#23 – Dick Bernard: President Obama at Notre Dame University May 17, 2009

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A beautiful Sunday afternoon was very tempting for a good long walk, but I knew that the long anticipated appearance of Barack Obama at Notre Dame was soon to begin, so I delayed the walk and watched the proceedings live on Notre Dame’s website, from the procession of graduates into the fieldhouse, to the remarks following President Obama’s speech.

 

It was a truly remarkable afternoon: grist for an entire semester course condensed into less than two hours of time.

 

I would diminish the event by trying to summarize it.  The most gifted commentators and film editors will similarly diminish it.  It has to be watched. 

 

Those who wish can likely view, or view for a second time, the entire proceedings at the Notre Dame website http://www.nd.edu/.  To get the entire perspective, you really need to watch the proceedings, including the opening prayer, and the student valedictory by a remarkable student, E. Brennan Bollman.

 

For those unable to see it all, it included a history lesson or two or three: the President noted (to no applause – doubtless because it caught a young audience unawares) that today was the 55th anniversary of Brown vs Board of Education, the landmark civil rights case.  And at the end of his speech, the President was presented a photo of former Notre Dame President Theodore Hesburgh with Martin Luther King in Chicago in 1965.  Hesburgh was one of the giants of the civil rights era.  He was at the commencement, nearing his 92nd birthday. 

 

As a lifelong Catholic I could feel pride at the long history of my Church as a champion of social justice.  At points in my life I benefitted from that role.  As a person who brushed up close against the possibility of abortion during my first wife’s last months on earth in the spring and summer of 1965, and is unalterably pro-choice because of my personal experience, I listened closely for, and heard, acknowledgement of the difficulties inherent in adopting absolute right and wrong positions.  But I heard respect for differing opinions from both Obama and the University of Our Lady (Notre Dame).

 

Obama used the Abortion word on the Notre Dame stage, and handled the sensitive matter in a sensitive way.  But he was no less classy than the Notre Dame officials. 

 

There was one – or was it several – very loud hecklers early in the speech.  An overwhelming student led chant drowned them out. 

 

I was distracted early on by a grim looking professor like figure behind President Obama on the stage.  This guy had on all the robes, but when others applauded, he stood stone-like.  I finally decided that he was probably Secret Service.  Maybe someone will expand on that presumption of mine.

 

Knowing a little about such things work, my guess is that all of the VIPS, Obama, the President of Notre Dame, Father Hesburgh and others, knew before a single word was uttered what at minimum the gist of each others talk would be.  This was not a time or a place for surprises.

 

Going in everyone doubtless knew that this wasn’t a serious issue within the Catholic Church.  Only about 20% of the Bishops united in opposition to Obama’s appearance; over 60% of Catholics approved.  In my own Catholic Church, this morning, there was not a single word verbally or in print about the conflict, nor did the local diocesan paper in its most recent edition carry a single word about it (though I suspect the local Archbishop was among the 20% who were against Obama’s appearance).* 

 

And to the best of my knowledge Rome was silent.   Its silence spoke volumes.

 

For those who value Hostility around a controversial and difficult issue, today was not a good day.  For those who are interested in Healing, today was a solid start.

 

I went for my walk.  And saw a little kid with his Mom, wearing a Notre Dame tee-shirt.  A good omen.

 

One day later – May 18, 2009

 

* I went back to the Archdiocesan paper and found I was in error on this sentence.  Indeed the Archbishop’s column mentioned the event without mentioning either the speaker or the institution, but one had to be a very diligent reader of the weekly newspaper and interested in the event to figure out what the Archbishop was talking about.  The meat of the column was buried in the inside back page of the newspaper.  Such placement was likely intentional.  The entire column is accessible here http://tinyurl.com/ovhszz. 

