En Avant: A Significant Film Work in Progress on the French presence in Minnesota

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UPDATE: May 29, 2013: Here’s a 5-minute preview of the film. Note that it may take a bit of time to download, and that a password is required to access: the password is: enavant2013
French film producer and director Christine Loys has released this up-to-date precis about her project: Précis 130513
*
An important film on the French presence in Minnesota, En Avant, is being prepared for production and at some point in the future will be released in France and in Minnesota.
At a special event at Alliance Francaise Minneapolis, on October 10, 2012, explorer and environmental advocate Will Steger of Ely, made brief introductory remarks before a discussion about the En Avant project.
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Will Steger at En Avant introduction at Alliance Francaise Minneapolis MN October 10, 2012


Why Will? The answer lies in one of those serendipity things some people call coincidences, but which to me have more of an “unseen hand” aspect to them. Christine: “Will Steger was there as my special guest because he was the first person to introduce me to Minnesota.”
Most Minnesotans know that back in April, 1986, Richfield native Will Steger led an intrepid group of adventurers on a trip by dogsled to the North Pole.
The adventure was successful, and back at home, on a chilly May day, I was among those who gathered outside the Minnesota state capitol for the welcome home. Theirs was a thrilling accomplishment.
At the time, there had been a small piece of news about a rather astonishing meetup on the Polar icecap on the 1986 adventure. It is best described by Jon Bowermaster, with this recollection by Will Steger:
“As I skied the last half mile [of the Antarctic crossing in 1989] I could not erase from my mind a picture of another time, another cold place. It was April 1986, the middle of the frozen Arctic Ocean, when [French doctor] Jean-Louis [Etienne] and I first met. He stepped to the top of a ridge of jumbled sea ice, seemingly out of nowhere, and we embraced, like brothers, though we’d never even been introduced. Everything that we’d done these past years evolved from that fated moment, from that embrace. We had turned our dreams – about adventure and cooperation, about preservation and the environment – into realities. We had the confidence to take risks, and the scene splayed in front of us now was our reward, our affirmation.
The Soviets had marked our entryway with red flags and made a Finish line. A gathering of one hundred, speaking a dozen different languages, swarmed around us as we came down the flag bedecked chute. As I called my dogs to a stop one last time and stepped out of my skis, Jean-Louis walked toward me. I lifted Sam onto my shoulder and Jean-Louis – completing the circle begun those years ago in the middle of the Arctic Ocean – wrapped us both in a bear hug.”
Back in France, Christine Loys, a photo journalist who initially was a friend of Dr. Etienne when he made his solo trek, became part of the Transantarctica expedition whose co-leaders were Will Steger and Dr Jean-Louis Etienne.

Will Steger, Christine Loys, Jean-Louis Etienne, 2009 in Paris, after Will had given a talk on climate change at the U.S. Embassy


Some time later, Ms Loys made a trip to this mysterious place called Minnesota, and in her journey through our state was startled to see French name after French name…towns, lakes, etc.
She learned that the motto of Minnesota is in French, L’Etoile du Nord; and that the motto of Minneapolis is En Avant, meaning “Forward”.
The French knew much about Quebec, and the French antecedents of Louisiana, but very little about this apparently French-drenched place called Minnesota, and Christine went to work.
The idea for a movie about the French in Minnesota was born, from the earliest days of people like Fr. Hennepin, to the present world-known Guthrie Theatre, designed by the French architect Atelier Jean Nouvel, which overlooks the very falls of St. Anthony which Frenchman Fr. Louis Hennepin saw and named in 1680.
Ms Loys hard work continues as she returns to France for some months, with plans to return to the Minnesota in 2013.
We wish her well.

Panelists at Alliance Francaise October 10, 2012


Panelists from left to right: Pierce McNally, attorney; Jérôme Chateau, CEP Normande Genetics, former President of the French American Chamber of Commerce (FACC) and today Vice President of FACC; François Fouquerel, Dean of “Les Voyageurs” at Concordia Language Villages; Robert Durant, Treasury/Secretary at the tribal Counsel of White Earth; Bob Perrizo, artist, journalist, writer, historian
Also speaking was Barbara Johnson, President of the City Council of Minneapolis who made the introduction. She is a descent of the French. Her maiden name is Rainville.
Dick Bernard was invited to make some remarks representing the 2012 Franco-Fete committee, of which five members were in attendance at the gathering.
This is also posted also here.

#645 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #62. Vote No on the so-called Marriage Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution.

