#532 – Dick Bernard: The Coleen Rowley and Dick Bernard "Debate" Finally Takes Place – About the Nobel Peace Prize.

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Coleen Rowley’s post on HuffPost, yesterday, (link below) is the reason for this blogpost.
Almost exactly a year ago, someone suggested Coleen Rowley and I have a debate on issues relating to peace and President Obama. I agreed.
I actually saved the last of a chain of e-memos about this, dated March 30, 2011. Actually, I think the course towards having a debate started some time earlier in that same month, probably by someone else, in one of those endless online threads that go nowhere, but, no matter…. (The saved memo ended with some talk about “cognitive dissonance”.) A short while later one of the proponents for (and possible organizers of) the debate got angry at me and asked to be taken off my e-mail list (though I still get frequent e-mails from him – so is how it goes on the inter-net.)
Nothing ever happened because the supposed organizers of such a debate never got around to following through on the idea.
It was not the responsibility of either Coleen or myself to set this thing up – place, publicity, etc., etc., etc.
At any rate, I’m no longer interested in a “debate”.
At the same time, it appears Ms Rowley and I have engaged in our grand debate in a most unusual way, and it was at the same time direct and not direct at all.
Here’s how.
It happened at the just completed Nobel Peace Prize Forum and all of the “documentation” is already public record.
Last Saturday, March 3, we apparently were in the same hall at the same time when former S. African President F. W. deKlerk gave his Laureate address to a packed house. That address is archived on-line at the Forum website, and anyone can watch it at anytime, in its entirety. Here is the entree point. The talk was the one given on Saturday morning March 3, 2012. It was viewable live around the world.
Later the same day, at 12:30-1:15 in the Augsburg College Chapel, Coleen and I happened to sit within a few feet of each other, on either side of the main aisle, as Dr. Geir Lundestad, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute – the agency that chooses the Nobel Laureate each year – described the sometimes controversial history of the Nobel Peace Prize. This was one of many workshops, and was not filmed, to my knowledge, though I noticed Coleen was capturing some or all of it on her phone camera.
(Full disclosure: I’ve met Dr. Lundestad in previous years, and heard him speak; and I’ve known Coleen Rowley for five years or more. I know them both more through their work, than as personal friends.)
At the end of the same day, Saturday, March 3, at the closing of the Forum, I and hundreds of others heard Naomi Tutu, daughter of Desmond Tutu, give the Call to Action. It was a powerful address, and it is the last presentation on-line. I don’t know if Coleen was there or not. In her remarks, I recall Ms Tutu mentioning two panels that she had been part of earlier in the day, each on the same topic with the same participants. She observed that she and the other panel members spoke different thoughts from one panel to the next, and while not going into any specifics, Ms Tutu found that quite interesting. Coleen went to the first workshop; I had considered going to the second, but chose another option instead. Had I participated in the second workshop, I might have heard something different from the panelists than what Coleen heard an hour or two earlier.
On the other hand, I had seen and heard deKlerk twice on the previous day, once in the presence of hundreds of school children at the Festival portion, and at a reception in the evening. I gather that Coleen was at neither.
So, our “debate”?
Coleen has a much larger “platform” than I, and appeared on it yesterday, in a 1725 word Huffington Post commentary, accessible here.
I, on the other hand, reported on deKlerk and Lundestad, with mention of Naomi Tutu, in all or part of blog postings on March 2, 3, 4 and 5, accessible here, here, here and here.
This is the closest Coleen and I will come to debating this or any issue. But it does represent a start.

Maybe one or two or three of you will take the bait and start your own conversations with people you don’t normally talk with….
They’re surely necessary.
POSTNOTE: As I was writing the above, I began to think back over my entire work career when Committees were a not-always-desirable feature of daily life. You name it, there was a Committee about it. And the Nobel Peace Prize is selected by a Committee.
We all know the jokes about the results of committee work, but as I know from experience, committees are necessary, most always do their best, and in the end present their best possible results to the rest. Sometimes there is near-unanimity in accepting the results; most always somebody, sometime most everybody NOT on the committee, will be critical of something or other, maybe everything, that the committee has tried to do.
Committee results are overturned, but for good reason there is great hesitation in doing so. It is difficult enough to form a good committee.
Here we have a Nobel Peace Prize Committee which for over 100 years and through literally generations of different members has tried to do its best to select someone who in its judgement best represents the Will (will) of the founder of the Prize, Alfred Nobel.
And we have people who for their own reasons are rushing to judgement to criticize the results of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee as if it is some sinister person with dark motives.
I don’t wonder why the Peace Prize Committee keeps its deliberations secret for many years.

#531 – Dick Bernard: "Takeaways" from the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Augsburg College, Minneapolis MN

