#487 – Dick Bernard: Going to Hell

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Saturday while engaged in domestic chores, I turned on the History Channel. The just-beginning program was more-or-less the history of Hell.
Hell, of course, has a very long history, predating Christianity and since, like God and Heaven, Hell is presumably not open to visit until after you’re dead and go there, it is susceptible to human interpretation, misuse and abuse. Hell has lots of authoritative interpreters…and they disagree.
I’m Catholic – in fact, just returned from Sunday Mass. The history of Hell is a long one with me, including intermediate places like Purgatory and Limbo, and procedural things like Mortal and Venial sins and Confession). I don’t believe or disbelieve hell. Through an older adults view, I take the claims with a grain of salt, especially when some other human is expressing to me, with certainty, something that is not at all certain.
Nonetheless, the History Channel program was interesting, appearing to emphasize various images of Hell, including the most dramatic: that of Dante Alighieri’s Hades.
One thing is sure: if you believe in Hell, you don’t want to go there!
But fear of the hereafter is and has always been an exploitable fear: a way to keep people in line. We surely learned it when we were growing up in small town Catholic America.
On the TV program, quite considerable time was spent with a young Baptist preacher with a small congregation somewhere. There was no uncertainty in this preachers mind: he could cite chapter and verse. Being Baptist, there is a certain way out of the pit, regardless of your misdeeds.
I’m not here to argue theology.
As I watched I began to think back to a very powerful radio program I had chanced upon on National Public Radio a few years ago. I was somewhere between here and there in my car, and the radio happened to be on when I heard the program. I’d cite ‘chapter and verse’ but I can’t remember the program or the person interviewed, except that it was on a Saturday afternoon.
The person being interviewed that day was a former very high profile evangelical with a mega church in Oklahoma or Texas. He was a powerful orator, and he had built a very large congregation based on his own particular personality and “hellfire and damnation” message. He could paint a vivid picture of the pit of Hell. He was a Bishop in his denomination. As I recall, he was African-American, and his flock was basically but not entirely white.
They were “saved”, and thus immune from the bad place.
The ministers downfall began one day when he was at home watching television, and the image was of the evacuation of refugees from Rwanda after the genocide in 1994.
The image was apparently pretty vivid, of starving people, particularly young children.
As he watched, he was transformed: rather than Hell being someplace down there it was, he came to feel, a condition here on earth – “hell on earth” comes to mind. Not only that, it was a condition which we humans had considerable control over.
The next Sunday, he preached as usual, with power, good humor and all the rest. But he revised his hellfire and damnation story, making all of his flock cause in the matter of heaven and hell.
It stunned the flock in the pews.
The impact was immediate. Attendance fell off, and fell off some more.
His was not the message they had come to hear, and financially support.
He left his church, and his reputation was ruined in his entire circle.
I wonder, today, not about Hell as described in that program on the History Channel, but about this Minister: where he is, what he’s doing. Whether he repented from his revisionist view of hell, or stuck with it.
He was talented, and I’m sure he survived and probably thrived. But I don’t know that.
Merry Christmas to all.

#486 -Dick Bernard: The 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

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It is not hard for me to remember Pearl Harbor Day. Seventy years ago my Dad’s brother, my Uncle Frank, near the end of his 6th year on the USS Arizona, lost his life aboard the ship. I’m old enough to have “met” him, in Long Beach CA, five months before he died. The caption on the photo, written by his mother, my grandmother Josephine, is succinct: “the first time we had our family together for seven years and also the last.” December 7, 1941 and the days following were chaotic. My Dad’s memories, as recorded years later, are in this single page: Bernard Frank Pearl Har001
Immediately came WWII for the U.S. Many kinfolk, including seven of his cousins from a single family in Winnipeg (one killed in action, some in U.S., others in Canadian forces), went off to war Collette boys Winnipeg001.
Last year I sent the Pearl Harbor museum all of the photos and records I have of Uncle Frank, and the photos have been posted ever since on Facebook. (The family photo referred to above is near the end of the album.)
WWII was very short for Uncle Frank. Then came the rest of it.
NOTE: I have written several posts about Uncle Frank. Here are links to the others: Dec. 7, 2009, Dec. 7, 2010, Dec. 9, 2010, Jan. 2,2011, Dec. 7, 2011, May 28, 2012.
Ah, “War”. A good friend and I recently engaged in a conversation about the complicated business called “War” and he asked this question: “What do you think are the rational lessons learned from WWII?”
It’s a fair question, and below are some thoughts on the topic from someone (myself), born on the edge of WW II (1940) who’s a military veteran from a family full of military veterans dating from at least the MN-ND Indian War of 1862-63 through, very recently, Afghanistan.
click on photo to enlarge