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Nov. 3, 2012 Woodbury MN


Recently, after Sunday Mass at my Catholic Church in Minneapolis, I was visiting with a fellow usher, and the visiting Priest came by for a donut and coffee.
My friend, like me a retired long-married man with children, asked the visiting Priest about the biblical history of the apparent injunction against homosexual relationships. The Priest said that this law was in prohibition of the reprehensible practice in war, then, where the victor took license to rape the vanquished.
Of course, this rape was usually imposed victorious male warrior on vanquished male warrior.
It certainly had nothing to do with love.
In asking my friend to verify my recollection of the conversation, he mentioned this in addition: “You are totally correct. My Lutheran minister neighbor also told me the Bible orders women who are menstruating to sit on the roof until clean. Further, the Good Book says that if a woman’s husband dies, the man’s brother is to marry her.
Same sex marriage issues are also on the ballot in Washington state, Maryland and Maine. If same sex marriages win in these states Minnesota will be at a competitive disadvantage in attracting and keeping talented people who are gay or lesbian. These people will have a reason, a mighty big reason to settle in any of these other states.”
Of course, this small story will not convince the true believers, led by the hierarchy of my own Catholic Church, that their interpretation is flawed. Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune had an excellent column about the abuse of the term “natural law” when talking about things authoritatively.
Personally, I have long been engaged in family history study, and back in the 1990s a genealogist in Montreal sent me a copy of the marriage contract for my first Bernard ancestors in Quebec, in the year 1730.
Of course, at the time, if you came to Quebec you were Catholic, and thus, if you entered into a civil marriage contract – which was required by the state prior to the church nuptials – you were required to be married in the Roman Catholic Church. The necessary Civil Contract fulfilled Civil needs; the religious banns were separate and subsequent.
In the case of my ancestors, the Church matrimony came two weeks after their Civil Contract of Marriage.
I have long been intrigued by this civil contract, and rather than interpreting it, here is the contract in its entirety (the first page is a sample of the handwriting of the notary – just scroll to the translation which begins on page two): Quebec Marriage Cont001
At the very least, it is an interesting commentary of the relationship between Church and State in a place where there was only one sanctioned Church, and thus a single official belief.
Of course, 2012 Minnesota is not 1730 Quebec (nor is 2012 Quebec anything like its predecessor 182 years ago.)
I urge a no vote on this and the other amendment on Tuesday.

I’ve expressed my opinion to my Church leadership, that regardless of how the vote goes on Tuesday, the Catholic Church has been irrevocably damaged by the actions of its mean-spirited authoritarian leaders.
I won’t drop out of the Church, but it has certainly changed me, and I won’t be quiet.
UPDATE: November 7, 2012

Seen on a Woodbury Lawn, November 7, 2012

#642 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #60. Bludgeoning "Union"

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It doesn’t take close attention to notice that a prime Republican narrative in this election is anti-union, particularly public sector unions.
Union hating is in. What are the Republicans afraid of?
I spent most of my career – 27 years – representing teachers as an employee of the teacher’s union, first Minnesota Education Association (MEA), now called Education Minnesota.
Before that I was a junior high school teacher and teacher union member and, immediately pre-staff, a local union leader. Before that I was in the Army.
I know a bit about that word “union”.
The first contract under Minnesota’s Public Employment Relations Act (PELRA) coincided with my first year on MEA staff 40 years ago, 1972. Best as I recall, PELRA passed because it was jointly supported by Republican and Democrat leaders of the time. In those quaint old days there was a healthy mix of cooperation and competition. People worked to get the peoples business done in a healthy way.
My last staff assignment included the teachers of South Washington County Distrct #833. I retired from Union work in January 2000, and since October of 2000 I have lived in the same house in Woodbury.
The propagandists in the GOP have long identified the very word, “Union”, as evil, something to be stamped out.
Employees banding together must be fearsome and dangerous, or so it is made to seem. We must have mythical powers to control others.
The argument is absurd, but apparently is thought to be salable to working people who, ironically, owe much of their status as members of the middle class to unions, even if they never belonged to one of the unions which negotiated the wages and benefits people take for granted, and are now losing.
It doesn’t take long to learn that unions are collections of people of differing opinions and concerns. Union members and leaders know this.
Union staff people like myself were and are constantly in a position of having to help people of different minds come to some semblance of agreement. This might be between labor and management; often it is person to person within the union.
Once in my time with #833 there was a very close call on a threatened teacher strike. It was a very cold January night in the mid-1990s, with pickets set to go up the next morning. Very late at night another union staff member and myself had to take the lead to get some very reluctant members to reach a tentative agreement with school district management. Tempers were high for some time; but the resulting proposed contract was easily ratified. The bargaining process had worked.
I don’t recall hearing of a strike in South Washington County #833 in 40 years of collective bargaining; for certain, there were none on my watch, and there have been none since I’ve lived here.
In the early years, when we neophytes in bargaining were learning, there were more strikes. But most of those were clustered in a single year, over 30 years ago.
Union members, like management, learn it is preferable to negotiate and settle differences.
Some do not like the idea of employees being able to negotiate. Public Workers, it seems in particular, are supposed to be Public Servants. My parents were career public school teachers. I know what “Public Servant” means….
My proudest accomplishment in this district, at the very end of my career, was to help organize a Union sponsored and financed Community Conversation About Public Schools in 1999. With the cooperation of the School District, and volunteers like current candidate for legislature JoAnn Ward, a 23 member committee helped community members engage in civil conversations about public education in this community.
Financing for the pilot project came from the National Education Association and Education Minnesota.
The model worked well, but unfortunately was not continued.
I still have the file from 1999, and the 12 page participants guide from the final conversation. It could/should be resurrected.
Like any institution, public or private, unions are not perfect. They are, after all, made up of people.
I dislike the Republican Party and assorted “Independent Expenditure” groups targeting Unions as the problem when, in fact, they are as they have always been, an important part of the solution.
Unions are positive society assets not liabilities. The Democratic Party seems to realize that.
What does the union look like? Here’s a recent picture of one union member, now a 12-years retired Senior Citizen, me:

