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

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

#418 – Dick Bernard: Watching President Obama

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Related posts here and here.
Monday I hoped to see Air Force One approach and land at Twin Cities International Airport. I got a late start, and missed any opportunity I may have had.
About 11:30 I went by the airport enroute to visit a friend of mine in a Twin Cities Nursing Home. When I got to Greg’s room, he was watching the President in Cannon Falls MN, and he and I watched the hour together. It was a special time.

President Obama at Cannon Falls MN August 15, 2011, thanks to Nancy Adams


Greg and I watched as the President talked about “Obamacare” (a term the President said he’s proud to own), and dealt effectively with the recent news that an Appeals Court had ruled that a federal requirement for people to pay for insurance they don’t want violates individual constitutional rights.
Greg may have had something to say about that topic, though we didn’t talk about it.
Greg and I volunteer together, so I don’t see him that often. I knew he’d been ill, but I thought he was getting better. He’s five years younger than I.
At church on Sunday I asked Greg’s son how his Dad was doing, and it was then I learned he was in the Nursing Home. It was a shock.
It turned out that Greg had been hospitalized with a treatable illness in May, and one thing led to another, and another, and another. Three months he’d been out of commission, and when I was visiting with him, he was again beginning to feel better, though he’d been bedridden so long that walking was a problem. He’d probably not return to be an usher captain – the position in which I knew him.
He and I didn’t need to talk about ‘opt out’ of mandatory medical insurance. We didn’t have to. He was living the reality that escapes others who think they can plan their illnesses.
As it happened, the last few days I’ve been surrounded by other random acts of disaster: Two days before the President arrived, my sister, properly crossing a street in New York City, was hit by a car which backed into her (it is an odd story). As I write, she’s awaiting surgery in a New York City hospital and in the long run should be okay.
Monday, a friend wrote about his wife, not yet 50, who ended up in emergency intensive care in a Rochester MN hospital due to kidney failure. She didn’t plan that.
And last night came a call from my Uncle that his 91 year old sister, my Aunt, had fallen in their apartment and had an emergency trip by ambulance to a rural North Dakota hospital. Luckily, she only cracked her collar bone. It could have been much worse.
So it goes when you’re in a position like the President of the United States (who I feel is doing an outstanding job under incredible obstacles).
Whether left or right, every opinion seems to be non-negotiable, and often completely opposite.
The House of Representatives (more on them in tomorrows post) is the only government entity that can provide funding to help increase employment, but will do nothing that can be perceived as a victory for the President.
People, including those who voted for him, seem to think their vote gave them the ability to order him around to their point of view.
It is “we, the people” who will make or break this country of ours.
I am not very optimistic that we have the vision and the ability to work together for positive change.
UPDATE August 21: A good friend commented on this yesterday. Comments and response included with his permission.
David Harris: Thanks for your continuing contributions, I enjoyed the recent blogs, even though I disagree that Obama is doing an outstanding job. I think it’s past time that he stopped compromising. I’m hoping he will have something of an epiphany on the fundamental nature of jobs and housing rather than attempting to boost the economy indirectly via programs that support banks and large corporations. I hope his actions are not based on concerns about being reelected. A lot of people pinned their hopes on him, and he is letting them down. In no way am I attempting to blame him for the incredibly obstructionist and short sighted actions of the Republicans, but I think he has been too focused on “top down” changes. Also, I’m very disappointed in his continued support of war as an instrument of policy.
Dick, in response: I doubt you and I will ever reach consensus on this, but here’s my position.
I think Obama has faced huge obstacles that few of us really appreciate. He needs to govern from the center, all the while beating off, in some fashion or other, the jackals that pass for the Republicans in Congress and Senate and State Houses. The politics is worse than I have ever experienced in my life, and I think he needs to be given a great deal of credit for accomplishing the great amount that he has.

#407 – Dick Bernard: 12 days till U.S. Default on our debt. How terminally stupid can we be?

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Please see NOTE at end of this post.