 

In his column, the Archbishop appears to acknowledge the need to dialogue “with those who disagree” with the Church’s stand.  The continuing dilemma is how there can be “dialogue” with someone who not only claims the truth but claims that the official position of the Church is the only correct one and says that “[t]here can be no compromise”.  Dialogue does not presume closed minds in a conversation, or “lines drawn in the sand”.  But no openness to other points of view is conveyed whatsoever. The Archbishop who wrote the column for his newspaper has chosen, apparently deliberately, to hide his position from all but those who most likely fervently agree with him.  He can demonstrate that he took a hard position on the issue, without much risk that anyone will notice.

 

Two days later – May 19, 2009

 

Out of curiosity I decided to look at the several issues of the Archdiocesan newspaper which were published the last several weeks before the speech.  I picked up a sense of editorial meetings concerning “what shall we say about this?” with an answer “as little as possible”, from the small amount of newsprint devoted to the Obama appearance.  The most interesting, and perhaps most revealing, article was a short one on April 16, where it was reported that the local South Bend Bishop “advised Catholics to not attend [the] demonstrations”.  Whatever the real intent was, my own perception was that, even by early April, the powers-that-be knew that the general church membership was not with them regarding Obama’s visit to Notre Dame, and the advisory was a clever PR creation to provide a cover story.  But that is just my individual perception.  I have learned over the years that it is useful to have a healthy skepticism about official versions of events and their meaning.

 

Four days later – May 21, 2009

 

The Archdiocesan newspaper carried two front page “below the fold” stories about the events at Notre Dame.  They were equal in length: one focusing on Obama’s remarks; the other on the protests.  On page 6 was a half-page “Guest Editoria” “It’s not only Obama who needs to examine conscience” which, first, acknowledged what every Catholic knows: that the church is not a monolith where everyone thinks alike; but nonetheless contended that genuine Catholics must follow the official Church teaching. 

#22 – Dick Bernard: Johnny, Carl and Elmer L.

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Yesterday’s post on Heather (#21, May 13) got me to thinking back to those “good old days” about which people my age tend to recall so fondly as we face these troubled times. “Wouldn’t it be nice”, we tend to say, “if only we could be transported back into those good old times when life was simpler.” Indeed, on occasion, around will come some e-mail talking about those past-times when government didn’t intrude so much, and self-reliance was more a value. “Wouldn’t it be nice.”
After I posted the column, my memory went back to the time between 1945 and 1951, right after WWII, between age 5 and 11, when we lived in a little town not far from the Hawk’s Nest pictured on the front page of this blog.
In this town was a kid named Johnny, older and bigger than the gang I ran with, but on reflection, obviously retarded, often with us. In my memory, Johnny couldn’t talk, and lived at home down the street. He hardly had ability (as we measured such), but occasionally we could get him enraged, and then he would be fearsome. Nothing ever came of this rage – we could outrun him. The next day he’d be back.
I wonder whatever happened to Johnny.
It was at this point in time when I remember those visits to the town with the School for the Feeble Minded, briefly described in #21. (The 1982 History of that town headlines the section as being about the “State School”, and says it was established by State Government in 1903 as the “Institution for the Feeble-Minded”, and that it was, by 1982, “the largest employer in [the] County”.) In a recent conversation, a friend remembered an Aunt who had been confined there for some reason and “used the rope” (hung herself), likely to escape the misery of her confinement. Such facts don’t often appear in official histories.
In those same good old days, Carl, in another context, was growing up, retarded, on a farm in Minnesota. He was able to work, and he was worked, hard. In today’s context, his treatment would be called “abuse”. What happened on the farm stayed on the farm. I knew Carl for several years when he lived with my sister and her family. He lived to an unusually old age for someone with his disability, and at the end lived semi-independently in a community up north. He could not have survived on his own. He benefitted from a more enlightened day.
Our society was very late in the game of engaging in the reality of special needs and needs for special education and other special services.
I come from a life-long environment of public education, but even so, it was late in the game when I became fully aware of how slow we were in acknowledging the reality of unmet special needs.
In the early 1990s I became good friends with a former Governor of Minnesota, Elmer L. Andersen. He was a conservative Republican, and I met him through reading his columns in a community newspaper which he owned, and to which I subscribed, largely so I could read his columns on sundry topics.
I liked his philosophy, as expressed in his opinions, so much that in the spring of 1995 I decided to nominate him for the Friend of Education Award from my union, the Minnesota Education Association. I didn’t live in the state when he was in government, so my nomination was based solely on his opinion pieces. It became obvious, quickly, that there was much more to Elmer than what I knew of him.
He won the Friend of Education Award in the fall of 1995, and here I let my former colleague and good friend Judy Berglund complete the story as she wrote it for the MEA Advocate in October, 1995: Then-state legislator Elmer L. Andersen was “the architect of Minnesota’ special education program in 1955.
“At that time, one in 12 children was born with disabilities, and unable to benefit from a normal school environment,” he says. “I thought the Legislature ought to do something about that.”
The Legislature set up an interim commission, which he chaired. Every one of its recommendations was adopted by the 1957 Legislature, which established one of the best and most comprehensive special education programs in the nation. Families with retarded children got financial help to enroll their children in school, training programs and scholarships were provided for aspiring special education teachers.
That was 20 years before federal special education laws were passed, laws Andersen thinks hampered the program by encumbering it with extensive regulation. “Nevertheless, Minnesota took the lead in recognizing that all children have potential, all have God-given gifts, all have special needs,” he says….”
Mr. Andersen never wavered from his commitment to quality education for all, regardless of abilities or circumstance. Our friendship continued until his death during Thanksgiving week, 2004. He and many others are heroes for today’s and tomorrows Heather’s.
But todays most vulnerable citizens are most likely to be on the “chopping block” in tight economic times. Their budgets are easy to cut. They have little voice, only us.