Dick Bernard, speaking at a recent Fench-Canadian cultural event in Minneapolis.


Tomorrow at this space: the thus far untalked about ‘time bomb’ in the MN Voter ID Constitutional Amendment.

Virgil Benoit: a personal retrospective by Dick Bernard

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Virgil Benoit Dec 19, 2011, at Cafe Aster, Minneapolis. First in-person meeting with Virgil about Franco-Fete 2012


The eleven of us who were the Twin Cities Franco-Fete Committee* on site Sep 28-30 are preparing to debrief this years event on November 15. This seems a good time to recognize the man whose vision and determination and passion led to Twin Cities Franco-Fete in the first place: Dr. Virgil Benoit of Red Lake Falls MN and the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks and IF Midwest.
Readers who were at the event know that Virgil had a serious automobile accident three days before Franco-Fete began, Tuesday night Sep 25.
As I write, Virgil is recuperating at home. My evidence is occasional e-mail messages, and a response he just filed to the base blog post about Franco-Fete! This is no epitaph or eulogy, in other words. It is a small tribute from someone who’s learned much about his French-Canadian culture through years of contact, mostly indirect with Dr. Benoit.
We all have our stories. Here, very briefly is mine, as pieced together from assorted documents I retain here at home.
I first “met” Dr. Benoit in the Les Francais d’Amerique/French in America calendar for the year 1985. There were to be sixteen more of these calendars, the last for 2002, which were a joint project of Virgil Benoit and Marie-Reine Mikesell of Chicago, all printed in Grand Forks. I have the calendars through 2001 – a precious possession (why didn’t I get 2002?!). The color photographs from the collection were posted and remain on the internet here.
While we lived far apart, geographically, I seemed often to be somewhere within his sphere.
The first time in person was probably L’Heritage Tranquille conference in November, 1985, at the new Riverplace development just below Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Minneapolis. He did the keynote at that conference, and a group of us had come down from Hibbing for it. Later, I learned he had essentially organized the conference for Concordia Language Villages, and I still have the book, L’Heritage Tranquille, which was sold at the conference. Here’s what Leonard Inskip of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had to say: L’Heritage Tranquille 001
The next year, 1986, some of us from Hibbing went over to Red Lake Falls for a fall event, Le Festival Rural, which was in the town hall of the community. It was a stimulating day of immersion in things French-Canadian, including guests from St. Boniface MB. Lorraine deMillo of Hibbing had told us about the event and later wrote a summary about it for the newsletter I edited, Chez Nous: Virgil Benoit:Midwest Fr001
Time went on, and I recall seeing him at Alliance Francaise events in Minneapolis. I was at an event, Espaces du Francophone, of which he was part, which includes a photo of him at the time (1989):Espaces Francophone 1989001
At one point he came down for the St. Paul Winter Carnival and I introduced him to a couple of elderly Nun friends, French-Canadian, at Bethany Convent at the College of St. Catherine. It was a rich moment for Sr. Ann Thomasine Sampson and Sr. Ellen Murphy. They with Virgil in his buffalo coat.

Virgil and Michael Rainville with the Buffalo Coat January 20, 2012


Le Festival Rural at some point moved to rural Red Lake Falls to Huot Crossing on the Red Lake River, where the Old Crossing Treaty 1863001 transferred the rich land of Red River from the Indians to the whites. It was the last major event of the 1862 “Indian Wars” whose 150th anniversary is being commemorated this year. I traveled north for a few of these events, now called Chautauqua, all organized by Virgil Benoit.