New Draftees into WWII, August, 1942, North Dakota


Here’s my informal list.
1. War begets more and ever worse future War. For example, the defeat, impoverishment and humiliation of the Germans at the end of WWI gave Hitler his base for seeking revenge.
2. The American isolationist attitude during Hitler’s rise was not helpful to containing the evil objectives of the Third Reich. This was both pacifist and (primarily) “me first” attitude in an unholy alliance: what was going on in Europe and the Far East during the 1930s was, supposedly, not our problem. By the time the U.S. engaged after December 7, 1941, the die was cast for a horrible, long war. Corollary: politically, spotlighting an ‘enemy’ is far better – and more deadly – than nurturing true ‘friends’.
3. War is much less about heroism than it is about fear and and the reality of death. There is a tendency to feel invincible when you’re young, but that disappears when your buddy beside you ends up dead and you’re at the mercy of the next projectile with your name on it. A very young cousin of mine, American citizen perhaps three years old, was killed in the liberation of Manila, in the supposed sanctuary of a church yard in early 1945. It will never be known whose shrapnel it was that hit her, in her mothers arms, that day. It matters not….
4. War casualties are far more than simply being killed or physically injured. PTSD and other kinds of mental illness is now a known outcome; displacement of non-combatants; homelessness, suicide, property loss and the like are also major (and largely uncounted) casualties from war.
5. Winning a war is illusory and short-term at best. Those who think they’ve won better begin preparing for the next war, which they may lose.
6. The Marshall Plan, following World War II, was a good outcome of War. But it would have been an infinitely better outcome of Peace not preceded by war.
7. War is great for business (but Peace would be even better). “Swords beaten into ploughshares” to tackle future threatening things like resource scarcity, climate change etc., would be great for business, and great for us all, but require changes that business is not inclined to make. The business rule of thumb which I believe prevails: we don’t want it until we can control it and make money off of it.
8. War enables new tyrants, each of whom thinks they’ve figured out how to avoid the mistakes of the previous vanquished victors of earlier wars.
9. The only really new developments of War post WWII are a) horrors of nuclear annihilation (the U.S. has a huge arsenal which is worthless unless we wish to annihilate ourselves); b) terrorism is a new tool, and we have far more home-grown domestic anti-government terrorists than evil others.

10. “They who live by the sword will die by the sword” is ever truer and deadlier. Mass annihilation is ever more possible. In the recent wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. human casualty count was relatively low. This was overshadowed by huge Iraqi casualties, and population destabilization and displacement, and massive debts incurred by the U.S. to wage war. We bred resentment, not friendship. While we were not brought to our knees physically, this time, we were nearly destroyed economically. Here is the U.S. physical casualty count from past wars, from The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2007. War Casualties U.S.001
Reasonable estimates of deaths from war in all countries in the the previous century approach 100,000,000. War is usually,in the end, a creature of convenience than of necessity – an easy but deadly way to attempt to solve problems. That is another rational learning, in my opinion….
With the greatest respect for all victims of war, I urge Peace.

#476 – Dick Bernard: An extra special evening with Old Soldiers at the Minneapolis MN Veterans Home

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Related post here.
My cousin, Mary Busch, alerted us to an appearance of the Minnesota State Band at the Minnesota Veteran’s Home near Minnehaha Falls on Wednesday evening, November 16. Mary is in the band (French horn, far right in below photo), as is her friend Bob Stryk (bass clarinet).
We’d never been to a program at the Vets Home before. It was a moving and extraordinary evening (click on photos to enlarge them). Here is the program booklet, including description of the pieces played: MN State Band Program001