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

At the preview of the Nobel Peace Prize Forum on February 14, we were told that, for the first time, the major sessions of the Forum would be live-streamed and accessible around the world. I did not publicize that to my own mailing list, since I was most interested in attendance at the event. There is a particular synergy when people come together at an event and, besides, the vast majority of the sessions were not televised.
In the end, it appeared that the attendance was very strong through the closing session on Saturday, and all of the plenary sessions are archived on-line at the Forum website. Watch them. There’s lots of insights. (In going there this morning, I found that my own reports through this blog led to my own ‘byline’ – a pleasant surprise to me. I was just interested in sharing bits and pieces of this phenomenal event.)
I’m left with a most daunting task: how to summarize those 27 hours at Augsburg and the University of Minnesota, and attendance at 15 plenaries, workshops and events, into a few hundred words of “takeaways” – things I hope one or two readers will find useful.
I think my most important observation is one which I actually made several months ago while observing a gathering in the Minnesota State Capitol the day after the government shutdown ended. The full report is here; the summary of that post is very simple: Margaret Mead was right. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”
But there is an essential corollary to that quote, which I stated in the blogpost: those people in the Capitol circle, and those people in every circle aspiring to change anything, have to turn around and engage the people outside of their circle, otherwise their energy is wasted. Over and over again in the conference, in sundry ways, I heard variations on the same theme: we are a very complicated world, and we have to negotiate and to compromise.
Good friend Bob Barkley, in Ohio, asked: “As I have commented before on several issues, I wonder what you think the root causes are which lead to situations other than peace. Many people point to religious fundamentalism and intolerance, wealth inequality, and the general passion for power, for example. But what one thing stands out from your sessions?
It feels to me like the entire peace effort is often little more than a rambling struggle in the wilderness. And we don’t seem to be able to make much progress. If you were to sit down now, after all you’ve heard, and concentrate on one thing, what would it be?”
My answer: conflict is a complex business. My friend Michael Andregg took an impressive stab at defining the business of War a few years ago, and his 289 page book is accessible free on line here. Just a look at the Table of Contents gives a clue about the causes of war. I’d simply add to the answer as I just stated immediately before Bob’s quote: get out into the world, you little groups, and make the changes you wish to see in it. Get to know each other, and work together not separately.
Someone, I’m thinking it was in one of the workshops I attended, talked about our tendency in this society to put ourselves in ‘boxes’ of like-minded individuals. As technology expands its reach, paradoxically we can become more and more isolated: our boxes get smaller and smaller, our ideological purity greater and greater, and consequently our problems become worse and worse. We have to look “outside the walls” of our own certainties and explore the concerns and aspirations of the other (less perfect?) persons, and negotiate, and compromise. We need to do this to survive.
The conference put me in constant proximity to many young people, children and college age and young post-college. These are the people who will make the future out of whatever mess we elders leave them. The image seared in my memory will be F. W. deKlerk connecting with those First Graders from Burroughs Elementary in Minneapolis on Education Day. They are our future. He knows. We know. My friend, Lynn Elling, near 91 years old, lives his passion that the future is the children. Not him. The children.
(click to enlarge photo)

F. W. deKlerk and Burroughs Elementary singers March 2, 2012 Augsburg College


I could go on and on.
Connect, connect, connect. Get out of your own self-imposed ‘box’, and get to work!
Previous posts on Augsburg Nobel Peace Price Festival: March 1, March 2, March 3, March 4

#529 – Dick Bernard: Day Three Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Augsburg College, Minneapolis. Global Issues

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

After reading my post on Day Two, a friend asked a perfectly reasonable question: “What is the takeway for you each year you attend this Forum?”
My answer: exhausted as I am, back home after the third and final full day of the Forum: I feel, as I’ve heard said in another context, “touched, moved and inspired” – an energized exhaustion. I’m ready to go another round, and when the next Forum convenes at Augsburg (March 7-9, 2013), I’ll be there, Lord willing.
I’ll likely do a fourth post in the next few days, attempting to summarize the many takeaways from this years Forum. These takeaways will all be simple: in short, I came to conclude, as I was driving home an hour or two ago, that the Forum’s official theme: “The Price of Peace”, is essentially an identical twin of the occasional play on the phrase that I heard the last three days: “The Prize of Peace”. They are tied to each other.
You can’t win the prize, without personally and individually paying the price. Peace is not a spectator sport, where you simply pay for admission and watch the action.
In many and diverse ways the assorted speakers and performers demonstrated these ‘twins’. But that’s for later.
As before, video of today’s major sessions, featuring F.W. deKlerk and Naomi Tutu (Desmond Tutu’s daughter), are archived here (see first two programs archived there).
A small photo album of my experience today is below.
I need to comment, briefly, on former S. Africa President F. W. deKlerk, this years honored Laureate.
I’m like most people: there’s far too much information, too many issues, and too little time to absorb more than a smidgen in particular areas or passions. In this manic 21st century, we all become ‘specialists’ in our own bias or interest. This causes intellectual shortcuts about everything else which result in generalizations that often are not fair or accurate.
I’ve been involved with Augsburg and the Peace Prize program for the last four years, and when I heard that F. W. deKlerk had been engaged as speaker for this years Forum, I wondered why.
Apartheid came to mind of course, and we’d seen Invictus (excellent), and most everybody knows about Nelson Mandela, and I wasn’t aware Mandela and deKlerk were co-laureates in 1993.
September 15, 2011, I wrote Forum Executive Director Dr. Reed a short memo: “I know F.W. deKlerk has been engaged for the 2012 Forum/Festival. This summer I had occasion to read Naomi Klein’s NYTimes Bestseller “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”. It might be good for you to take a look at Chapter 10 of that book pp 245-275. Its “Democracy Born in Chains: South Africa’s Constricted Freedom. The book, now a few years old, is widely read, and in many ways prophetic of our present day.”
Said book wasn’t especially kind to post-free election South Africa.
So, I had “[pre]judged the [deKlerk] book by its cover”.
Rushing to judgement is always a dangerous proposition.
Yesterday, President deKlerk made my day, as described in yesterday’s post, here. Here he was, a real human being sitting three feet or less from me, one of the most important persons I’ve ever been in proximity with, identifying with and obviously moved by those First Graders singing from the heart….
Last night we were one of those privileged to meet him in person, and have our photo taken with him. Lynn and Donna Elling were with us – we had our photo taken together – and I gave Mr. deKlerk my card which features the website, A Million Copies, which honors the immense contributions to peace of Mr. Elling and Prof. Joe Schwartzberg.
President deKlerk put the card in his pocket, and if I’m lucky he’ll take a look at the site sometime.
The two personal close calls with the human being deKlerk opened up a greatly enhanced listening space for me when I heard him speak this morning. His remarks on-line speak abundantly for themselves.
As for me, I’ve learned once again that important lesson: never pass up the opportunity for personal contact with someone you don’t think you’ll like. Maybe you might learn something…about yourself.
Thanks Nobel Institute, Augsburg College, and everyone who made this years Forum possible.
It was great.
Other summary learnings in a followup post. The previous posts are at March 1 and March 2.
Here are a few photos from today (click on photos to enlarge):

Nobel Laureate and former South Africa President F. W. deKlerk addresses the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, March 3, 2012


Heatherlyn (left) and John Noltner (right) teamed for a great session on music and peace, one story at a time. The room was packed.
John Noltner’s website, APeaceOfMyMind.net; note . Heatherlyn’s as well.