Virgil Benoit "up north" spring 2008 photo by Anne Dunn


About 2007, Virgil had the introductory event for IF Midwest at the University of North Dakota. I was able to make it to all of the subsequent events: first in Grand Forks; thence a tour including my ancestral home parish at Oakwood, places like Pembina, Bathgate, Leroy and Belcourt; in 2010 in Bismarck, 2011 in Fargo, and now setting root in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis St. Paul.
Let’s leave it at that.
A hardy Merci Beaucoup to Dr. Benoit for celebrating a rich culture: the French-Canadians (or whatever we happen to call ourselves) of the Midwest!

Virgil Benoit with Francine Roche and her niece from Montreal, July 17, 2012, also at Cafe Aster


More about Franco-Fete here; more about French-Canadians in the Midwest here.
* (in alphabetical order): Dick Bernard, Bob Dedrick, Mike Durand, Jerry Foley, Pierre Girard, Mark Labine, Fr. Jules Omalanga, Jane Peck, Marie Trepanier, Jon Tremblay, Mary Ellen Weller

#640 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #58. The Local Election for State Legislature in SD District 53 and 53A&B

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There is a clear choice in this years election: essentially we are choosing between a moderate Win-Win Democrat philosophy where all matter; or an increasingly extreme Republican faction where Winning is all that matters.
“Exhibit A” are the two constitutional amendments on which we’re voting. Both were ramrodded through the 2012 Republican dominated legislature, ignoring Democrat ideas and avoiding the Governor. Those amendments are, in my opinion, the face of the contrast between the two parties this November.
I’ve lived at the same address in Woodbury since October of 2000. My home is now in a new Senate and House District due to census redistricting. I’m now in Senate District 53A. Representing my District 2011-13 are Ted Lillie and Andrea Kieffer. Lillie is running to continue as Senator; Kieffer is now in neighboring 53B.
The Democrat candidates:
I am supporting Susan Kent for Senate and JoAnn Ward for House of Representatives.
Yes, I’m Democrat, but it isn’t all that simple. Kent, Ward, and Ann Marie Metzger in 53B, have a very strong sense of this community and commitment to our public schools and children. And they know business. They are multi-dimensional candidates, important in a multi-dimensional community such as ours. I would class them all, as I did Senator Kathy Saltzman and Rep. Marsha Swails, 2007-2011, as “Win-Win” candidates. To borrow a phrase from Paul Wellstone, who died ten years ago today, “we all do better when we all do better“.
I’ve known JoAnn Ward since the late 1990s when, as a school volunteer, she helped a great deal in organizing a Community Conversation About Public Schools for South Washington County ISD 833. That program was organized and funded by the National Education Association (NEA) and I was assigned to help pull it together.
JoAnn Ward was a great help as a volunteer with the School District. The conversation was a success (there need to be more such conversations.) I was delighted when I learned JoAnn Ward was running.
Recently, former ISD 833 Superintendent Tom Nelson wrote an endorsement of Susan Kent for State Senate.
While I didn’t know him personally, I do know that Supt Nelson had a long and very distinguished career as a school administrator, including time as Commissioner of Education for the State of Minnesota. His is a sterling endorsement.
While she’s not running in my part of the District, I believe Ann Marie Metzger is more than equal to the task of fairly and competently representing all of the citizens of 53B.
When I wanted to meet with her, even though I was not part of her legislative district, she took the time to actually meet with me. That impressed me. When elected, she will be ‘on the court’ for all of us.
The Republican candidates:
In my dozen years here I have gotten to know pretty well eight local candidates for state legislature. Four of these served during my time here, five ran or are running as incumbents, six are Democrat, two Republican.
From career experience, I know the process and the reality of legislating very well. It is hard work to fairly represent all points of view, and requires working together. It’s called “win-win”.
During 2010-12, when Ted Lillie and Andrea Kieffer represented my district (they’re still my legislators till January), I elected to attempt to engage constructively with both of them, even though I had strongly supported their incumbent opponents, Sen. Kathy Saltzman and Rep. Marsha Swails. My engagement was mostly handwritten letters – I know how busy it is at the legislature, and didn’t park on their doorstep. They ran primarily as candidates favoring business, so I didn’t feel much possibility of impacting on them, but I could watch and see how or if they responded at all.