Minnesota State Band Nov. 16, 2011


Portion of audience at MN Veterans Home November 16, 2011


The program for veterans was a salute to the Civil War, which began 150 years ago (program order below). It became nostalgic for me. One of my earliest ancestors to Minnesota was Samuel Collette, who arrived in St. Paul area about 1857, and as a 22 year old was enlisted into the so-called Indian War of 1862-63. Samuel became a resident of the Veterans Home in 1907, and for all but a few months in 1908, lived the rest of his life there, dying at 95 in 1934. I wondered if he ever heard programs like this one.
The Vets Home auditorium is designed specifically for disabled persons: There are no rows of seats. The band performed on a stage lower than the audience so that more of the audience could see them. Most of we ‘normal’ folk don’t think of the problems encountered by the profoundly disabled.
The band’s program is below, and except for “Around the Campfire”, I’ve linked each song to a YouTube page with various renditions of the songs. I couldn’t find a YouTube rendition of Around the Campfire (by Julius S. Seredy). In a real sense you can listen to the same program as performed by the Minnesota State Band.
Washington Greys by Claudio S. Grafulla arr. Loras J Schissel
William Tell Overture by G. A. Rossini/ Arr. Erik W. G. Leidzen
Lorena by H. Webster
Around the Campfire by Julius S. Seredy arr Lester Brockton
A Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copeland/ Tr. Walter Beeler
The Blue and the Gray by Clare Grundman
Hymn to the Fallen by John Williams Tr. Paul Lavender
Armed Forces Salute Arr. Bob Lowden
America the Beautiful Arr. Robert Wetzler
Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa
I noticed folks during the presentation. Many were quite profoundly handicapped by the ravages of age or disability.
My cousin related the next day that the attendance was lower than at their previous appearances, and the reason was sadly simple: there weren’t sufficient volunteers to wheel the other veterans to the program. Many had to remain in their rooms. I am guessing that it wouldn’t simply be a matter of volunteering at the event…there are protocols for such.
I made a memo to self to offer to become a volunteer there. We take such services for granted.
Next to me was an elderly guy in a wheelchair who seemed quite engaged in the music. As we left, I asked him “which branch of the service?” With no hesitation he said, “Army, 5th Infantry Division, WWII.”
It didn’t occur to me till I was going out the door that my Army days, in early Vietnam era 1962-63, were spent in that same division, the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized).
Whatever one’s thoughts might be of war, one must not forget those who served.

#472 – Dick Bernard: Penn State/Joe Paterno/Relationships between Vulnerable Children and Authority Figures