Geir Lundestad, Director of the Nobel Institute in Oslo, gave a fascinating and informative talk on the history of controversial Nobel Peace Prizes.


Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Institute here

LaJune Lang and Nadifa Osman led a packed workshop on The Price of Peace n the Horn of Africa


International Leadership Institute here (per Judge Lajune Lang); and Nadifa Osman

#528 – Dick Bernard: Day Two Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Augsburg College, Minneapolis. Education Day.

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Tonight on return from a long day at Forum events, I opened an e-mail from my retired friend and colleague John Borgen. In the e-mail was a link to this song sung by a young person with a spectacular voice, Jackie Evancho. Somehow, it fits like a glove the earlier part of the day, and transcends individual sectarian beliefs with a universal message from young people to us all.
*
The first part of today’s agenda was the traditional Nobel Peace Prize Festival for K-12 students, now folded into the new format of the Forum.
Kennedy Center at Augsburg College was crowded with school kids at 11 a.m. I had found a chair in the second row in front of the podium. To my left First Graders from Burroughs Elementary in Minneapolis were beginning their welcoming song. On the opposite side of the gym this years honoree, 1993 co-(with Nelson Mandela) Nobel Laureate F. W. de Klerk of South Africa, had arrived with no fanfare in a darkened auditorium.
The song had just begun and Mr. de Klerk walked briskly and inobtrusively toward the center of the room, and sat down directly in front of me, gazing intently at the children to his left. I couldn’t resist taking this photograph which, to me, speaks the proverbial thousand words (click to enlarge).

F. W. de Klerk at Augsburg College March 2, 2012


Burroughs Elementary First Graders, March 2, 2012


It was the beginning of another magnificent day. (The entire opening session, and all the other major sessions at the Forum are accessible on-line here. It is the opening session for Day 2, and is 32 minutes. It was announced by someone, yesterday, that people in 46 different countries had checked in on the on-line program at some time or other during the day. This is what the internet looks like!)
Mr. de Klerk was visibly moved by the kids performance. He commented on how those youngsters moved him in his remarks to the audience, primarily students, parents and their teachers.
As a fellow grandfather, I related.
I have been to previous Festivals, and heard other Nobel Laureates comment similarly.
Kids affect their elders this way. Regardless of ones fame, or ordinariness, almost all of us are aware that we are leaving a future to our kids, and it is coming to be their turn, and hopefully they’ll be kind to us, and hopefully they’ll remember what we left them fondly, and not bitterly….
Day Two is best observed through watching the previously mentioned video files archived on line. The thoughts of Andrew Slack of the Harry Potter Alliance; Joe Cavanaugh of Youth Frontiers; and noted rapper and writer Dessa, plus some some outstanding workshops filled out a marvelous day. Through the magic of still-youthful (born 2005) YouTube, you can easily find examples of Dessa’s music – just enter the name Dessa in the searchbox. (The Forum was the first I’d ever heard of her – she is a mightily impressive 30-year old.)
Though her remarks to the audience I was with were brief, she connected and she registered with me and with the audience. Arriving home in the evening, I tuned in the website, and Dessa was finishing her talk to a (probably) youthful, enthusiastic and attentive audience at the Forum’s evening session.
Listen to the keynotes on line if you can. If you can tune in on only one, I’d highly recommend Joe Cavanaugh of Youth Frontiers.
Hope for our future was with those kids and all of the speakers I saw and heard today.
I think it was Cavanaugh who compared the Millenials with the Greatest Generation: they are poised to do what needs to be done for our and the planets survival.
“Slow down”, he advised us all, remembering his father’s frequent admonishment to the youthful in-a-hurry kid, and reflecting the frantic pace and data overload of today.
Here’s a small album from today (click on any to enlarge):

Andrew Slack of Harry Potter Alliance, March 2, 2012


Student display area for exhibits on past Nobel Laureates March 2, 2012


Student group Exhibit at Peace Prize Forum March 2, 2012


Some of the enthusiastic and knowledgeable students exhibiting March 2, 2012


Two students with a powerful rendering of a poem about the bombing in Birmingham, 1963


Dessa


Joe Cavanaugh of Youth Frontiers


Parul Sheh, Humphrey Fellow and Youth Empowerment leader in India, speaks in one of the workshops March 2


Cowern School singers at closing ceremony of the Festival portion of the Forum March 2


Melvin Giles, "Mr. Peace Bubbles", presents a small Peace Pole to F. W. deKlerk at Education Day, Nobel Peace Prize Forum, March 2, 2012


Report on Day One here, and on Day Three, here.

#524 – Dick Bernard: Birthdays and Memories.