#21 – Dick Bernard: Heather and a salute to "Community"

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Last night, shortly before 7 p.m. at Ballfield #5 in Lakeville MN, Heather Bernard came up to the plate, wearing an Ohio State pullover, and holding and jiggling her bat like she’d doubtless seen countless batters on television prepare for the pitch. (She looked pretty good, actually!)
The pitcher lobbed the softball towards the plate, and ultimately Heather swung and connected, a well hit ground ball. She dropped the bat and took off towards first, running harder than I’d ever seen her run, and she made it: an earned single. That hit was something to be really proud of, and I’m talking also about me, her Dad.
At that moment between home plate and first base, something else came together for me: the abundant good side of not only America, but of people generally, regardless of where they live, or how directly or indirectly they might be positively involved in others lives.
Heather is my daughter, 33 now, Down Syndrome. We think she was probably on the right team last night, but as I write I’m still not certain of that. Regardless, the coach fit her into the lineup, and she took seriously her position as short left-fielder, and like her teammates she had her turn at bat in the one-hour game.
Left alone in this game of life, Heather’s odds of even survival were never good. She was born with a serious heart defect which required several surgeries before she was five years old. She lives because a heart pacemaker keeps hers ticking!
And when I saw her running to first base last night, it was a testimony to modern technology: her first pacemaker allowed only a single level of activity; currently, the pacemaker adjusts to the level of exertion, and consequently Heather could actually run to first base, rather than slowly walk as would have been the case over 30 years ago.
Heather was playing ball last night because another community, likely primarily parents of similar special needs “kids” like Heather, who have organized and support a once a week league. Out of such leagues, come participants in the long well-established Special Olympics program. Indeed Special Olympics exists because of special needs kids. http://www.specialolympics.org/
Last night someone, likely a parent of one of the other participants, approached us with a flier from a local Pizza establishment who had agreed to make a large match, up to $5000, for contributions to this local activity. We live a long distance from the town, so I wrote out a check instead.
I gave thanks, last night, for something I’ve been aware of for years, but which only infrequently bubbles to the surface: we are bombarded every day with bad news, and all manner of political positioning on supposedly major issues of the day, but at the end of the day the big news is taking place in millions of settings across our country and across the world: settings like that Ballfield #5 in Lakeville MN last night.
It is useful to keep that in mind. We are the good – and the bad – of the huge community in which we all live. And we have a great capacity to make life better, or worse, depending on how broadly or narrowly we choose to define that word “community”.
A public community, very large, and largely invisible, has nurtured Heathers life over all these years.
There are lots of Heathers, and lots of communities. As we know, it’s not too many decades ago where her fate, realistically, would have been to end up in a School for the Feeble Minded somewhere…. I remember seeing one of these schools, frequently, when we went to visit our grandparents in a particular town in the 1940s and 1950s. The mentally deficient of the state were ware-housed there, and on pleasant days you could see them gathered on the lawn behind the fence, and we could look at them like one would look at animals in a zoo.
Our society looked at Heather’s kind differently then. That’s just as it was.
Hopefully in these troubled economic times we won’t be tempted to backslide….