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There is no need to recite the volumes already, or to be, written about the story at Penn State. (I write, when they are on the field against Nebraska, at this moment, behind 10-0. Entering the game they were the 12th ranking football team in the nation, their opponent the 19th ranking team).
Of course, all that is totally irrelevant. As one commentator said a few minutes ago, it is as if the quarterback, Paterno, fumbled the ball on the goal line at the edge of the greatest victory in history….
I have another perspective that may add a bit to the necessary conversation.
Being human, with a fair amount of seniority amongst my cohorts in today’s population, I know a little bit about human nature.
Being Catholic, I know how stupidity plays out among power people who think that they can contain and control incidents of sexual abuse within the confines of their church authority (that began to unravel in the 1990s, a long time ago, and continues to this day.) It didn’t and doesn’t work. But some in authority still don’t quite get it.
But I have another insight, born of representing public school teachers in a teachers union from 1972-2000 and seeing the statutory transition from, initially, restrictions on corporal punishment (spanking), to mandatory reporting of even a suspicion of abuse of a child by an adult. The transition was complete long before my staff career ended. What astonishes me in the current situation is that this bunch at Penn State could have been so utterly clueless.
There have been, are, and will continue to be incidents of abuse in public education and elsewhere. We are humans, after all.
But in my particular venue, public education, the incidence was very, very tiny, but when uncovered very, very visible. (In the United States today there are perhaps nearly 50,000,000 children in schools; and perhaps 6,000,000 school employees including substitute teachers, aides, bus drivers, cooks, and on and on and on. With such an immense cohort, in school for an average of 171 days a year in Minnesota, there is no end of possibilities for problems, but amazingly few problems occur.)
In Minnesota, the relevant statute has existed since 1975, and can be viewed in its entirety here. It has been amended frequent times, and doubtless Penn State will cause it to be revisited once again.
I remember the general evolution of this law.
It began pretty simply, probably in 1975, essentially prohibiting spanking of, in anatomy terms, the gluteus maximus (to we lay people, the “rear end”). I don’t recall the genesis of the Law, but probably it was from some excess by someone, somewhere. It was a difficult adjustment for the enforcer in a school, often the shop teacher, more often the principal. The paddle had to go. To this day, there are some who advocate the paddle….
As years went on, the Law evolved.
I wish I could remember the year, but I think it was sometime in the 1980s, when the mandatory reporting provision was first enacted. This came to be called the ‘no touch’ rule in my public education jurisdiction.
The reaction was in the direction of zero tolerance of adult-child touch, in any of its manifestations.
I remember the most dramatic aberration (response): kindergarten teachers, virtually all female, became fearful of doing such innocuous things as helping a kid tie his or her shoelaces.
As time went on, the system and the individuals found more equilibrium, but the point remains, as it relates to Penn State, that the business of adult-vulnerable child relationships has been an active part of legal policy discussion since at least 1975 – 36 years.
There is an entire additional discussion, in this case, of the role of football as a symbol of power and authority in our society. Joe Paterno was an institution because he “brought home the bacon” for Penn State in prestige and money.
But, as I say, that is an entire other discussion.
UPDATES (Notice also comment included with this post):
Comment from Bonnie, Minneapolis: Well said, Dick. Hard to understand their cluelessness. Thanks for continuing your good work.
Comment from Bob, suburban St. Paul, Nov. 12:The only moral response by Penn State would have been to forfeit the remainder of their season to emphasize the significance of this horrendous criminal behavior. The students and fans who want to deify their coach and gloss over this criminality need a strong message from the university that this behavior is to be abhorred and treated as a criminal matter.
I believe mandatory reporting started in about 1970 in Minnesota for a host of professionals such as medical personnel, social workers, all mental health professionals, and education staff. Defining abuse to include corporal punishment by teachers must have come later or in 1975. Prior to the mandatory reporting law it was very hard for doctors and others to report abuse for fear of being sued by the parent for violating confidentiality. In 1969 or so I attended a conference at the U of Denver where a Dr Kemp had identified the “battered child syndrome”. I was with a contingent from Ramsey County including the local juvenile court judge, the head of psychiatry at the old St. Paul Ramsey, a county attorney, a police officer and others. When we came back we developed the Ramsey County Child Abuse Team to facilitate coordinated action by the various entities that intervene in abuse cases. Mandatory reporting has been on the books in Pennsylvania for many years. The Penn State staff had to know about their legal obligation to report. It is the same old story of those in power believing that their sacred institution (Church or Football Program) has priority over civil law.
My dates or years are a bit fuzzy but I believe roughly correct without doing in-depth research.
Note from Dick: whatever the actual dates, awareness about abuse, and the laws on reporting, have a very long history.
From Jeff, south suburbs, Nov. 13: The parties involved need to be punished severely… that means the offender
Sandusky, and if any coaches or university officials condoned or did not
report the crime then they also should be prosecuted if they broke the law
in PA.
Obviously Penn State will pay a very heavy price in lawsuits and settlements
in regard to this matter. These civil actions will help Penn State and
other institutions understand that protecting innocent children is paramount
and institutional protection of football or a university’s name is nothing
compared to this. Just think of how Penn State would have been held up as a
correct role model had they handled the situation the way it should have …
morally and legally.
As to the matter of football games. I personally differ on this. if the NCAA
or the State of PA wants to punish the football program at Penn State in the
future that is fine. The games that are set up are contracts that are
certainly not inviolate, and Penn State could forfeit them of course. I
think it would have been difficult last week. My feeling is however that
the players in the program today, and the students at the University today
should not be punished for things they had no involvement in. if the
program is punished in the future in some way , and both criminal and civil
sanctions and punishments are metered out as they are justly deserved I
think that is enough for now.
I do have sensitivity to the fact that sports or a sports program should not
supersede the criminality and heinous nature of the offenses ; but I also
think that punishing students and student athletes today for things that
happened 10 years ago and for which they had no control would be wrong in my
eyes.
Another followup comment from Bob in suburban St. Paul: Dick, I just attempted some research on the origins of our law in MN without much success. I did learn that in 1962 the medical profession began bringing the subject to our attention. In 1974 the federal government passed legislation providing funding to for state programs to address the issue. I do know we were in Denver in 1969 learning about how to develop a multi-disciplinary team at the local level. Just when MN outlawed child abuse remains question for me. Until states passed laws to make child abuse illegal it was dealt with under laws prohibiting cruelty to animals. What is stunning about the subject is the fact that it took us so long to define child abuse as criminal. Until then children were considered chattel. A doctor called me one time when I managed Child Welfare Intake for Ramsey County. He was trying to tell me through the use of obscure language that this young teen-age girl was a victim of incest. He could not be explicit or give me facts to go on because the law did not mandate reporting and he was going out on a limb legally. When I asked him for facts or how he knew these things, he said I just had to trust his medical acumen. It was obvious that this doctor was very nervous about telling me anything but wanted to tip us off. After the law was passed he was required to report and was protected legally. Thankfully we have advanced somewhat, but obviously not at Penn State. Bob
And yet another, from Bob, on Nov. 13: Dick, Try as I may the earliest mandetory reporting law I can find for Minnesota dates to 1974. This seems at odds with my memory of Judge Archie Gingold and others pushing for such a law as early as I969, and our child protection interventions prior to 1974. Perhaps we used other other child protection laws and the mandatory reporting law came along later in 1974, which also provided legal protection for the reporter and really changed everything. My memory is obviously flawed. Bob