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

Today is one of those Birth Days in my family circle.
It is unusual in that there are three today: Oldest son, Tom; spouse, Cathy; daughter-in-law Robin all begin a new year in their respective histories. Tom was born less than three weeks after the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan ‘shew’, February 9, 1964. So here, thanks to YouTube, is their appearance on that show. (I wrote a comment.)
Happy birthday to all. (You can see a brief cameo appearance of Tom in a Denver television spot about his wife, Jennifers, popular eatery, Simply Sloppy Joe’s here. More here.)
To this list of Feb 26ers, I could add my grandfather Bernard, who, were he alive today would be 140 (he lived to a ripe old age of 85 before passing on in 1957. I was 17 when he died, and I have lots of memories of him.) Born in rural Quebec in 1872, he grew up in a different world than we live in. His to-be mother-in-law, Clotilde Blondeau, later Collette, had come to what is now suburban Minneapolis (Dayton MN) as a young girl in the early 1850s, long before there were roads and railroads, and before Minnesota became a state. Blondeau’s were here nearly a decade before the Civil War and the beginning of Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency.
Time passes on, and the best we can do is the best we can do.
Birthdays are one of the two things we have in common. The other, death, comes unannounced. There is a certain ‘menu’ selected: sudden, lingering, on and on. I’m old enough to remember lots of these, some very recent; most of those recent deaths younger than I am; a tragic one learned about just this week.) Every one reminds us of good times and bad; relationships fine or complicated…death is really for the living, in the end. That’s what obituaries and funerals and memorial services are all about.
Recently I had a pleasant and unexpected reunion with a classmate from high school days, Duane Zwinger of Carrington, ND. He popped in at my coffee place unannounced and we had a couple of great visits. His daughter and family live, it turned out, two short blocks from my birthday-girl daughter-in-law Robin, son-in-law David and grandson Ben. (Their proximity is a reminder that today the whole world is our ‘neighborhood’.)

Duane and Dick, February, 2012


He and I had reconnected in 2008, on the occasion of the anniversary of my 50th year out of high school in Sykeston ND. He’s a year younger, and we re-met at the towns all-school reunion. We’d last seen each other in college days. I hauled out the little high school yearbook, and we read, and laughed about, the prophecy for my class Sykeston Sr Hist 1958001(there were nine graduating seniors; a tenth left school and joined the Air Force mid-year. Two have died.)
At that town reunion, several of we family members slept in one of the top floor classrooms of the no longer used Sykeston High School. It was a school several of us had attended, and my Dad was Superintendent and Mom taught elementary there. It was a nostalgia time.
The last morning, I wandered the halls of the old place, and decided to take photos of the senior class photos still hanging on the wall of the school. This was before I knew there was such a thing as Facebook, and probably before Facebook had perfected the technology of on-line photo albums.
But that was then. A couple of days ago I entered all of those class pictures – they began in 1944; the school began in 1913 – on Facebook.
Here they are, over 60 years worth, of people born from about 1926 to 1957. (If you’re unfamiliar with Facebook albums, you can click on any photo, it will be enlarged and you can do a ‘slide show’ on screen. Note arrow at right side of photo, and click on it.)
Happy Birthday all!
And here’s the Sykeston School Song! Sykeston School Song002
Best wishes.

#521 – Dick Bernard: Redistricting (Redistricted) Minnesota

/0 Comments/in , /by

There will be endless political verbiage about the new Minnesota political map, released yesterday.
The implications depend on where you live, what your political leanings are, or who you like, politically. (In some places there will be an incumbent Republican (or Democrat) against another incumbent from the same political party.)
It will be a very interesting spring, summer and fall.
Here’s the first take I’ve seen, thanks to Twin Cities Daily Planet:
Minnesotans: Here’s how to find your new political district (maybe it stays the same, mine doesn’t): enter your address information in the search box, here.
A couple of commentaries, also from the Daily Planet, here: by Editor Mary Turck, and by Uptake editor Mike McIntee.
Now the politics begins, and politics is everyone, you, me. We are all “politics as usual”, whether we are heavily involved, or attempt to avoid the topic, or think politics (or politicians) stink….
Find out what your legislative and congressional district is, and get involved, very actively.
We are all accountable for the results come November.

#520 – Dick Bernard: A Million Copies

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

Sometimes, something is just too good to wait.
This morning I had the opportunity to re-union in St. Paul with Marion Brady.
Marion and I were long time members of a quality education e-list maintained by the National Education Association (NEA). We “met” on-line in the mid-1990s, and had only seen each other in person one time, when I stopped by his home literally across the river from Cape Canaveral in January, 2003.
Though it had a long run, the e-list passed on, as such lists do, but we continued to visit from time to time on-line.
Here’s we two today: Marion is the guy on the right (click to enlarge).

Dick Bernard, Marion Brady February 18, 2012, St. Paul MN


Our hosts, Wayne Jennings and Joan Sorenson, served a great breakfast, and we had a great conversation, one of those that makes time race by. Both Wayne and Joan were long-time innovative educators in Minnesota History of Ed Reform in MN. Wayne founded in 1987, and till 2000 owned, a Minnesota organization, Designs for Learning, long involved in facilitating institutional change in education.
We covered lots of ground in our time together.
Marion had been up to speak to a convention of an organization called MN Association of Alternative Programs. Wayne is ex-officio on the Board of MAAPMN.
I’ve been a fan of Marion’s work for many years. Though he’s retired far longer than I, he really never quit teaching and learning and writing. And his ideas make a great deal of sense. His on-line presence is here. He’s the absolute model of persistence – promoting his philosophy to whoever will listen, and achieving some success. He just keeps going, going and going….
For some years, Marion has written columns for the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet section. Ordinarily, he passes them along to me.
All of his columns for the Post, and many others, are accessible here.
It was a comment about one of those columns that caught my ear near the end of our visit.
I had mentioned the Answer Sheet, and he was telling me about a recent column he had written, December 5, 2011, that had gotten such an unbelievable response that the section editor had requested permission to interview the unnamed source to make sure that she wasn’t defending a piece of creative fiction.
Succinctly, Marion’s topic was what most would consider to be somewhat boring – testing of student proficiency.
This particular column, he was told, had gone viral, and there had been 1.1 million hits in the first 48 hours. Yes, a MILLION.
By now you’re curious, doubtless, so here is the specific column, with a link provided to the editors note about the results of her efforts to verify its contents.
For those of us who toil pretty anonymously in the vineyard of opinion, this column by Marion Brady is an object lesson in the value of persistence. Some day when you least expect it, you get noticed, and noticed, and noticed some more.
Of course, you don’t win the race unless you show up and run in it, but it happens more often than we imagine.
Earlier we had gotten around to talking about a landmark settlement achieved by a largely unknown group of women called the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL) in the late 1970s.
Joan and I discovered we had both worked with what was called the Minnesota “WEAL Agreement” (WEAL Agree MN Nov 77001 )which has had a long term huge impact on practices to hire women as school administrators and social studies teachers in Minnesota public schools.
The agreement was an attempt to implement Title IX – affirmative action for women – in public education. A shero in common was Margaret Holden, then local president of WEAL.
What is common today was a very, very hard slog back then.
Joan mentioned the famous Margaret Mead quotation about the impact of small numbers of people: “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
I had just given them my card, which refers to that quote at the top of my website page, and suggested they take a look there, AMillionCopies.info, where that very quotation has been sitting quietly for the last four years – just waiting for today.
Congratulations, Marion, and Joan, and Wayne, and all who plug along.