Rep Kieffer was pretty good about communicating; Sen Lillie was very bad. I noted that he picked up the title of “Majority Whip”, which gave him additional power (and responsibility) in the Republican caucus. He was a leader in that caucus.
I believe Kieffer and Lillie’s signature issue – indeed that of the entire Republican majority in House and Senate, are the two constitutional amendments we are asked to vote on November 6. These amendments were ram-rodded through by the Republicans, passing on essentially party-line votes and passed specifically to avoid the Governor. Both amendments deserve to be defeated. Amending the constitution is no way to make partisan policy.
Rep. Kieffer early on pledged formally to “support all efforts to institute a requirement to show photo I.D. to access a ballot in any election for public office in the State”. I was surprised to find her unwilling to commit how she would vote on the initiative at the recent League of Women Voters Forum. Indeed, none of the Republican candidates revealed how they would vote on this, their own, initiative (the Democrats all said they’d vote no.)
The Mailers about Local Candidates
Of course, there are other kinds of communication, and I want to comment on the flood of political issue junk mail we’ve received this fall.
When the first political mailer came to our mailbox quite a while back, I decided to keep them all and see what would transpire.
Yesterday, October 24, I took out the stack. It is most interesting.
There were 31 of these easily identified mailers (which does not count 6 mailings from and in behalf of 4 candidates for office. So far no mailings have been received from two local candidates in their own behalf.
Four mailings have come from the state Republican Party (all four Anti-Susan Kent and Anti-Union.)
Two mailings have come from the state Democratic Party (both Pro-Susan Kent and Anti-Sen Lillie.)
The remaining 25 are from assorted “independent expenditure” groups which by their text are all pro-Republican, anti-Democrat and anti-Union.
The current Republican position seems basically this: there are winners and there are losers. And judging from the mailers and the Republican legislators positioning, the main, indeed sole, priority is what’s good for “business”*, and “unions”* are apparently viewed as competition and must be reined in or eliminated. It has worked in the cutthroat and vicious world that is contemporary attack politics, but it isn’t good for the greater society.
It is important to note that of the 31 outside fliers that ended up in our mailbox, 29 came from the Republican side. And none has come from Sen. Lillie himself, who apparently has plenty of friends with money for advertising in his behalf.
The sources of those mailers are worth looking into. In order of number of mailers attributed to them, here they are: Minnesota Future; Freedom Club; Pro Jobs Majority; Coalition of MN Businesses; Housing First. You may not be able to learn much about who is behind them; but their fruits have been in your mailboxes.
Freedom Club, with a Champlin MN PO box and no website I can find, deserves special scrutiny. It is the group which bankrolled the huge Lillie billboard just east of 3M. It exists mostly in Federal Election Commission Reports (FEC) and occasional news articles about it. It appears to be a closed-membership cooperative of a very few individuals, 90% or more men. We likely will not know its true expenditures until the FEC reports at the end of January, 2013. The last report deadline was September 30, so any subsequent expenditures are hidden for the next three months.
Similarly, Minnesota Future is not at all transparent. It seems much like a “trojan horse” group, initially founded on a premise that got some interesting endorsers (still on its website), but whose agenda in this election is very different.
Vote for the reasonable candidates who really care about our entire community November 7: Susan Kent for Senate; JoAnn Ward and Ann Marie Metzger for House of Representatives.
And after this election lobby for major changes in the way that elections are funded. Our democracy is imperiled.
* – “Business” and “Union” are generic terms that are best not judged generically. The political posturing, especially from the contemporary Republicans, is that “business” is all that matters; and that “unions” should cease to exist. Neither business nor union are monoliths, and should not be considered as such.