#471 – Dick Bernard: Armistice (Veterans) Day 2011

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UPDATE: A reader sends along this Eyewitness to History link from the actual day/place in 1918.
Today is a unique date: 11-11-11 (November 11, 2011).
It is also Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I, when at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, a moment was taken to recognize the hope that the end of the Great War, was also the beginning of Peace (hope always springs eternal.)
My mother, Esther, then 9 years old, remembered the day vividly: “The hired girl and I were out in the snow chasing chickens into the coop so they wouldn’t freeze when there was a great long train whistle from the Grand Rapids [ND] railroad track [about 4-5 miles away, as the crow flies]. In the house there was a long, long telephone ringing to signify the end of World War I.” (page 122 of Pioneers: The Busch and Berning Family of LaMoure County ND).
WWI was very deadly and confusing: my grandparents and most of the neighbors in their home (Wisconsin) and settlement (ND) communities were German ancestry, first generation American, and spoke German. One of my grandfather Busch’s hired men was killed in the war, and Grandpa wanted to enlist. Mom’s younger sister Mary, born 1913, remembered “there was a lot of prejudice against Germany at that time so the language was kept quiet. Being called a “kraut” wasn’t the nicest thing to hear. Most of the neighbors had German ancestors. Most of them came to the U.S. to avoid compulsory military training.” (p.136)
Esther and Mary’s Great-Uncle Heinrich Busch in Dubuque, a successful businessman who with his parents and brother had migrated from Germany in the early 1870s, wrote a passionate letter, in German, home to his German relatives Nov. 5, 1923, saying in part “The American millionaires and the government had loaned the Allies so many millions that against the will of the common folk, [P]resident Wilson was pulled into the War. England had nine million for newspaper propaganda [for war] in American newspapers about the brutal German and that the German-Americans had come to suffer under it, they were held [arrested] for [being] unpatriotic and were required to come before the court for little things as if they were pro-German. The damned war was a revenge and a millionaire’s war and the common people had to bleed in this bloody gladiator battle…..” (page 271) He went on in the same letter to predict the rise of a regime like the then-unknown Hitler and Nazis because of Germany’s humiliation and economic suffering in defeat.
War was not a sound-bite. History did not begin with Pearl Harbor and WWII….
Armistice Day is still celebrated in Europe, especially.
In the United States, in 1954, the day was re-named Veteran’s Day.
Whether intentional or not, the original intention of Armistice Day has come to be diluted or eroded: rather than recognize Peace; the effort is to recognize Veterans of War.
I’m a Military Veteran myself, so I certainly have no quarrel with recognizing Veterans.
But today I’ll be at the First Shot Memorial on the Minnesota Capitol Grounds, recognizing Armistice Day with other Veterans for Peace. Part of the ceremony will be ringing a common bell, eleven times.
A block or so away the Veterans Day contingent will be gathering at the Vietnam War Memorial.
The same kinds of people; a differing emphasis….
Ten years ago today, November 11, 2001, we were waiting to board our plane from London, England, to Minneapolis.
At precisely 11 AM…well, here’s how I described it in an e-mail March 20, 2003: “One of the most powerful minutes of my life was at Gatwick airport in suburban London on November 11, 2001, when the entire airport became dead silent for one minute to commemorate Armistice Day, which is a far bigger deal in England than it is here. The announcer came on the PA, and asked for reflective silence. I have never “heard” anything so powerful. I didn’t think it was possible. Babies didn’t even cry.”
A year later at the Armistice Day observance of Veterans for Peace at Ft. Snelling Cemetery I related this story again for the assembled veterans.
Today, whether you’re observing Veterans Day, or Armistice Day, remember the original intent of the day.
Peace in our world.
UPDATE – Noon November 11, 2011
Some photos from the Armistice and Veterans Day commemorations on the State Capitol grounds. The ceremonies were about one block apart. I spent time at each. Factoring out the band and other official personnel at the Veterans Day observance, the number in attendance seemed about the same. At the Armistice Day observance, eleven peace doves were released after a bell was rung eleven times. At the Veterans Day observance there was the traditional 21 gun salute. (click to enlarge the photos)

Bell Ringing Ceremony


Some of the eleven doves of peace released at the ceremony.


At the Veterans Day observance at the Vietnam Memorial, Capitol Ground


Statue between the Armistice and Veterans Day observances today, at St. Paul MN

#467 – Dick Bernard: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Reform? Cuts?