Dr. Wayne Jennings, Joan Sorenson, Marion Brady February 18, 2012


“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

#518 – Dick Bernard: The Ask.

/0 Comments/in , , /by

A day or so ago I answered the phone and a little-person voice announced herself as “Susie”.
Susie? I thought it was a misdial. Then her mother came on, and I learned that I was talking to granddaughter Lucy, all irrepressible five years of her.
Her sisters, Girl Scouts, had convinced her to call us to alert us to Girl Scout cookie time. As I type this blog, their Mom is on the way to our house with the goods, just in time for Mardi Gras.
Earlier today, I stopped at Lucy’s aunts school. We were comparing notes. Joni said that she’d recently seen Lucy, and the first words out of her mouth were “how many boxes?”
Ah, salesmanship, and marketing….
It all reminded me of an occasion a year ago when I was part of a small group meeting with a top executive at a major company to cadge a donation for the Nobel Peace Prize Festival (now Forum) at Augsburg. The last member of our group, a nationally known figure, came into the lobby, and his first statement was, “what’s the ask?” What did we want from this appointment? He knew the trade.
Yes, we made the sale that day. It helps to have people along who know how selling goes….
I never was in the sales profession, but I admire good salespeople, and from time to time I pick up useful tips, like “what’s the ask?”
The guy who called the meeting that day was my friend Lynn Elling, then 90, who is a retired and successful salesman (financial products, Lincoln Life).
Recently he and I were visiting and he felt inclined to describe the sales process, simplified. He said (and this is useful for any of us selling anything), that the rule of thumb was that it takes three calls to get an appointment, and three appointments to get a sale. Most of us don’t have the stamina to jump through those hoops.
Then he described the Sales Pyramid, which is very simple, really: 1) you must know something (“credential”); 2) you must disturb the client; 3) then you propose a solution; and 4) you close the sale.
Oh so simple.

Noting Lynn Elling's reminisences of selling...Jan. 2012


I thought back to other little ditties relating to selling: to get a sale you must sell the product “7 times in 7 ways”; if you want a successful event, remember three F’s: Food, Fun, Family.
A survival skill for me in my early career was to internalize “patience and persistence pays”.
And as we all know from experience, a good “sale” is one where both the salesperson and the customer win, and months later the customer is glad he or she ‘bit’. We all know what that looks like.
Not so cool is when the objective requires that one side win, and the other lose…(very much like contemporary politics).
Of course, all of the strategies, even the good ones, don’t always work.
Recently a retired minister friend recalled a pitch someone had made to magnate Curt Carlson. His colleague was very nervous, and couldn’t get to the point. Mr. Carlson intervened, and coached the minister along.
The pitch was made, and Mr. Carlson responded, “I decline….”
Good luck Girl Scouts.
Oh yes. We’re now the owners of ten boxes….
UPDATE April 22, 2012: Recently I was visiting my friend, Lynn Elling (see above), and he had by his side the autobiography of CNN founder and mogul Ted Turner. In the book, Call Me Ted, Lynn said that Turner’s mantra for success was very simple:
“Early to bed,
Early to rise,
Work like hell,
and Advertise.”
Makes sense to me.

Lynn Elling, World War II and Korea Veteran, Businessman, World Citizen

/0 Comments/in , , /by

NOTE: This post originated in November, 2007, titled LYNN ELLING: A MILLION COPIES MADE: Visioning a New Declaration of World Citizenship, by Dick Bernard.  Originally published Nov. 5, 2007 at Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, of which Dick Bernard was then President, slightly revised February 3, 2011, and December 3, 2012, and has been updated by addition several times, most recently Nov. 22, 2020.  Mr. Elling died in Minneapolis MN, February 14, 2016.  

*
I don’t know why Ed McCurdy chose the line “a million copies made” for his circa 1950 peace anthem, “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”.
Nor do I know why John Denver especially liked that song (a 1971 rendition performed by him on the U.S. Capitol steps is still available on YouTube.)
All I know is that I heard Lynn Elling lead us in singing that song back in the spring of 2007; and that the lyric “A million copies made” has stuck with me.
Who is this Lynn Elling?
And what does he have to do with peace and justice?
Plenty.
As a young LST (Landing Ship Tank #172) officer in WWII, Lynn Elling saw the horrors of War closeup in the South Pacific, at places like Tarawa. The history of LST 172 is here: Lynn Elling LST 172001,
Later he was recalled to service, and served in the Korean conflict, also on an LST.