I have discovered as I trudge along this path of attempting political conversation that political conversation is virtually impossible, to be avoided like the plague.
People are stuck in believing what they want to believe, and nothing will shake them out of even looking at their individual notion of reality.
This tendency applies, unfortunately, to both left and right, though it is the far right that dominates the media.
Our collective attitude seems similar to what would happen if I ran into the middle of rush hour traffic this morning, steadfast in my reality that I am not going to be killed by some motorist who doesn’t notice that I’m there.
I can believe it is not going to happen, but the odds are overwhelmingly against me.
I will be as dead as the average roadkill.
Yesterday, the Minnesota legislature agreed to end the government shutdown. I thought the final compromise to be reasonable and necessary, and said so. Not settling would just continue the insanity on into the distant future. The composite bills were signed by the Governor. Here’s the newspaper report on the settlement.
The legislative leadership could have done the requisite bargaining back in May or even long before – the Governor signalled from the beginning of the session in January his willingness to compromise. He had numerous official compromise positions on the table, including an offer to mediation to help settle differences between the parties. To my knowledge the opposition stayed entrenched. They had some point to prove, which has now gone unproven (except protecting the wealthiest Minnesotans from a small amount more taxes.)
A key element of the Minnesota settlement is borrowing more money. A new crisis is guaranteed next legislative session.
(In the wings is an unsettled and very controversial proposal to get in the business of building a new professional football stadium. It is a demand of the Minnesota Vikings, backed by a threat that they’ll pack up and move away when their stadium lease expires in a year. That will not be a pleasant debate either. Prediction: the Vikings will get their stadium.)
Predictably, in the wake of the settlement both sides are righteously angry.
We have brought this on ourselves, of course. In our collective stupidity, we elected a Democratic Governor with lots of government experience and a clearly stated set of priorities, and a new Republican legislature dominated by people plenty of whom have never held state office before who had this or that score to settle and were diametrically opposed to the same Governor we had just elected on the same ballot.
It is as if the newbies could race into town, put their pet initiative on the floor, and get it passed in their first six months on the job.
They – We? – believed this nonsense.
So did the Republicans in Wisconsin, who believed that they could re-engineer government in the first few weeks they were in control of all branches of government.
We Minnesotans now have to watch the insane Wisconsin campaign ads on TV as the Recall election campaigns take place, including one a dozen miles from where I type this note. There is nothing smart about recall elections; there is also no particular option to recall other than to roll over and give up if a majority side believes it can steamroller the minority into permanent irrelevancy.
But the issue, now, is not what is happening in Wisconsin, or in Minnesota, but what is happening in Washington D.C.
There is a long but useful summary of what is happening in D.C. accessible here, and I hope you take the time to actually read it through.
The short summary as I see it:
1) the hated national debt is the difference between what the Congress chooses to spend, and what it chooses to pay (tax) for the debts it freely incurs. Only the House of Representatives can initiate spending bills. For almost all of the years since 1994, that House of Representatives has been Republican and it has run up huge debt, for which it now chooses to blame the Democrats, especially President Obama. An incredibly expensive (and stupid) war was “paid” off budget in the eight years post-9-11; Afghanistan is a tragic leftover of 9-11. For a while we lived in a time of false prosperity, on the national credit card. False prosperity is very satisfying, till the debt collector comes calling. Till now, the debt ceiling was simply and routinely raised.
2) A majority of the House of Representatives is unwilling to publicly acknowledge the reality in #1 above, and is holding everyone else hostage. And blaming an enemy – people like me – for the problems it freely created.
3) We Americans elected these people, who are ill-serving us. Polls routinely show that we despise Congress collectively. For some odd reason, we still elect the individuals who comprise Congress, and hold them in higher esteem. Our Congressperson is not like the others, apparently.
Maybe we’ll default on August 2, and the sun will rise, the birds sing, and the weather be pleasant on August 3 and on into the fall and winter.
Maybe not….
NOTE: July 22 there will be a post at this space; then ‘radio silence’ until at least July 31 due to vacation and computer repair. My personal ‘tradition’ is that the computer, e-mail and all, does not follow me away from home. All best wherever you are.

#406 – Dick Bernard: Day 20 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 13 days till Default in Washington. Making Legislative Sausage in the dark or in the daylight?