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A few days ago three of us (photo of the other two at the end of this post) engaged in a brief conversation about the Big Three safety net programs of the U.S. Government: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
I am six years into my Medicare years so I know from experience how it works (very efficiently); ditto for Social Security. I have somewhat less knowledge about Medicaid, but neither is that an alien concept to me.
The question was raised: “what are your thoughts?”
I responded that I wasn’t concerned about talk about “reform”. The immediate retort from one of the others was “but the issue is CUTS”.
Good point.
Still, I have a hard time sharing the rage of that old guy (probably younger than me!) in the AARP commercial who threatens the wrath of 50,000,000 members if anybody dares try to cut AARP members earned government benefits (I’ve earned those same benefits, too; I’m also one of those 50,000,000).
But I don’t think it’s quite that simple as simply rejecting CUTS or REFORM.
Here’s why I think we should be a bit more flexible.
These are huge programs with long histories and from time to time careful review and prudent adjustment are very appropriate. Indeed, these programs have been reformed from time to time over their respective histories. It is a natural part of the process.
Sure, there are the nefarious elements who say they would like to eliminate the programs, but even given that possible fact, I’m not sure the near hysteria I see in my e-mail inbox is warranted.
On the one hand – the consumer – the issue is about receiving a particular benefit, say medical care, for a certain cost. Certainly I wouldn’t want mine “cut”. Might some aspects be “reformed”? Of course.
I don’t think anyone expects to get Medicare et al for ‘free’. After six years I know that there is a substantial cost: Medicare premiums paid out of the Social Security check; additional premiums for supplemental insurance which is essential; extra for non-reimbursable deductibles; plus payment (in our case) for what we consider essential Long Term Care insurance to cover the possibility of very expensive nursing home care later.
There is nothing that comes for nothing. Directly or indirectly we paid into these programs for years, and in the case of Medicare, we continue to pay. It isn’t “free”.
On the other side of the transaction, I also am very aware that all of those Medicare, etc., dollars go somewhere, and the most likely somewhere is into the pockets of the companies, doctors, etc., who receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, or the stores and others who derive secondary benefit from those Social Security checks received by so many of us. (I once lived in a fairly large community where it was said that the major income stream for the town was Social Security checks. It was down economic times there, and I think it was right. Get rid of Social Security and that town would have been dead.)
Absent Medicare and Medicaid, many people would not be able to afford even essential care, which would take money out of the pockets of those in hospitals, clinics, etc. Even insurance companies would lose. Procedures now paid by Medicare and Medicaid, eliminated, would HURT the entire health industry, and hurt it badly. Think almost routine procedures (today) like cataract operations.
Very simply, it is in NO ONE’s selfish interest to “cut” anything – including those who are mistrusted on the other side of the conversation. But without reform, the programs are not sustainable long term.
It is, in my opinion, in EVERYONE’s best interest to look at possible reforms to, for instance, attempt to deal with rampant corruption – false billings, etc. – which cost everybody.
It is frightening to even consider the possibility that maybe there are some things that might be done to make a great system even better especially in today’s political climate.
But I think the alternative is even worse, and sooner than later many issues need to be addressed.

Nancy Adams and Barb Powell Oct 29, 2011

#464 – Rev. Dr. James Gertmenian sermon: A Culture of Contempt

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NOTE FROM DICK BERNARD: An advantage of having even a small network to communicate with is the ever present, and increased, possibility of a nugget dropping in unannounced and unexpected.
Such is the October 16, 2011, sermon “A Culture of Contempt” of Rev. Dr. James Gertmenian, pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis.
Rev. Gertmenian’s is a powerful and very timely commentary, related to and generally commenting about the currently raging Occupy Wall Street, 99%, Gospel of Success and similar movements.
Here, with Rev. Gertmenian’s permission, is the pdf of the sermon: Gertmenien Oct 16 11001 The sermon is also accessible in its entirety, including the audio version, here.
My friend who alerted me to its existence, Mike Romanov, said this: “I’m Jewish, but this really moved me. You probably know his scriptural references much better than I.”
The Christian Scripture Text is Luke 1:39-56. I include here that text as it appears in my grandmothers 1906 Douay-Reims (Catholic) translation: Luke 1 39-56001
Dr. Gertmenian applies this text in his sermon.
Whatever your relationship with religion, organized or otherwise, I urge you to read and reflect on Dr. Gertmenian’s message, and then act.