Lynn Elling on USS LST 172 in the Pacific, 1944

Born in 1921 and a life long Minnesotan, after WWII Elling entered the insurance and financial planning business with Lincoln Life, becoming very successful in the profession. But early in his post-war career, he was discouraged and almost quit. Selling is very hard work. At a critical point in his early professional life, 1947, a workshop leader, Maxwell Maltz (Psycho Cybernetics) unlocked the door to Lynn’s future success. Maltz taught that if one could visualize a goal in technicolor, 3-dimension and stereophonic sound, the goal could be achieved. Elling listened, and followed Maltz’s advice, and it worked.
But Elling never forgot what he’d seen and experienced on that LST in the south Pacific in WWII.
Assorted experiences after WWII, including the service in the Korean conflict and visiting Hiroshima in 1954 and again in 1963, and opportunities to meet with and get to know people like Thor Heyerdahl (Kon Tiki), Norman Cousins, and many others, led to Lynn’s life long passion to build a culture of Peace and World Citizenship. Through leaders like MN Gov. Wendell R. Anderson, and mentors like Minneapolis business executive Stanley Platt, his wife Martha Platt, former Minnesota Governor Elmer L. Andersen and others, Elling was encouraged in his efforts.
His enduring monument is World Citizen, Inc.. World Citizen is a long-time member of Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP).
In the Fall of 1967, Stanley Platt and Lynn worked with then-Minneapolis Mayor Arthur Naftalin on a Declaration of World Citizenship, patterned on a then rapidly expanding program called “Mundialization” of cities particularly in Japan, France and Canada. Mayor Naftalin took the lead on the initiative, and on March 5, 1968, Minneapolis City Council and Hennepin County Board of Commissioners approved the resolution and the Declaration was signed by numerous parties. Here is a photo of a copy of the 1968 Declaration:

This was the first such declaration by a United States City. Signers of the Declaration and twenty-eight mayors from area communities attended the public declaration on Law Day, May 1, 1968.
Signers of the Declaration were: Chair, Henn. Co Board of Commissioners Robert Janes; Mayor of Minneapolis Arthur Naftalin; President Minneapolis City Council Daniel Cohen; Gov. Harold Levander; Oscar Knutson, Chief Justice Minnesota Supreme Court; Eli Kahn, President Minnesota Rabbinical Association; Congressman Don Fraser; Chairs of Minnesota Republican and DFL parties, George Thiss and Warren Spannaus; Aux. Bishop of Catholic Archdiocese James Shannon; Irene Janski, President of MN League of Women Voters; President MN United World Federalists, Sidney Feinberg, Minnesota State Bar Assoc; Harold Greenwood Jr, United Nations Association of Minnesota.
Former MN Governor Elmer L. Andersen spoke at the ceremony that day, very proud that the occasion marked “the first flying of the United Nations flag by Minneapolis and Hennepin County, [and] the first such declaration and UN flag flying by any major community in the United States. Thus this becomes a deeply significant occasion in our nation’s history. It represents a commitment to cooperation among nations for world peace, to belief in the common brotherhood of all men of all nations, and to aspirations for a world community of peace, freedom and justice under world law.“
In the same speech, he said “that we must look upon all the peoples of the world as one community, and we must find a way to operate under a body of world law to preserve peace.” (quotes from pages 151-52 of I Trust to be Believed, significant speeches by Elmer L. Andersen edited by Lori Sturdevant 2004). Text: Elmer Andersen I Trust..001

Elmer L. Andersen speech, City Hall, Minneapolis, May 1, 1968. Photo by Donna Elling

Gov. Elmer L. Andersen (center left) with Minneapolis Mayor Arthur Naftalin, May 1, 1968, Minneapolis City Hall. Photo by Donna Elling.

Lynn Elling speaks at May 1, 1968, ceremony at Minneapolis City Hall. In foreground, holding the Declaration, is Warren Spannaus, then Chair of the Minnesota DFL party, later Attorney General. Phot by Donna Elling.

Lynn’s passion for peace continued with another remarkable achievement in the spring of 1971 when 26 prominent leaders, including all notable Minnesota Republicans and Democrats, and then-UN Secretary General U Thant, signed a declaration of World Citizenship whose major proviso recognized “the sovereign right of our citizens to declare that their citizenship responsibilities extend beyond our state and nation. We hereby join with other concerned people of the world in a declaration that we share in this world responsibility and that our citizens are in this sense citizens of the world. We pledge our efforts as world citizens to the establishment of permanent peace based on just world law and to the use of world resources in the service of man and not for his destruction.”
Coming as it did during the darkest times of the Vietnam War, the 1971 bi-partisan Declaration is remarkable. Similar declarations were entered into in several other states and many communities.
See amillioncopies.info for more information about the entire declaration, which includes the signatures of all its very prominent signers.
In 1971, the Vietnam War raged on. It was difficult for most Americans to visualize an end to the deadly conflict. For those old enough to remember, the late 1960s and early 1970s was a time of deep division in this country. American youth were dying by the thousands in southeast Asia, as were millions of fellow world citizens in southeast Asian countries.