#638 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #56. Political Lyin'

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Tonight is the third “debate” (I really don’t consider them debates at all – they are more political theatre, like two gladiators in the Coliseum in ancient Rome.) Unlike the Coliseum, every frown, misspoken word, will be captured for posterity, to be sliced out and to be used ad infinitum forever…at least until the election, then stored away to be used whenever it is convenient.
This noon I was at the Minneapolis Club waiting with my host for his two other guests. He and another man, like him a long-time and older member of this very exclusive club of less than 1000 members, engaged briefly in conversation about tonights debate.
Neither was certain they’d take time to watch it. Lying came up. No candidate name was mentioned, though it would be a fair guess that it will be the other candidate – whichever one they don’t support – who will be judged to have crossed the line; and it will depend on what fact-checker is relied on to support the claim that the candidate lied.
Such is how it is in the American political conversation. Unfortunately, most of us who care are pretty hard-wired into our final position.
“They all lie”, one of my relatives likes to say, which is her rationalization for supporting her own personal choices for office. He or she lies too: she just likes them better: “he seems like a nice man”.
A few days ago I responded to the most recent lying “forward” from an arch-conservative friend in Colorado.
As is my custom, I respond to everyone on the open cc list, and one person, a long-time friend, wrote back: “Not as false as the outright lies of Obama”, with no specifics offered of course.
I responded back “Thanks for response. Probably we have very little to talk about, politically. I have followed politics pretty closely for a very long time, including hundreds of those ‘forwards’ from _________, almost all since 2010, virtually all of which are false, but seemingly accepted as truth by the one who forwards them. The only true ones are those where somebody who is said to have written some screed or other is the one who actually wrote it. I always reply to anyone and everyone who sends this stuff on. Gets tiring, but I never ask to be taken off of any list.”
I included a link to a previous blogpost on the topic. (This isn’t the only one I’ve written on the topic.)
So it goes.
I’m not sure I’ll watch the so-called debate tonight.
Both candidate will be on his guard against making inadvertent statements – rather fragments of statements – that can be used against them tomorrow.
Then the true barrage of political advertising – most of it so misleading as to be false, especially the independent expenditures against candidates – will take control of our lives.
Two weeks to go.
Thank goodness, it will soon be over.
But before it’s over, prepare to vote very well-informed on all your local races on November 6.
Minnesotans, here’s how you can find out who’s running in your local area.
UPDATE: October 23: I watched only fragments of the debate. Here’s a summary of analyses of the debate from a blogger who I respect.
Other related posts: enter Election 2012 in the search box.