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UPDATE: The ink was not even dry on this post when it was announced that the Special Session was concluded. Later update with the information about who voted how. The Governor has signed the bill into law, and the transition back to work is beginning. This story will continue.
Tuesday I predicted a special session convening on Thursday. A few hours later, the Special Session of the Minnesota convened, and apparently is in progress as I write in the very early a.m. of Wednesday, July 20.
Such is how predictions tend to fare.
There has been the predictable kinds of news about the compromise to open the doors of government. There is much almost Biblical “weeping and gnashing of teeth” from both ideological sides in Minnesota: who “won” or “lost”, and what it is they actually won or lost. Weeping about what legislative must-haves were left out of the omnibus bill to be voted on, without amendments.
Posturing abounds, except at the very highest leadership levels – the folks who knew something needed to get done, imperfect as it is.
Such is probably the only reasonable outcome this ’round’ from the insane polarization that has become Minnesota politics.
The same process is well under way in Washington, only worse. Even there, the rhetorical quiver is about empty of arrows; the adults in the room know that something has to be done, and that their political enemy needs to save face.
Perhaps we, the people, will learn something, finally, about the costs of polarization. I can hope, though it’s a long shot.
Of the many interesting questions raised in the last few days is the question of process: do the acknowledged behind-closed-door meetings to hammer out a deal violate at minimum the spirit of the open-meeting laws?
Personally, I think that the only way this particular conflict could settle was the way it was: getting people of unlike minds together without interference from this special interest or that.
I strongly support open meetings, but there is a time and a place….
Closed meetings of public bodies are still common, and they are essential.
Recently I blogged about watching the July 5 meeting of the Dubuque IA City Council on television. The end of the program, and the Minutes of the meeting, indicated that the Council was going into closed session per Iowa law. I don’t know what they were discussing there in the ‘dark’. It could have been a personnel matter, or some pending legal issue. The Law acknowledged that they could do that. Likely the resulting vote, if any was taken, would have to be public. The discussion could be private.
Even more recently, the question of open meeting was raised here in my own tiny Homeowners Association Community. My spouse is “mayor” (Association President) of this town of 96 dwellings (she is tired of the job, but has done outstanding work over the years, in my opinion).
Recently the Association has been attempting to conclude a protracted and major legal dispute over a contracting issue, and came to the point of ‘fish-or-cut-bait’: to settle on a certain amount or continue on to court.
An offer was made, and the Association Board met privately about particulars before informing the residents.
Could there be a closed meeting on this issue affecting the entire community?
Yes, said the high-priced lawyer from the Downtown Canyons of Minneapolis who represents our Association. He cited the appropriate chapter and verse of Minnesota Statutes.
There is a time and a place for everything and, unfortunately for the advocates of totally open government, the settlement phase of a rancorous dispute is not reasonably in the public square through dueling opinions.
(I still won’t predict the specific ultimate outcome of the vote at the Minnesota Legislature – who votes how – but I will predict that the “yes” vote may well exceed 75%, even though such a vote of near unanimity is all but impossible to achieve. Stay tuned.
I make no predictions about the even more ridiculous and rancorous situation in Washington, especially in the U. S. House of Representatives.)

#403 – Dick Bernard: Day 15 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 20 days before Default Day in Washington. A Tentative Agreement

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A few hours ago Minnesota’s Governor Mark Dayton, and the leaders of the Republican House and Senate reached a tentative agreement on bringing Minnesota back from Shutdown. Predictably, as is always true in these situations, there is a great plenty of glumness, and anger. Here’s how it was described in the independent MinnPost on-line newspaper.
Now comes the tension of actually getting a deal done: passed by the House and Senate and signed by the Governor. It ain’t over till its over.
Art IV Sec. 12 of the Minnesota Constitution seems to be the crucial rule now in play: “A special session of the legislature may be called by the governor on extraordinary occasions.” The governor, and only the governor, can call the special session. The Legislature had 120 legislative days (the constitutional maximum) to reach an agreement that would be acceptable to the Governor. They chose unilateralism.
Games can obviously played in a special session, but those who play such games will have hell to pay from the electorate in a years time. The spotlight now shines on every single legislator.
Those of us who have ever been in difficult negotiations – I have – have “been there, done that” with what faced the Governor and House and Senate leaders after 13 days of Minnesota Government Shutdown.
The parties in the room do not have the luxury of second-guessing or arm-chair quarterbacking or winning total victory over the enemy. They are forced to face reality.
There is something of a rule of thumb in such situations: a good settlement is one that nobody likes. So the partisans on both sides are bemoaning this still tentative deal for diverse and opposing reasons.
Personally, I hope the deal gets passed. The longer this crisis goes on, the worse it will get, and the more difficult it will be to settle.
I did not initially support Mark Dayton when he ran for Governor in 2010. I preferred the endorsed candidate of the DFL party. But I will now say with absolutely no equivocation that Governor Dayton is proving himself to be an outstanding Governor.
I am not as impressed with we citizens. “We, the people” freely elected that this mess would happen in the way we voted (or did not vote at all*) in 2010. In effect, we chose this deal we do not like, and likely will not like, by electing who we did. We chose this craziness at both state and national levels. We citizens need to take a very hard look at ourselves, individually and collectively.
The new and often radical Republicans who ran and won in MN in 2010, often by infinitesimal margins, now have established a record in their votes in their first legislative session. (The special session doesn’t count, in my opinion). Now they will need to answer for what they did, not what they promised in campaign ads when running for office.
* – Citizens not voting at all, or voting in ignorance of possible consequences, is the big story of the 2010 elections, in my opinion. We’re paying the price for our collective laziness.
Just for comparison, here’s the vote for MN Governor in 2010, and the vote for President in 2008, both from the MN Secretary of State. They speak for themselves: Governor 2010; President 2008. Estimated total voters in 2008 were 2, 920,214; Registered voters as of May 2, 2011, were 3,099,862.
(Here at Outside the Walls are numerous other posts about the Shutdown, and Default. They begin at June 23 on this site. Behind every high-lited calendar date is a post. Hover your cursor over each date to see the topic of the day. This series will continue till at least August 2.)