#461 – Dick Bernard: Two Trains Running

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Last night we attended August Wilson’s play, Two Trains Running, at St. Paul’s Penumbra Theatre. It is a play first performed in the late 1980s, and set in the 1969 African-American community of the Hill District in Pittsburgh.
The Penumbra engagement runs through Sunday, October 30. (click on photo to enlarge)

Two Trains Running is one of August Wilson’s ten now famed “Pittsburgh Cycle”, ten plays, one about each decade of the the Twentieth century, as experienced by African Americans. All but one of the plays is set in his home town of Pittsburgh.
I’ve seen eight of the ten, nearly all at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul. Last nights performance was also at the Penumbra, the second time I’d seen the play there.
There is more than adequate internet information about the play accessible here. Other blog entries I’ve written about August Wilson are accessible here and here. Both include photos I took of his Pittsburgh in 1998.
August Wilson is now an American institution with two Pulitzer Prizes for his work.
Set simply in a down-at-the-heels restaurant in the Hill District, Two Trains Running has seven characters: the owner, the waitress, and five customers who, in two acts, eight scenes and three hours, comment very powerfully on the matter of personal stories, relationships and contemporary history.
It is a time of tension in the United States and particularly in the African-American community. Pittsburgh’s Hill District is being killed to be reborn through urban-renewal; Malcolm X, though dead some years, lives on in demonstrations occurring somewhere in the city. There remain “two trains running” from Pittsburgh to Jackson, Mississippi, home to the Restaurant owner till the violence of racism drove him north years earlier; bitter personal experiences he could not leave behind.
Into, and out of the Restaurant come the characters who make up its regulars. All are simple yet immensely powerful representatives of lives in the neighborhood. They include the local numbers runner; an ex-con not long out of the penitentiary; a sage elder; a demented street person; a wealthy mortician; the waitress and the owner. They speak their voices; their relationships ebb, flow, ebb again…. They speak “family”, though none are related in the legal sense of that term.
Off-stage, a local prophet, laid out in a casket at the morticians funeral home, draws unseen mourners; a woman, said to be 322 years old, dispenses advice to troubled souls, as might a muse.
We sat in the front row, feet against the stage. We were in that restaurant, and within those characters lives….
It was near 20 years ago when I first saw Two Trains Running at the Penumbra, so it was a new yet old experience last night.
Though there was no way for me, a white man from a country upbringing in North Dakota, to directly identify with the experiences of those in that Pittsburgh restaurant, it was simple enough to see how lives, even of strangers, interact, come together, drift apart.
We may pretend that we can isolate ourselves from others, but we are all family in one way or another. I can only speculate about what August Wilson was saying to us through his characters. His mortician, wealthy because of others deaths, important because of his wealth, would some day die himself, unable to take his wealth along for the ride. Polar opposite, the street person with the grocery cart, obsessed with the ham he’d been promised but never received, probably was every man – each of us.
Last night, Mr. Wilson worked his magic for me once again.
We’ve come a long way since August Wilson’s Pittsburgh, 1969.
Or have we, really?
Maybe when August Wilson was writing his play in one or other restaurant back in the 1980s, he had in mind the 99% vs the 1%. Who knows?
In Two Trains Running there were demonstrators in the streets; there was no work; there was great inequality between those who have, and those who have not.
The message was, in too many ways, spoke to today.

#460 -Dick Bernard: Clueless at the Top

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Last week I had the time to act on a long avoided task. I took on our long neglected bookshelves.
Among the collected works that caught my eye was a book I had purchased in 2005, “Clueless at the Top, While the Rest of Us Turn Elsewhere for Life, Liberty and Happiness” by Charlotte and Harriet Childress. The essence of the book is captured both in the title and at its helpful and informative website, here.
It’s hardly a revelation that we Americans live in a hierarchical (pyramidal) society – perhaps we’re inclined to a hierarchical structure. We seem to want somebody in charge, particularly someone to blame. But the collective body is often ill served by these same clueless leader(s). (I suspect you have someone in mind as “clueless” already.)
Most noticeable are the clueless ones at the top of the big hierarchies: the leaders of the country; of big corporations. They’re convenient targets. Indeed they can do immense damage by virtue of their position. But most likely in the course of any day we will witness many other hierarchies down to the most basic, seemingly never-ending (and endlessly controversial) biblical one: “wives, submit to your husbands” (Colossians 3:18).
At whatever level, hierarchies often create big problems.
As I relooked at the Childress’ volume, it occurred to me that we are ALL “clueless”, every one of us. Within each of us there is the constant struggle between belief and reason, between knowledge and faith, between the easy route and the hard. We lurch between wisdom and cluelessness, hopefully with a bit more wisdom than stupidity!
Sunday night, for a single example, I watched the 60 Minutes segment on recently deceased Steve Jobs, visionary founder of Apple and easily one of the people at the pinnacle of the hierarchy called success. Jobs is legendary and deservedly so (I type this blog on part of his legacy: an iMac).
At the same time, Jobs died at 56, still youthful in his career; his death came at a very early age in contemporary America. In a fateful decision some years ago, he apparently chose to not follow advice to get surgery for cancer when that cancer could conceivably have been cured. Rather, he opted for alternative means which did not work. He followed his own advice, and it served him ill.
Mr. Jobs apparently was no different than the rest of we mere mortals in at least the cluelessness aspect.