#637 – Dick Bernard: George McGovern. A Memory

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George McGovern has died. He was 90 at the time of his death in Sioux Falls.
Permit me a memory of a great man and humanitarian.
October 21, 2005 – 7 years ago today, it was a Friday – at the Bell Museum Theater at the University of Minnesota, we went to see the film about George McGovern: “For One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern“. As I recounted below, in P&J #968 on October 23, 2005, we apparently sat very near him, and afterwards I stood in line to get an autographed copy of his book, described below. I still have that book. Here’s the cover and his autograph: G McGovern Ending Hunger001

Here’s what I wrote, after that evening:
I remember I voted for George McGovern in 1972 and before him Hubert Humphrey in 1968 – from the earliest I never felt any trust for Nixon.
But other than that, politics was for me, then, a pretty passive activity.
Friday night in a little less than three hours many of the blanks of that time period were filled in for me.
The new documentary, For One Bright Shining Moment, The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern, brought it all back.
We watched the documentary only a few seats away from George McGovern himself, who spoke and answered questions before and after the showing. We and several hundred others had One Bright Shining Moment in the soft-spoken but powerful presence of greatness. (What I heard him say is at the end of this P&J).
It was a peak moment for me.
The ‘60s and early 70s passed me by, politically, though I was voting age the whole time, and voted. Life happened for me, then, and was too great a distraction.
In the climactic political year of 1968 I was in my third years as a single parent of a youngster who had just turned four – his Mom had died in 1965. I knew that Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for a second term in ‘68; I knew of the chaos surrounding the Democratic convention in Chicago. Heroes fell early that year, and not only in Vietnam: Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy. I remember a short by-myself-in-my-’65-Volkswagen-bug geography tour through the east in August of ’68, driving through part of the wreckage that was post-riot Washington D.C. (map here)
In 1972, when Nixon steam-rollered George McGovern, winning 49 of 50 states in the greatest Presidential election rout in American history, I was in a brand new job doing something I had never done before: staff person for a large public employee union bargaining its first contract under my state’s first full-fledged collective bargaining law for public employees. A competing union wanted our status as exclusive representative and that and the companion contract negotiations were too big distractions. (We prevailed in that political campaign, and got our first contract that late summer.)
In between, before and after, Vietnam raged. For awhile in the late fall of 1969 one of my brothers stayed with us for awhile; he was a fighter bomber pilot in Vietnam whose plane had gone down in a mid-air refueling collision over Thailand, and he got lucky – his only damage some burns that had him in hospital and then on leave for some months.
May 4, 1970, the tragedy at Kent State happened. And so it went.
The film views the 60s through the lens of file footage, and through interviews with several people, most of whose names will be instantly recognizable to anyone old enough to remember that time in history.
I think McGovern was a candidate of real substance in the insane (to me) game of U.S. killer national and even state and local politics. Politics is not a game for the weak of ego. A WWII bomber pilot, McGovern’s passion was for an end to the Vietnam War…even when he was virtually a lone voice. He identified with the powerless more so than most in the political game. His Army of volunteers created a grassroots organization seldom seen in this country and reflected the best that is the U.S. His was a powerful campaign that in the end ‘flamed out’ for reasons which each can see (and many of my age remember) for themselves. Still, even in the end, 40% of the voters in this country voted for him. His is a political career that progressives ought to study carefully.
Hubert Humphrey does not get too kind a portrayal in the film, and maybe that’s the gentle criticism Mr. McGovern expressed about it before we saw it – though he wasn’t specific. But Humphrey was an extremely competitive man – you don’t get to even vice-president without a ‘killer instinct’ – and when one of you, there in the same auditorium, said you didn’t care for the small Humphrey-bashing aspect of the film I thought of a little quote of HHH which I included in last years Christmas letter.
McGovern remains a passionate person, and ending hunger in our time (we bought his book “The Third Freedom Ending Hunger in Our Time”) is at the top of his list. This is not a new passion for him. JFK had him as Special Assistant for a new Food for Peace program 1961-63.
Someone asked Mr. McGovern to comment on what he would do, today, if in the office of commander in chief.
As I recall it, he said he would do four things:
1) Get our troops our of Iraq
2) Re-deploy the National Guard and Reserves, and the vast resources spent on Iraq, to rebuild the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina
3) Reinstitute some form of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) of the 1930s.
4) Write a ‘one sentence bill’ (he called it) extending Medicare initially to every child six or under, thenceforth every year further expanding Medicare until everyone is covered.
Someone else inquired about the general task of Liberal message development. His answer was quite succinct. After saying that this country needs more than just one hugely dominant political party, he suggested that Conservatives, when confronting Liberals, be asked two simple questions: 1) what are some popular initiatives supported and advanced by Liberals which were opposed by Conservatives (things like Social Security and many other initiatives come to mind; 2) what are some Conservative successes that were supported by Liberals (things like the Interstate Highway System come to mind.) The succinct suggestion is that Conservatives come around, ultimately embracing things they originally tried to defeat; Liberals are more open to positive changes that impact people’s lives in a positive way. Liberal initiatives tend to benefit the greater number for the greater good. (Who coined the phrase, “if you want to live Republican, vote Democrat”)?
But that’s just my opinion of what he said.
Others may differ.
Go see the film.
PS: He offered a comment about a visit to Houston to visit the ‘refugees’ as he called them in the wake of Katrina. He recalled visiting with a man who had a wife and five children. He asked the man why he didn’t leave before the storm struck. The man said he didn’t have a car, and when the hurricane struck (which was, after all, at the end of the month) they had $6 to their name. If he had managed to get them out of town, they wouldn’t have been able to afford a place to stay, and all of the uncertainty led them to stay, so he boarded up his windows, hoping they could ride it out. McGovern said that was one of several similar stories he heard.
COMMENTS:
from Kathy: Also, McGovern wrote a book called Terry about the pain of his daughter Terry’s alcoholism.
Molly: Thanks, Dick. I forwarded it to a friend who spent most of her life in SD, and was also a devoted fan. This was perfect for a day I knew she’d be doing some grieving.
Mike: In 1992 Pat and I were in DC for the Clinton inauguration and we went to a post inauguration reception at one of the House Office Buildings. The MN House delegation were the hosts, but McGovern was there as well, greeting people with mutual acknowledgements of their help. Guests thanking McGovern for coalescing the progressives into a more powerful body, while the senator thanked them for their work to get Clinton elected.
I believe when our daughter Leah received her MBA in 1992 from St. Thomas, McGovern delivered the commencement address. Her in-laws (committed Republicans) attended and McGovern was probably the last person they would have wanted to hear speak.