#20 – Dick Bernard: The Drones as Solution, or Problem?

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A reader comment follows this post.
The May 10 edition of CBS’ “60 Minutes” featured a segment on the military’s new star: an unmanned reconnaissance and war plane called a Drone. The segment, “Drones: America’s New Air Force”, likely remains available for viewing at http://www.60minutes.com. It is worth watching.
The Drone has those same qualities that used to attract me, as a kid, to the Ray Guns of the science fiction world of Flash Gordon, and the two-way wrist radio of super cop Dick Tracy. Lasers and digital phones are now old news in our society. The $11 million Drone with its $1 million camera is simply the latest rendition, allowing an operator sitting in a windowless high tech building in Nevada to take out bad guys in Afghanistan or other places thousands of miles away.
No more is there any risk to our “side”: someone simply presses a button, and out of existence goes some evil doer or group of evil doers over there. We are safe and in control. We don’t need to see the “whites of their eyes”; indeed, part of the star quality of this weapon is that the victim of it is not even aware that he is even being watched. (I think I can say “he” with a certain amount of confidence.)
There are downsides, of course, like possibly killing innocent civilians, or maybe even blasting out of existence an erroneous target, but that’s small price to pay, or so would say the supporters of this new smart warfare.
But is it so “smart”?
The program drove me to my internet search engine for some very elementary statistics: The United States has 3 million square miles of land surface compared with a world total of 57 million square miles. This translates into the U.S. occupying roughly 5% of the world’s land mass. Similarly, we have roughly 5% of the world’s population. And we’re a very large country.
What are the odds that an ever more sophisticated generation of Drones can successfully patrol the world for us, and rid it of all evil doers. For that matter, what are the odds they could control the evil doers in just our country, or my state, or town, or even neighborhood?
The odds of course is essentially zero, unless some target has been tirelessly tracked for months, and is a creature of habit, never moving, always following the same routine. Of course, a smart potential target blends into the neighborhood as well, putting at risk people who don’t even know he is there.
I think, here, of the lowly cows who used to be in the pasture at my grandparents place in North Dakota. They used to occupy the pasture south and west of the barn, wandering at will throughout the day, except for morning and afternoon when they would march along the proverbial cow path to the barn to be milked. Now, these were creatures of habit, easily predictable targets. How well would the Drone do its job if its target was a single one of those cows, a renegade one, who needed to be taken out? Could it single out its target, and not damage the other cows in its company? Would these other “productive citizen” cows just be considered a dispensable collateral damage?
Ah, high tech weaponry seems so innocuous and effective until you look the tiniest distance beyond it. They are, first of all, like all aggressive weaponry, a waste of natural resource. There is little “productive” that can be said of weaponry: it’s function is to destroy including, in the case of bombs and bullets, itself.
Conversely, the very survival of Humanity, from the basics of family onward, in the most primitive society to the most advanced, is rooted in the business of positive relationships.
The more powerful we became (I speak in the past tense), the less we felt we needed to engage continuously and positively with the world citizens who occupy the rest of the 95% of the planet. Unlike cows (so far as I know), humans whatever their language or culture have a tendency to develop relationships, and to not forget how they were treated.
Without positive relationships, no number of Drones will save or even protect us.