#401 – Dick Bernard: Day 13 of Minnesota Shutdown; Day 20 till Default in Washington D.C. A Letter and a Public Appearance

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We live in the lower-priced end of our suburb which pretty consistently ranks as one of the best places to live in the U.S. Monday we were at one of the busiest intersections in our town and saw a new sign next to a local liquor store:

In the Minneapolis paper today an interesting bulletin directly related to the Shutdown. This brought some on-line repartee between friends about beer riots ending the Shutdown, constructing an OK Corral for gunslingers, and on and on. Sometime you need to take a timeout for the sake of sanity.
In an understated way, at least to this point, we are well into the world of ‘crazy’ in Minnesota, with the situation in Washington and in neighboring Wisconsin not far behind. The voters – those who cast ballots, and those who didn’t bother to show up to vote in 2010 – have brought this on themselves.
But it is a hard sell to convince people that they are cause in this matter of political disaster. It is much easier to label “politicians”, or some amorphous “them”, or “liberals” or such as the problem. We will rue the day.
Quite by accident, this day, I scored a ‘twofer’.
A Letter to the Editor I had submitted a couple of weeks ago to the local paper will be published this day. It speaks of my local Senator and Representative, newly elected Freshmen Republicans, who have, best as I can tell at this point, been loyal supporters of the till-death without compromise shutdown ordained by their party leadership. Our Representative, a prim and pleasant suburban homemaker, distinguished herself mostly in this session by a liberalization of gun laws (probably without much personal enthusiasm, but it came out of her committee and I doubt she had much choice in whether to vote the issue up or down. I’ll think of her each time I see this gun shop in our high-class town.)
The war continues.
Earlier today I had the totally unexpected opportunity to be one of five speakers representing the DFL (Democratic Party) about the Minnesota shutdown at this point in time.
My remarks to four tv cameras and several journalists for public release are below and are not necessarily distinguished, but that isn’t what I noted about this exercise.
When given the opportunity I had to distill my thoughts into a very brief presentation (here DFLSCStatementJul132011), and in the process try to represent the totality of hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who in one way or another share my demographic (senior citizen) and political point of view (Democrat). Believe me it is not easy. Luckily, the timeline was so short that no one could or did look over my shoulder and insist on modifications or veto what I was going to say. It is me, trying to represent my demographic, which I think I know pretty well. I needed to try to distill how I saw the very large number of people I was representing. Afterwards I got some very sincere compliments. I got some silence, too, which probably meant ‘too soft’, or you shouldn’t have said THAT. Such is how it goes. (Update July 16: if interested in seeing my two seconds of fame, it’s here, about five minutes into Almanac on the local PBS affiliate.)
We are a bitterly polarized society, and unless we figure out how to work with rather than against each other our slide downhill is going to accelerate.
And, by the way, I have great respect for the President of the United States, and the Governor of Minnesota, trying to get people together in a most troubling time.

Dick Bernard in blue shirt at right at the State Capitol, July 13, 2011.

