT”. That didn’t make any sense.
So I did what I should have done in the first place, and just asked the guy “what group is this?”
He was happy to explain. The shirt was for a twin cities community access cable television station, Northwest Community Television. I’d actually been in that station last October, and I was favorably impressed.
We talked further, and the gentleman said he does a program on that station called “Painting with Dave” (scroll down), and it plays on certain community television stations, particularly in the Twin Cities, and also, for some reason in Connecticut. In the Minneapolis area, the next program is August 27, for 30 minutes.
I’ll see if it plays out here, and check it out.
The moral of this story is very simple: it is hard to make an impact if you are not willing to be seen, and to be heard.
Thanks, Dave, for wearing that shirt!

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

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

#392 – Dick Bernard: Day Two of the Minnesota Government Shutdown

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I expect to regularly comment on the Minnesota Shutdown at this space. Check in once in awhile. Related post for June 30 here.
In the evening of Day One of the Shutdown, we took our Grandson Ryan to a Minnesota Twins vs Milwaukee Brewers game at Target Field.
It started very nastily, with a two hour weather delay, and ended well after midnight with a Twins win: 6-2. Very tired, but all good.
The weather (photos below, click to enlarge) give evidence of an opportunity I had for two hours to see lots of Minnesotans in action less than a day after the government shutdown.

Target Field, Minneapolis MN, shortly after 7 p.m. July 1, 2011.


Torrents of rain on Target Field July 1, 2011


After the deluge, and before 'batter up'


Minnesota nice prevailed on the filled concourses during the two hour delay. Beer sales were apparently very brisk, as evidenced by long lines at the men’s restrooms. Even though the storm seemed potentially ominous (it ended relatively benign), there was no sense of panic. The Stadium is very well constructed for this kind of contingency, it appears, and the facility personnel were well prepared. Whatever one might feel about the Stadium itself, it was built in the present with an eye towards future possibilities, including unpleasant ones, like bad storms. That’s what infrastructure is all about.
But you couldn’t tell, Friday night, that Minnesota Government was essentially shut down. That non-response is to be expected. It takes days, weeks, sometimes months to come to grips with a hugely unpleasant reality: when Future becomes Present, and you can only wish you did things different back then in the Past. I thought back to an extremely difficult time in my own life, when burnout caused me to leave a secure job and become unemployed without access to unemployment insurance. It was initially rewarding. I desperately needed the break. But as time went on, and the grim realities of no money and no job set in, there was more a sense of panic. This began about 29 years ago, and it is a time I will never forget. Present indeed becomes Future, and if you don’t look beyond today, you’re living in a fools paradise.
Back home after the game a flooded e-mail box with assorted comments about the shutdown.
One particularly caught my eye. I am close enough to the sources of credible political commentary to on occasion get material like what I saw later in the day here, which is most likely genuine. The Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial this morning seemed to verify the reality of the e-mail.
I have been around collective bargaining of all sorts for many, many years, including death’s door negotiations to avoid strikes.
One of the rules, which does not even have to be written, is that you don’t bring to the table at the end of the process items that you know will not be negotiated by the other, unless that is your intended purpose: to find an excuse to walk out…and then blame the other side for what was, in fact, your own intended purpose.
This apparent proposal is full of these items. Add an apparent refusal to even consider Gov. Dayton’s priority of additional taxes on the very wealthy (at the end, those with over $1,000,000 incomes), and there is no place to bargain. If in fact it is true, which is likely, the Republican negotiators either were hopelessly naive, or, more likely, desired the outcome which was headlined on July 1, as “SHUT DOWN”.
Regrettably, few people really pay attention to politics, except for sniping, negative comments about “them”. And in this polarized political environment, the tendency is to shut out reasonable arguments that don’t represent your “side”. So, at this point, few people are interested in anything past the sound bites they might see on the evening news or in a headline; and too many are caught up in that most shallow mantra: “we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem”.
If this thing doesn’t settle, soon, the body politic will begin to come to grips with a very harsh reality, much as I did 28 years ago. Back then an important (and I believe, still, necessary) decision for my own mental health went awry, later creating serious problems affecting only my tiny (in relative terms) personal universe. We’re now making serious problems for our entire country, for everybody.
There’s a big difference between derailing an entire train, and one person jumping off of it….
ADDITIONAL COMMENT ON DAY THREE: Of course, everything would be immediately solved if one of the negotiating parties dropped their demands and conceded to the other. That has been an obvious potential problem since the day after the election in 2010 more than eight months ago; and it is the ‘sound bite show’ – if only THEY or HE would concede, we could settle this thing in a moment.
I was glad when they went behind closed doors to try to settle things without news release and fanning flames.
It didn’t work. It remains the only potential for success.