#19 – Carol Ashley: Chris Martenson's "Crash Course"

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Dick Bernard: On April 7, my friend John sent me an e-mail, as follows: “My son Joel sent this to me. It is fascinating and disturbing. http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/ You should check out this website and his seminar (several youtube videos embedded on the site). It touches on and brings together the topics of finance, national debt, inflation, peak oil, etc. It is in 20+ parts and takes over 3 hours, but it’s very worth it.”
Carol, whose comments follow, also watched the entire series, as have I and several others I know of. Carol lives in rural Minnesota near a town of perhaps 4000 residents. Following her comments, I add a few of mine. She and I wrote completely independent of each other: we didn’t know what the other had to say. Suffice to say, we think the series is worth your time. You can’t reach a conclusion about it without actually watching it all. Consider taking the time.
Carol Ashley:
No one wants to hear bad news. We had eight years of hearing more and more bad news. I often thought it couldn’t get worse, but it did. Now we just want to hope again. So Chris Mortensen’s Crash Course isn’t for the faint of heart.
When the housing bubble burst, you probably couldn’t help thinking of
the Great Depression. Christian’s of some persuasions were (and are) convinced that the end of the world is imminent. I, too, still think the
financial mess we are in is just the beginning of hard times. There are
a lot more forces coming together that make this a unique crisis and not nearly just a matter of a depression/recession. Martenson’s Crash Course outlines several reasons why, though he doesn’t include global climate change. Martenson makes sense of why by explaining the exponential factor and then showing how it works in various areas. His explanations are easy to understand and very basic. One of the things I’ve been most disgusted with in the constant news about the financial mess is that it seems to relate mostly to people who make a lot of money. Martenson is more about the very roots of economics, in the opinion of people who live much farther down the economic ladder.
Although Martenson gives a little hope at the end in thinking that our
quality of life could improve, he does not see the catastrophic
consequences for those who cannot save or plan for the coming crisis. So do I think there is no hope? I really have very little hope that people will see the light, or that they will work together, or that anything substantial will be done soon enough. I hope to be proven wrong.
America has been so focused on individualism (capitalism is good at
fostering the “pull yourself up by your bootstrap mentality) that I
wonder if people can work together. There are two things I see in my
community. One is that people despise those who can’t “make
it” even though they are among them in the broader sense of who has
wealth. They also despise the government and see no hope coming from that direction. On the other hand though, they also do think there is a lack of focus on community and some are actively working to build local resources in the form of promoting the local food movement.
One other thing I’d like to mention is that Martenson doesn’t bring in
politics per se. He appears to be on the right side of the political
divide. The coming economic disaster is one area where I see some
agreement in what some on the right and the left fear. Unfortunately,
without any sane discussion about the causes, one cannot sanely address solutions.
Martenson includes a self-assessment elsewhere on his website. One thing that struck me was in his section about safety. He asks if one has guns, knows how to use them and has addressed other safety issues, like the development of community with those who live nearby. Somehow, though I’ve had the same thoughts and I’ve heard others on the left express similar thoughts, it struck me as more of a right-wing manner of facing the issue. It is an expression of the extreme individualism in this country…the tendency to focus on taking care of self through one’s own means rather than coming together as a community to address concerns through sane government.
Personally, I think everyone in the country should listen to Martenson’s Crash Course.
Dick Bernard observations made before reading Carol’s: The “3 hours” part was a bit daunting, but I took on the task, initially watching the first 3 or 4 segments, then ultimately the rest. It was helpful that a coffee-time friend of mine, Steve, who I told about the course, actually watched the whole thing before I did, and was glad he did. Steve is a retired manager for a major corporation and not prone to take leaps based on limited or no data. I trusted his judgment. I have only a vague notion of Steve’s political orientation: we’re simply friends sharing a space for an hour or so each morning.
The Crash Course didn’t provide me with any new or unusual information, but I found it very useful. It is in easily digestable “bites”, and can be watched all at once, or over time. Martenson covers the bases of the present and possible future consequences, and does it in a non-partisan way. He teaches well. He presents information he thinks is important. The conclusions are left to the viewer.
No one knows for certain exactly what will happen in the future. But Martenson makes a persuasive case that the next 20 years will not resemble the past 20, and that the longer term is not going to be a time where the lifestyle we’ve become accustomed to over the last 20 years will return. There are too many “exponential curves” facing us, in population, energy use, etc., and if we factor in things like peak oil, climate change, global economic instability and such, and one is foolish to pretend that life can go on without very substantial changes in how we choose to live.
Succinctly, we all lived in the golden years. We, particularly those who come after us, are going to pay for our excess, and more than just in dollars.
Every day I see little ones, those from tiny newborns to teenager, and when I think of the future, I think about what’s ahead for them. My Dad lived about 20 years beyond my present age, so I might be around to see if Martenson’s predictions about the last 20 years are correct. But the present-day youngsters will be faced head-on with what we left behind, and they’ll just be in early adulthood when that 20 years comes.
I highly recommend watching the videos.
Final Notes from Dick after reading Carol’s: I was struck by how often Carol used the words “individualism” and “community” and their near relatives, like “together” or “local” to describe present and coming relationships in our own society. The community vs individual polarity is in itself a very complex yet very important topic for someone interested in writing about it.
Update June 3, 2009:  Note #34 published this date for more on this topic.