#395 – Dick Bernard: Day Five of the Minnesota Shutdown. Compromise; Reason vs Belief

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My 1979 Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (p. 374) says this about the word “Compromise …compromised…compromising:
1) to adjust and settle (a difference) by mutual agreement, with concessions on both sides.
2. to agree: to accord [Obs].
3. to lay open to danger, suspicion, or disrepute: to endanger the interests of.
4. to surrender or give up (one’s interests, principles, etc.)”
An alternative second definition is “1. to make a compromise or compromises. 2. to agree.” Then comes a third: “Compromiser. one who compromises or believes in compromise.”
Oh how easy. Oh how impossible.
The word “compromise” will become the word of the day, week and month as people weigh in on how to settle the dangerous disagreement that has shut down the State Capitol.
In our current political society, when it comes to the most committed on each side, “compromise” has come to mean weakness (“4. to surrender…”) rather than mutual strength “to adjust and settle (a difference) by mutual agreement…”. I have watched this evolve for many years, particularly given my career work environment which required parties who were sure of the rightness of their position to finally come to some agreement about their differences. Yes, one side could bludgeon the other side into an undesired agreement, but that was a short term solution that often bit back, hard.
In our obsession with winning, we have become a society of losers. The endless parade of words over the last days, wherever I have looked, all have essentially the same direction: “if only the others would agree to my interpretation of what is best for this state (and we could substitute “country” as easily) all would be good.”
Only if I win, will I be satisfied. Only if the other party comes more than half the way, first, and admits defeat, will I come to an agreement.
It doesn’t work that way, folks.
We learn the real strength of “compromise” and we learn it very soon, or we’re in trouble.
At this moment in history, there is a “winning” side, and it is identified by the general term “radical right wing”. Its cover is the name “Republican”, but it is not Republican in any traditional context. It knows how to “win”, by use of words, by absolute refusal to compromise except on its own narrow terms, by substitution of basics like facts and reason with things like belief.
We see its calculation of its strength, and then its application of brute force in the use of that strength, to obstruct or deny the legitimacy of any other point of view.
Very carefully it has carved out its winning strategy, and it has worked…so far.
But as we are beginning to find out, through the government shutdown in Minnesota, and the rapidly approaching latest crisis in Washington D.C., we are living on the brink of disaster.
We learn to compromise, or we slowly die the death of a thousand cuts.
I tend to be an optimistic sort.
My optimism is being sorely tested.

#393 – Dick Bernard: Day Three of the Shutdown. The Republicans take the state of Minnesota out on strike.

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We’re in day three on the picket lines; most of us just don’t realize it. (Previous posts at June 30 and July 2, 2011. Recent related posts here and here.)
The “just say ‘no’ ” bunch leading the Republican party may come to learn a lesson that they’ve probably not had to encounter before.
When midnight passed and July 1, 2011, began, a shift occurred and the Republicans are no longer in control of anything. And I personally hope that Governor Dayton gets the support from people like me to truly negotiate, yes, but hang tough for the principles he articulated on our behalf.
I don’t have a fact file on the issues, though I follow political developments more carefully than most. Essentially, I think the Minnesota shut-down boils down to this (United States take note): since he began his campaign for Governor, Mark Dayton, ironically from the wealthy class, has said that the wealthy can afford to, and must, pay more#, to help get us out of the hole religiously dug by veto after veto in the Pawlenty years, as well as by pledges to say “no” to taxes to fund the services the less wealthy need and/or large blocs of Minnesota citizens, including the wealthy, have come to expect as a service of their ‘government’#.
The wealthy, on the other hand, while small in numbers have become an immensely powerful – and protected – special interest. Already awash in money, they apparently need more. At the end of the pre-shut down bargaining Gov. Dayton apparently was willing to make his proposal apply to only 7,000 (of over 5,000,000) of Minnesota’s wealthiest citizens – the true millionaires.
Succinctly, the Grover Norquist playbook has worked in Minnesota – for now.
What’s ahead?
Each of us have our own experiences – our own ‘expertise’ – and this is one of those times when I can share something from my own bank of ‘life’ experience.

More by circumstance than design I spent the vast majority of my professional career representing employees in collective bargaining which culminated in the right to strike. I wasn’t a ‘rock star’ in the trade (frankly, I don’t know any, on either side of the bargaining table), but I was a journeyman, with a big variety of experiences up to and including strikes.
There is a danger in making generalizations, but an observation I have always made is this: up until the moment the strike began, the employees had the leverage of the threat of the strike.