Here’s a Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial about the 1971 Minnesota Declaration:

Also accessible at the website is [the Elling led] 1972 film, “Man’s Next Giant Leap”, featuring John Denver and many then-notable Minnesota leaders, whose sole purpose was Peace Education for children and adults.
In 1972, Lynn and others founded World Citizen, Inc; in 1988, Peace Sites became integral to World Citizen. Peace Poles have been publicized by World Citizen for many years.
In 1996 Lynn Elling co-founded the Nobel Peace Prize Festival, later part of Nobel Peace Prize Forum, at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. The programs continued until 2018.
As so often happens, after a flurry of attention, the remarkable 1971 declaration literally ended up in a closet, its immense significance unnoticed by later generations.
Lynn Elling never forgot the 1971 declaration and in the spring of 2007 put it back on the table.
Today, of course, we are confronted by circumstances even more compelling and troubling than visited the U.S. and the world in 1971.
Today war is almost an abstract reality for many of us, something that seems to have no apparent negative consequences for us, mostly affecting people we’ll never see face-to-face, with fewer of ‘our own’ dying in places far away, no military draft facing young people, our war financed on a national credit card for our grandchildren to pay.
In a real sense we are playing a deadly video game. Additionally, we are beset with other potentially calamitous problems ignored at our peril. No longer can we pretend that our problems are confined to some other place far away, or even controllable by our own will. We are vulnerable in a way that we do not want to understand.
There has never been a greater need for world citizenship than there is today.
When Lynn secured his last signature on the 1971 declaration, achieving mastery in the space race was still a priority. Today, our very survival as human beings is rooted on what is happening on our own planet in all ways: human relationships, resource depletion, increasing inequities between peoples, climate change…the list goes on and on. Today’s priority must be right here on the sphere we call home – the earth. We are part of the global community; isolation and domination are no longer options.
Lynn Elling deserves immense credit and admiration for not only his accomplishment in 1971, but for reigniting the issue for today’s world.
Thanks, Lynn, for all you’ve done.
To all of you, stay tuned as we “retool and refuel” Lynn’s dream and take it, as he likes to say, “to the stratosphere”.

Lynn Elling World Service Authority Passport Photo 1975

Lynn Elling World Service Authority Passport Photo 1975

UPDATE, May 7, 2016:
LYNN ELLING, Minneapolis MN, died February 14, 2016, a few days short of 95 years of age. You can read his obituary here. A followup feature obit was published in the Minneapolis paper on February 25, 2016, can be read here. See also Celebration May 1 2016001 of his life on May 1, 2016.
Mr. Elling was a giant for peace. My personal attempts to summarize his life can be read below. My knowledge of his work, very minimal at first, expanded with virtually every visit during the 9 years I was privileged to know him.
He was a remarkable missionary for Peace, born of his experience during and following World War II. (More here: Lynn U.S. Navy001)
On May 14, 2014, as part of an archival project focusing on Peace Elders in Minnesota, Ehtasham Anwar and Suhail Ahmed, both of Pakistan, did a 57 minute video of Mr. Elling recalling his years as a peace activist.
The unedited film can be viewed in its entiretyat AMillionCopies.info.  The occasional voices in the background are Ehtasham (doing the interview) and Dick Bernard.
My comment about the interview, as it appears at the YouTube site, is: “Mr. Elling was 93 at the time of this interview in Minneapolis, MN May 14, 2014. I was privileged to be part of the interview planning and process, and from time to time I’ll interject a comment or question in this film. The interviewer is Ehtasham Anwar, then a Fulbright/Humphrey Fellow at the University of Minnesota Law School Human Rights Center. This interview was part of a project to interview ten elders in the peace movement. Mr. Elling’s was the second interview in the series, which was completed in mid-June, 2014. This video is unedited – it is essentially raw video – thus no effort has been made to correct content. I knew Mr. Elling for seven years before this interview. His memory as shared in this video was basically very sound, based on my own knowledge of his work, and past events. Any errors can be excused. He was a man who “walked the talk” for his passion of peace. He died February 14, 2016, days short of his 95th birthday. He was promoting peace until his death.”
Mr. Elling identified particularly with several organizations which still exist in the Twin Cities:
* World Federalists, now Citizens for Global Solutions MN.
* United Nations Association. It was during his time with UNA that he produced the film “Man’s Next Giant Leap” in 1972. The film, which can be viewed here, features singer John Denver and many Twin Cities civic and community leaders.
Mr. Elling served at one time as President of both of the above local organizations.
* World Citizen, was an organization he founded in 1972, and in which he was active until his death. I would say World Citizen was always the organization of which he was most proud.
* He was one of the Charter Members of Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, founded 1995-96.
* In 1996, Lynn co-founded the Nobel Peace Prize Festival an annual event for years, and later was merged with the Nobel Peace Prize Forum.  He participated in these events until his final years.
* Mr. Elling was a Founding Member of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. He was been nominated for that organizations annual Peace Prize for 2016. The application letter is here: Lynn Elling nom Apr 2016001
* annually, Mr. Elling participated in the re-dedication of Jefferson High School in Bloomington MN as a Peace Site, and indeed at other places. His passion for peace sites was avid, from the time he first learned of the concept in 1982.
* Concordia Language Villages at Bemidji, at which he dedicated as a peace site in 1996, and annually participated in a rededication of that most impressive peace site.
* As a Naval officer in WWII who saw the horrors of war, Mr. Elling would share the ideals and aspirations of the Veterans for Peace.
* perhaps more than anyone else, Mr. Elling was instrumental in the flying of the United Nations flag at what is now the Hennepin County Government Center, May 1, 1968. The flag flew there, next to the United States flag, until March 27, 2012. Here is what Lynn wrote about the history of the flag in May, 1968: May 1 1968 UN Flag Mpls001.  Much more about this issue can be read here.
He is at Peace. His mission must continue.
Dick Bernard
dick.bernard@icloud.com
May 16, 2016
* * * * *
UPDATE December 11, 2013: Personal statement: Dick Bernard.
I initiated A Million Copies website in March, 2008. At the time, I had known Mr. Elling for only nine months. As time passes, he continues as a most remarkable and committed seeker of Peace in our world. For the interested reader, place the words Lynn Elling in the search box of this blog, and you will find many other posts which refer to him in one way or another. He walks the talk for Peace. I’m honored to know him. Here is a recent summary of his experience/work for peace over the last 80 years: Lynn Elling Timeline 1943-2013. The most recent post which relates specifically to Mr. Elling is about the U.S. Declaration of World Citizenship signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. You can read it here.
UPDATE June 20, 2012: Lynn’s spouse of 68 years, Donna Elling, passed away June 1, 2012. Here is a blog post about Donna and Lynn and their family, first posted on the day of her Memorial Service June 13, 2012.
UPDATE January 4, 2013: During the fall and early winter of 2012, I found more information particularly about the Minneapolis/Hennepin County Declaration of World Citizenship March 5, 1968. That information has been added to this post, including some photos of the May 1, 1968, dedication ceremony taken by Donna Elling.
I met Lynn Elling in June, 2007. In November of that year I wrote the below commentary for Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (original here), and in March, 2008, I rolled out the Million Copies website tribute to Lynn Elling and Professor Joe Schwartzberg, which remains essentially identical to when it was first published.
Both Mr. Elling and Dr. Schwartzberg remain with us, and both remain very, very active in their respective passions.
This seems to be a good time to update the original commentary about Lynn. (Changes to original text are minimal. The photographs are new additions.)
March 1-3, 2012 inaugurates the new Augsburg Nobel Peace Prize Forum, incorporating the long existing Nobel Peace Prize Festival, also at Augsburg, in which Lynn had a major co-founding role, and through the years has been a remaining powerful and crucial presence as both worker and fund-raiser for this major event.
Lynn and his spouse, Donna, still live in south Minneapolis. They celebrated 68 years of marriage last fall. Below are photos taken September 22, 2011, at their home; and in February, 1972.
(click on all photos to enlarge them)