#18 – Dick Bernard: A re-view of Mother's Day

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Sometimes seemingly dis-connected happenings converge, causing one to re-think what previously was thought to be obvious.
This has happened to me in recent weeks, regarding Mother’s.
“Mother”, it seems to me, is a whole lot more than solely a biological function; and it is much more than a designated day in May. It is joyful, tragic, complicated. It is all those things, and much, much more. It is 24/7/365 for all of us.
In particular, this Mother’s Day, I think of my cousin’s niece, a young mother of two, who is struggling with cancer in a hospital room at the University of Minnesota Hospital.
I think of my cousin, who’s not been a biological Mom, but who’s been a primary visitor to that hospital room, and in a substantial sense has become a Mom, too, for her niece in a time of need.
Nearby in my own neighborhood is a retired couple whose son and two children live with them. It wasn’t what retirement was planned to be. For whatever reason, the biological Mom was unable to cope with the business of parenting. One is tempted to judge, but such happenings are seldom if ever routine.
Then there are the Dad’s, too, who for various and sundry reasons have become “Mom”, too. Perhaps their spouse died, or couldn’t cope.
Indeed, the Mom business is very complicated; the Dad business, too.
And our role as part of the greater Community in all of this is complicated as well.
Give some thought, this day, to “Mom” in all of the renditions of the term.
And have a happy Mother’s Day, everyone.

#17 – Dick Bernard: Don Bartlette, Macaroni at Midnight.

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Today was Diversity Day for Bloomington MN high schools and I went out to Jefferson High School in Bloomington to staff a table for a group in which I am active called World Citizen www.peacesites.org.
I had the written program for the day, but wasn’t certain when I was supposed to be there, so I went out early. The first two periods of the day featured an assembly talk by a “Dr. Bartlette, Speaker”. I had no idea who this person was, and the program didn’t say any more about him or his topic. It was a very nice day outside, and the choice between listening to somebody give a speech to a bunch of kids captive in a school auditorium, and enjoying some fine spring weather seemed a no-brainer.
But something drew me into the auditorium for the second talk. Still, rather than sit down, I stood in the back, much like a teacher on duty. At least I had an escape route.
Dr. Bartlette was given a very low key introduction, and walked up to the podium, a short man, wearing a short sleeved dark shirt, very plain appearing. He began to speak, quietly, and with something of a speech impediment.
He quietly told his life story, born in a small log cabin up the hill and in the woods outside of a town, born with severe facial deformities, unable to speak, growing up shunned as a native American in North Dakota, but also shunned by his own father who had expected him to be normal at birth, and he wasn’t. He was shunned by virtually everyone except, it seemed, his mother, and ultimately a wealthy woman in the town of 1700 people became something of a guardian angel. She saw something in him, or perhaps it was her sense of his worth as a human being that led her to help him thrive. His life began to turn around. In his high school years someone, perhaps the wealthy woman (I don’t recall off-hand), prevailed on the most popular high school kid to befriend him, and the youngster did, and Don blossomed, becoming class and student council president and valedictorian of his class.
He had his audience completely engaged. I was standing back there, choking back tears, choking back tears, choking back tears. And he continued to tell his story.
He continued to learn, and ultimately achieved his doctorate and now, as his business card says, he is a “Public Speaker”, worldwide. He now lives in Ohio.
Doctors went to work on his face, replacing the deformed half-nose with which he was born with a plastic nose that serves him well. Other major facial and other defects needed correction as well. He got his degrees, and one of his first jobs was as Human Rights Director for the city of Bloomington MN in the late 1970s. It was not a time, he said, where diversity was celebrated.
He finished his talk to great applause from the young people in attendance. He came back to thank them for their attentiveness to his story. He left the stage, and I thought I’d not see him again. But my 45 or so minutes in his presence profoundly impacted me.
After the talk I saw him walking a short distance away. I went up and shook his hand and thanked him for a powerful witness to possibility. We compared notes: he had graduated from his North Dakota high school the same year I did: 1958. He knew my small towns; I knew his. We will likely stay in touch. There is much for us to connect about.
I looked him up on the internet. Material about him can be found by searching Don Bartlett Macaroni at Midnight (yes, there is a story to that). A movie about him is apparently now in production.
If you ever hear that he is in your area, make it a point to stop in.
You won’t regret it.