As the strike began, the dynamic shifted. Once out the door and on the street, the problem now became – for both sides – to figure out a way to get the employees back in to work.
Invariably, in the first few days, there was lots of rhetoric, and on the picket lines lots of esprit d’corps – “there, we’ve showed ’em”. But before too long reality settled in: we’ve got a problem here. The ranks on both sides knew they had a big problem on their hands: “what do we do now?”.
Ultimately, every dispute settled. Rarely was the face of the losing side rubbed in its defeat. After all, the parties needed to work together. Sometimes relationships bounced back quickly; in others, bitterness lasted for years.
Now we have an entire state on strike – a strike called, ironically, by the same party that abhors unions and employee right to strike.
At 12:01 a.m. on July 1, 2011, the Republicans are, ironically, “labor” in this shutdown scenario. Actually, this began the moment they adjourned back in May. Now, they cannot force anything.
Governor Dayton is speaking for the people of Minnesota when he says the rich have an obligation to do more, and a policy of ‘slash and burn’ of government is not in the peoples best interests.
I applaud him for his stand.
He deserves support.
And I hope that both a reasonable settlement, and a chastened Republican party, will help lead us back from the precipice that is called “winners” and “losers”.
Unfortunately, at this moment, I’m not very confident. We aren’t hurting, yet.
Day Four (July 4th) at this space: A liberal views the problem.
# – There never was a plan to ‘soak the rich’. One of the last items I saw yesterday was this schematic of Gov. Dayton’s vs the Republican legislatures stand on the issue. There was no intention to make the wealthy folks paupers in rags on the street. Source: Heather Mertens, Executive Director Protect Minnesota
Read about the impact of the different budget versions:
Legislature’s proposed income and property tax increases for:
A single parent making $27,000: $677 per year
Couple making $50,000: $887 per year
Couple making $335,000: $716 per year
Couple making $500,000: $716 per year
Governor’s proposed income and property tax increases for:
A single parent making $27,000: $0 per year
Couple making $50,000: $0 per year
Couple making $335,000: $775 per year ($2 per day)
Couple making $500,000: $5,270 per year ($14 per day)
(Source: MN State Rep. Rena Moran’s office, based on Dept. of Revenue Projections)

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

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

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


Torrents of rain on Target Field July 1, 2011


After the deluge, and before 'batter up'


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

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

#391 – Dick Bernard: A Demonstration at the State Capitol

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Years ago I heard a ‘rule of thumb’ that has seemed to be reasonably well borne out in reality.
It was said that for every one person who actually physically shows up at some demonstration or other, that person represents 1,000 others who feel likewise, but can’t attend for reasons like work, too far away, etc., etc., etc. In other words, one person equals more than one person, be it a rally, or a letter to a legislator, etc.
Today I went to an “Invest in Minnesota” rally at the State Capitol. We’re a dozen hours from either a settlement or a government shutdown.
I would guess there were about 300 at the rally – small by most standards, but understandable. It was from 10-11 a.m. on a work day. Only people like myself could participate. In my perception, it was a good rally. Here is my small photo gallery of the event. My favorite, a guy in a wheelchair wearing a tee-shirt which you can possibly make out in the slide show: “Homeless against Homelessness”. It says a lot in a very few words.
The speakers were the usual, and the event was only an hour – plenty long on a hot and uncomfortable Capitol steps.
One speaker summarized it well. She noted that the legislature seemed to be on record to ‘hold harmless’ public education (and thus, children). But if this involves (as it does) taking money from other programs affecting children then this political strategy is not effective. I thought to myself that this is a bit like saying we’ll save your shirt sleeve, but if we do, we can’t afford buttons for the shirt.
For those of us in Minnesota, the stakes by now should be very clear and are very real.
A key message was to “call your legislator” urging support, in essence, of Gov. Dayton’s stand for investment in Minnesota. Don’t know who your Representative or Senator is? Here’s the link for both State House and Senate. Do it now, not later. Tonight is the deadline.
My message will be: I support Governor Dayton and I believe that our wealthiest citizens can afford and should be required to chip in and help those in society who will be most hurt by the proposed legislative cuts.
Contact Governor Mark Dayton as well.
How about your message?
And while you’re at it, why not contact at least one or two or twenty others and ask them to do the same. Now.
It will help.