So, what to do.
The only reasonable place to start dealing with this cluelessness issue is within ourselves, starting exactly where we are, not even bothering to look elsewhere for people to blame.
Last May we saw a documentary which will be publicly available in a month or two. It is entitled I Am, the Documentary, and its main take-aways for me were 1) the inherent democracy of the natural world, the ability of natural systems to work together cooperatively; 2) what was called The Power of One: the capacity each one of us has to make a positive difference not only for ourselves, but for society at large.
Sunday night, after 60 Minutes, we watched a public television special on “Radioactive Wolves” at Chernobyl 25 years after the catastrophic nuclear meltdown in 1986. What sticks with me from that program were two things: 1) the natural populations (wolves and the like) seem to have recovered without apparent significant long term damage; 2) all that remained of human presence was the abandoned and stark evidence of former human occupation, including the virtually completely abandoned city of Pripyat.
As Chernobyl et al demonstrate daily, there is a great abundance of “Cluelessness at the Top” amongst we humans.
Let’s do what we can within our own individual “pyramids” to make this planet we occupy a better one.

#456 – Dick Bernard: Who's Rolling in Dough?

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Recently House of Representatives Whip Eric Cantor admitted that there is a problem with the disequity in wealth in this country. The brief commentary, here, is worth reading.
Probably a more honest assessment of who has, and who deserves, and how they get what, was this letter to the editor in yesterday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune. The letter could be a useful springboard for conversation; far more useful than playing the information game on Rep. Cantor’s court.
Here’s the letter:
“State Rep. Carly Melin, D-Hibbing, said the Occupy Wall Street crowd is bringing a voice back to working people and the middle class. But Wall Street already gave a voice to my father, a Coca-Cola truck driver out of the Eagan plant, and to millions of working people.
In the ’80s, he researched, then invested $10,000 in a junk stock and made a fortune, in his opinion. No broker — he trusted only his own counsel. He then researched and invested in other stocks, both risky and mainstream, and made more money. Over the years, he turned the $10,000 into $4 million. Boy, did he find his voice, nagging everyone he knew to invest in the stock market.
Everyone wants the dishonest bums on Wall Street out, and no one was happier than my father when they caught a crook on Wall Street or in Washington. Melin’s real interest is in vilifying Wall Street itself. You never hear her, or others like U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison or Barney Frank, speak of how many millions of Americans of modest means became middle-class or rich when they took a chance on Wall Street.
My dad said that the way to make money for your family is to get up and go to work five days a week or more, save, and invest in the stock market. No guarantee — but when it comes to ideas that work, I would take the advice of a working man or businessman over the theories of a politician.
MAUREEN HANSEN, SAVAGE”
One expects a high profile politician like Cantor to distort and manipulate by omission or commission. Voluntary sharing of wealth has never worked, ever. There might be an occasional glimmer of guilt: think of those ubiquitous Carnegie libraries which still dot towns and cities nationwide. But by and large, once you get addicted to acquiring of wealth, you are equally addicted to retaining control over it.
Maureen Hansen lays out a more ordinary scenario: her Dad figures out a way to make a fast buck in Wall Street Junk stocks, and did well.
She admits there is no guarantee of riches, but her Dad got very lucky in the casino-for-the-little-guys that is Wall Street. He basically hit the casino jackpot by gambling the American Way.
If it were only that simple.
There is a big untold back story to Ms Hansen’s fascinating letter.
One would guess her Dad is deceased. If not, he certainly will be.
If he’s lucky and his pile continues to grow, and she is an only child, will she inherit this wealth? And, if so, is this wealth she inherits wealth that she “earned”?
By accident of birthright, does she then deserve to be rich? And someone else poor?
There are endless questions in this business of wealth distribution. All that is absolutely certain is that there is a hideous imbalance in wealth in today’s United States and those have more’s have shown little or no inclination to share their bounty with those who can’t imagine such wealth, much less being able to invest in the stock market.
The “lucky duckies” who have nearly cornered the wealth in the United States have got a heckuva deal, and Eric Cantor and his ilk know it.
And they have no interest or inclination to share…. After all, they hope to participate in this largesse of the 1% themselves, someday.