Lynn and Donna Elling September 22, 2011

Lynn and Donna Elling World Service Authority Passport photo February 7, 1972

Lynn and Donna Elling World Service Authority Passport photo February 7, 1972

Lynn remains very active in working for an enduring peace, particularly with children’s programs such as Peace Sites, also here, and listing here: World Citiz Peace Sites001. And Peace Education.
Donna and Lynn, congratulations and best wishes to you both.
UPDATE April 17, 2013: Here is an abbreviated timeline of Lynn Elling’s efforts for World Peace: Lynn Elling Timeline001 It is much abbreviated.
*

Memorial Day 2013, Lynn Elling with family at their Lake Cabin, celebrate Donna's life and inter her ashes at the base of a favored tree.

Memorial Day 2013, Lynn Elling with family at their Lake Cabin, celebrate Donna’s life and inter her ashes at the base of a favored tree.

#504 – Dick Bernard: Church, State, the Stadium, and We, the People

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

This morning, as usual on Sunday, I went to 9:30 Mass at Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis.
Not as usual, I entered through the door directly beneath the west bell tower. I noticed a new marble step there. That door has been blocked off by yellow police tape for a long time – most of a year – because a 300 pound piece of the 100 year old structure had fallen off the facing of the bell tower sometime during the night many months ago. It had damaged that particular step. It could have been a catastrophe had people been entering the church at the time.
Back home I read the front page article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the news-making conflict between Basilica, city, state and the Minnesota Vikings over the possibility of a new stadium whose property would begin a football field length away from the north end of Basilica property. You can read all about the conflict here. The Basilica is enlisting we parishioners to come to its defense – that’s how Power works.
The story is a good old-fashioned clash of the titans. I’m very loyal to the Basilica, active but disgruntled Catholic for a number of reasons, not a sports fan, but not particularly upset about the prospect of a new stadium for the Vikings somewhere – though I don’t see it as needed, etc., and the so-called Linden Hills site makes little sense. I’ve raised my objections but I see a new stadium as inevitable.
But the elements of this particular story got me to thinking about another aspect of this kind of conflict between powers-that-be…and those with seemingly less power.
I keep thinking back to 1965, the year I arrived in the Twin Cities. It was my most difficult year, ever. My wife was dying at University Hospital and I was broke in a strange town, living briefly with her relatives in south Minneapolis, then in a rooming house not far from the University, and later working at the then-Lincoln Del in St. Louis Park to survive.
If my memory has not failed me, some time that summer I watched the demolition of houses in the path of soon to be Interstate 35-W going south from downtown Minneapolis. This was a “clear cut” project through people’s houses. This is how it happened everywhere as this system we now take for granted was being constructed in the late 1950s and 1960s.
The easiest neighborhoods to cut through were the poorer ones – no effective resistance. And the routes were constructed so as to be most convenient to those more well-off and powerful….
Later, in 1968 I believe it was, The Lowry Tunnel at Lyndale and Hennepin was constructed to facilitate traffic north on Interstate 94, literally across the street from this same Basilica of St. Mary.
The Basilica was spared, but not the neighborhood, but the incessant traffic has done its damage to the Basilica and is at least part of the cause-and-effect of that 300 pound piece of stone falling off its face….
Now its the Vikings who demand something new and extravagant, and will likely get it after the Republicans decide how to position themselves to be in opposition; then claim credit, but blame the Democrat Governor Mark Dayton for the resulting mess. It’s just how it is.
Personally, I’ve done my part as a citizen, written my letters, gone on record with the people who represent me.
If there is to be a stadium, it ought to be the Metrodome, which came in under budget and on-time when it was constructed about 1980 and is a perfectly situated place.
If, stupidly, we’re going to build a new and unneeded stadium, we ought to have the guts to pay for it through taxes, rather than more gambling, the most destructive tax of all.
But this is a fascinating look at how power works, and if those ‘power to the people’ folks are going to exercise their power, they ought to be learning some lessons from this to begin shifting attitudes.

Related, here’s a personal discussion about POWER, here (scroll down).

Some of the kinds of "power" which can be wielded by people. There are many more, at play in the stadium location conflict.