#636 – Dick Bernard: "I DID IT!" Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

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Thursday night with the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra was, I thought, as good as it could get.
But that was before the Saturday afternoon performance of Willy Wonka by a great bunch of thespians from Proact.
The Orchestra and conductor Skrowaczewski got their deserved standing ovations; so did the cast bringing to life Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Here’s the program booklet for today’s performance: Proact Players W Wonka001
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The actors and actresses in today’s performance were all people of exceptional abilities, including my daughter Heather, who is Down Syndrome and is a charmer of the first order. In the casting, she was listed as Oompa Loompa/Grandma Josephine, and was on stage as the play began.
(click on photos to enlarge)

Heather, third from left, under the blanket.


By the time the one hour play ended, the full-house audience displayed all the enthusiasm of the Orchestra crowd on Thursday.
The cast and all connected with the performance deserved the accolades.

The cast on stage, October 20, 2012



Applause over, and treats awaiting in the lobby, cast and crew joined the audience.
Heather came down, exclaiming “I DID IT!”, reminding me of the same exclamation by someone else a year or so ago. You can read it here.
WOW! What a lesson….

Cathy, Heather, Dick after the performance.

#634 – Dick Bernard: Supporting the Locked-out Minnesota Orchestra Musicians Union

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Tonight we go to a special concert given by the locked out Minnesota Orchestra. The details of the concert are here.
You likely still have an opportunity to attend this concert.
At the very least, become aware of the issues in this most important attempt to break the back of a proud union of outstanding musicians.
Last week I submitted the below op ed to the Minneapolis Star Tribune which was declined for publication.
Stand with the Orchestra, and with union workers everywhere.
To the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
I’ll be keeping the Oct. 11 column by Jon Campbell and Richard E. Davis about the financial woes of the Orchestra (Orchestra Makes a Stand). Later they made sure we Minnesota Orchestra subscribers had a chance to see the column, through an e-mail.
We’re small fry within the MnOrch family, but regulars. This year as most always a six-concert series and perhaps an occasional additional performance. We’re the half-dollar customer versus the $1000 contributor (translation: $500 a year versus a $1,000,000 benefactor.)
Some years ago a docent who’s a friend happened to notice my ticket, and remarked we must’ve been orchestra fans for a long time – we had a relatively low subscriber number. The revelation surprised me.
But we’ve sat in row four behind the podium at Orchestra Hall for a long time. We were in the hall when guest conductor Itzhak Perlman took his scary (but still graceful) tumble off the platform; when Eije Oue led the Orchestra in the Star Spangled Banner in September 2001.
We saw the memorial rose on the vacant chair of the violinist who had died of cancer….
And now we see this failed negotiations where the Big People with the Purse are saying “enough is enough”.
Good fiddlers are a dime a dozen, after all.
I spent an entire career in and around negotiations as part of a union, so I have a strong sense of what goes on when there’s a labor conflict.
Both sides own their version of truth, and as Campbell and Davis are doing, management holds the financial hammer and thus, they will presume, control.
It is not quite so easy.
I find myself not terribly interested in exchanging my season tickets for other kinds of programs – we’ve got the e-mail and the phone call.
$500 is serious money to us, but I’m willing to take the hit in support of the musicians union.
At minimum that $500 for tickets translated into another $500 from us for Minneapolis business: eating, parking and the like. Every dollar counts.
For the Orchestra itself, the problem with we small fry is much longer term.
I’ve had season tickets for quite a number of years. Once you lose loyalty of customers like me, it is not easy to rebuild it.
And it is we little people who will sustain this operation in the long term, not the big benefactors who are carefully watching the return on investment in the Orchestra endowment.
For obvious reasons, my heart is with the musicians union.
I know there are two sides to every story, and Mr. Campbell and Mr. Davis articulate only their own very biased side.
Find a way to settle.
Now.

I sent this opinion on to the LoMoMo and received this response from a locked out Orchestra member serving a PR function for the Union. Speaking in support has real meaning. Consider sending your own letter of support, today.
Dick,
You will get a another thank you from someone who is better at words than I…..but I wanted to let you know right away how wonderful your oped made me feel. I will send it to the entire Orchestra (we compile letters each week). You have been through so much with us…..thank you for your support. We are deeply grateful.
Ellen
on behalf of
The PR Committee
Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra
contact@minnesotaorchestramusicians.org

#633 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #54. Three weeks from today…

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(Click on photos to enlarge. Both photos from Minnesota State Fair 2012)


Three weeks from today, the 2012 U.S. Election will be over.
Optimistically, possibly 60% of those who are qualified to vote will actually mark a ballot somewhere, hopefully reasonably well informed. We basically make the decision on who we vote for privately.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” rules in political conversations. Only our very best friends know where most of us stand on politics. It is very odd avoidance behavior, in my opinion. There is no single decision we will make that is more important in the long term for ourselves and our society and, indeed, our world, but the political conversation is off limits for many.
I follow this political stuff pretty carefully. Of course, I’m just an individual. But it is a whole collection of individuals who will decide our countries direction three weeks from now.
I watched most of last nights Town Hall debate between President Obama and Governor Romney on Long Island; listened to most of the rest; spent very little time watching/reading/listening to analysts analyzing who won and who lost.
It surprises me to note that this is post #54 I’ve done on Election 2012. There will be more – there are other issues. You can find them all by placing the words Election 2012 in the search box.
The first (“Election 2012 #1”) is here, March 18, 2012.
Seven posts immediately preceding this post are the best thoughts I can muster on politics in this wealthy and hugely complex country of ours.
Here they are, accessible to you if/as you wish:
October 2, 2012: The two proposed amendments to the Minnesota Constitution.
October 8, 2012: A short seminar on Minnesota Public School policy.
October 9, 2012: Summarizing the last twelve years; remembering the panic of late 2008; why I support President Obama; the meaning of the first Obama-Romney debate; “win-win” vs “win-lose”; the current difference between Republican and Democrat; how I see the two MN constitutional amendments; what makes me a moderate pragmatic Democrat.
October 10, 2012: The local (Senate District 53) political candidate Forum of the League of Women Voters.
October 13, 2012: The word “Taxes” and its many synonyms; its use as a wedge issue to divide people.
October 15, 2012: Mitt Romney
UPDATE Oct. 20: Here is a long but insightful column on the same topic as mine. If nothing else, note the last three or so paragraphs.
October 16, 2012: Political Signs and the people behind them.
There are other political commentaries to come.
Stop back once in awhile.
And vote well informed on Tuesday, November 6. If you’re a Minnesota resident, here’s a good place to brief yourself.
For other posts on the same topic, past and future, simply enter the words Election 2012 in the search box.
UPDATE October 25, 2012: Opinion on my local Senate District 53 races.