Ryan with "t c". He got his hat autographed!

#390 – Dick Bernard: Getting to a settlement

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

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

#389 – Dick Bernard: Killing the President, and all of us.

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On frequent occasions, something in a news source catches my eye, as did this one, on Saturday. Most of us won’t all get to see these attack ads. They’re carefully targeted to certain places in the country where they are likely to do the most good (translated “bad”) against Democrats and the President of the United States.
And most of the funding will not come from small donors: it will come from people with a lot of money to invest in their special interest – keeping and increasing their personal wealth and power.
Early this morning came this always well done compilation on another side of the supposedly evil and inept government story. (The commentary is fairly long but an appropriate headline might well be: “attacking government is attacking ourselves, particularly in these troubled economic times”.) It’s worth your time.
The business of attack ads has become “as American as Apple Pie”.
The worst thing that could happen for the Republican party would be for the Democrats, especially the President, to be perceived as succeeding, so their goal remains to enhance failure. It is a cynical and effective strategy.
The only differences between now and, say, 40 years ago, is that political lying is now more accepted, and the sophistication of delivering the lies is immeasurably greater. These are dangerous times for any semblance of “the truth”.
It is killing us all, and we’re the only antidote, by refusing to buy the garbage called political advertising that is passed off as informing us.
There are endless examples…I see them most every day.
A few weeks ago I had an interesting exchange with a good and valued friend of mine in a neighboring state.
It began with one of those ubiquitous internet “Fwd’s” trashing someone I’d never heard of with text and a selected group of 13 photographs of protest signs seen at a demonstration in the recent past.
The “Fwd” had come from a younger relative of hers, who figures he knows me as a “liberal”, and he said: “Why don’t you send this to Dick Bernard and have him apply his liberal spin on it to tell us how this is all made up and these are all good righteous peaceful people.”
I took the bait.
The photos in the “Fwd” were of signs carried by (apparent) union members at a large demonstration in Los Angeles.
I’ve been in lots of demonstrations in my life and, while I rarely carry signs, it is inevitable that you’ll see signs – and people – which seem sort of out on the edge. Usually, their intention is to attract attention, and these 13 signmakers had succeeded.
The text accompanying the photos blasted a particular Union, specifically the former President of that Union, and was intended to portray the President of the United States as this union leaders lackey, and this union – of low-paid service workers – to be dragging the President around by the nose by spending an outrageous sum to get him elected.
I did the best I could to dig through to the “facts” (which is almost impossible with these kinds of things), and shared this with my correspondent. At minimum the “Fwd” was unfair and dishonest, but that was its intent. Further, it was intended to spread virally across the country, and get people outraged at the President and Unions.
Ironically, the total amount apparently contributed by over 2 million members of this union to helping elect president Obama was about the same ($28 M, about $13 per union member) as what Karl Rove will spend in the first round of attack ads against the President in the next few months ($20 M, mostly from a tiny group of very wealthy donors – see lead article) and that is just the down payment – the election is, in political terms, light years away.
My friend and I closed our conversation: “I JUST DON’T LIKE ALL THESE PROTESTS, PERIOD“, my correspondent said, and that was our last contact about it.
I made a final comment:
“I have been in lots of protests, though rarely with signs. They are part of freedom of speech, like units in parades in general are (watch your 4th of July parade this year, if you have one).
Going back to what started this particular conversation – the 13 signs at the [union] protests – I got to thinking of it in this way: Surely in [your town of about 2000] there must be one person you know (or know of) that the townspeople wish would just leave (hopefully it’s not you!) Most towns I’ve lived in I can think of such a ‘character’…
The way I think of those signs and the people who made and carried them is sort of similar to the above example: what if the symbol of [your town] became the town character.
Or, as importantly, what if that town character actually had a valid story that needed to be told – even if the townspeople didn’t like the story?
That’s how the ‘networking’ of these demonstrations goes. It is what demonstrations are covered, and what parts of the demonstrations are emphasized by the person(s) covering them.”
We – all of us – are the “Government” we like, or despise.
There are facts in there somewhere. You aren’t going to get them from political attack ads this coming year.
It is work to get informed. But worth the effort.

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

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