#16 – Jane Stillwater: A flu survivor, 2009

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A reader comment follows this post.
Note from the moderator: For most of us, the flu hysteria of Spring 2009 has (thankfully) been a spectator sport. Jane Stillwater, her friend, and her granddaughter happened to have the flu during the peak news time about the feared “Swine Flu pandemic”. Jane writes from Berkeley CA. For certain, read the end note, received this morning. I posted previously on this topic at April 27, 2009.
Jane Stillwater: After a friend of mine came down with a severe dose of some kind of terrible flu and I nursed him back to health, guess what happened next? Yeah, I got sick too. Really sick. “OMG, now I’ve got swine flu!” I whined — in between trips to the bathroom.
But in my more lucid moments, I managed to do some research on the subject (as we all know, Google is the poor man’s health insurance). Just how serious IS swine flu? I know that I am feeling like heck-warmed-over right now, but let’s put this thing into perspective. According to my friend Joe Thompson who loves to send me statistics, within one year in America over 61,000 people will die of pneumonia. One out of every 20 who contract pneumonia will die. And since January of this year alone, over 1,300 people have died from ordinary flu. But only one person has died from swine flu.
Great. Now we have put this so-called pandemic into perspective. But does that make me feel better? No. So I trudged off to the local ER to get treated for swine flu — or not. And they gave me a face mask as soon as I walked in the door. “Do you get many swine flu patients here?” I asked the triage nurse.
“Actually no,” he replied. “We get several people a day coming in with flu symptoms and we test them, but so far no one has tested positive.” There were only eight people in the waiting room and only two of us had been handed face masks. It’s hard to breathe with this on.
Then I sat around the waiting room for an hour and watched a History Channel segment on gangs. “It’s all about protecting the lucrative drug trade,” said the TV. “They’re going to do whatever they can to keep the money flowing in.” In case you might be wondering why swine flu is being hyped as this horrible death machine but pneumonia, a proven killer, is not? Could it be “all about protecting the lucrative drug trade” — and keeping the money flowing in at all costs?
Then I saw the doctor, described my symptoms to him and whimpered a bit more. He said to take Pepto Bismo, stay hydrated, eat healthy and wait it out.
“Flu is a virus then?”
“Yes. There have been several anti-virals developed to combat HIV that might be used to treat it, but mainly you just wait it out.” I didn’t know that. “And just in case you do have swine flu, remember that swine flu is milder than regular flu.” I definitely did not know that!
“But do I — or do I not — have the swine flu?” I asked. So the doctor pulled out some sterile swabs and took samples from my nose.
“We send them off to the State of California for testing and you’ll know the results in a few days. It might be five days because of the weekend.” If this is really a super-emergency, five days is a long time! Plus if this is really a national crisis, then why aren’t the state lab guys working on weekends? “And if you do have swine flu, they’ll come to your home and ask you who you have been in contact with and try to figure out how you got exposed to it. There is a seven-day incubation period so it would have to have been someone you have been around approximately seven days ago.”
Then I went home and drank plenty of liquids.
After undergoing this bit of involuntary research on flu symptoms, I have been forced to come to the painful conclusion that this whole swine flu pandemic scare is both a hype and a hoax — and that our media, our politicians and corporate America have failed the American public yet again in their efforts to scare us into giving them our money, just like what happened in Vietnam and Iraq, and in the savings and loan debacle and the AIG bailout.
America is a democracy ruled by us? What democracy? Apparently we are being played like a fiddle. Again.
PS: Regarding “protecting the lucrative drug trade,” Dr. Joseph Mercola, medical consultant on CNN and ABC News, has this to say:
“According to the World Health Organization’s Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response site; as of April 27 there are:.” http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx
109 laboratory confirmed cases in U.S. — 1 death (reported by CDC as of April 30)
26 confirmed cases in Mexico — 7 deaths
6 confirmed cases in Canada — 0 deaths
1 confirmed case in Spain — 0 deaths
Additionally, nearly all suspected new cases have been reported as mild. Personally, I am highly skeptical. It simply doesn’t add up to a real pandemic. But it does raise serious questions about where this brand new, never before seen virus came from, especially since it cannot be contracted from eating pork products, and has never before been seen in pigs, and contains traits from the bird flu — and which, so far, only seems to respond to Tamiflu. Are we just that lucky, or… what?
“Your fear will make some people VERY rich in today’s crumbling economy. According to the Associated Press, at least one financial analyst estimates up to $388 million worth of Tamiflu sales in the near future — and that’s without a pandemic outbreak.
“More than half a dozen pharmaceutical companies, including Gilead Sciences Inc., Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and other companies with a stake in flu treatments and detection, have seen a rise in their shares in a matter of days, and will likely see revenue boosts if the swine flu outbreak continues to spread. As soon as Homeland Security declared a health emergency, 25 percent — about 12 million doses — of Tamiflu and Relenza treatment courses were released from the nation’s stockpile. However, beware that the declaration also allows unapproved tests and drugs to be administered to children. Many health and government officials are more than willing to take that chance with your life, and the life of your child. But are you?
“Remember, Tamiflu went through some rough times not too long ago, as the dangers of this drug came to light when, in 2007, the FDA finally began investigating some 1,800 adverse event reports related to the drug. Common side effects of Tamiflu include:
Nausea
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Headache
Dizziness
Fatigue
Cough
All in all, the very symptoms you’re trying to avoid. More serious symptoms included convulsions, delirium or delusions, and 14 deaths in children and teens as a result of neuropsychiatric problems and brain infections (which led Japan to ban Tamiflu for children in 2007). And that’s for a drug that, when used as directed, only reduces the duration of influenza symptoms by 1 to 1 ½ days, according to the official data
End note received from Jane overnight, May 5, 2009: No word from the state health dept so I guess that I am officially swine-flu-free. Not many people can say that with certainty but I can! It seems like everyone in my family is now finally well again. It’s been a very rough week.
End note from moderator: It is little more than a week since “Swine Flu” grabbed and continued to dominate the headlines (see Apr 27 09 posting). From potential pandemic status, Swine Flu has moved off the front pages after “infecting” virtually everyone in the media, or public policy. There are charges of over-reacting, or under-reacting, or reacting improperly in other ways. Perhaps Swine Flu was never a threat at all, perhaps it will become one still. Whatever the case, the explosion of publicity and near panic has not helped enlighten or protect the public. Why believe the next burst of publicity about Swine Flu or anything else? One is reminded of the “cry wolf” story we learned as children.

#15 – Dick Bernard, Grandpa's Slingshot; and Jane Stillwater, a Letter to the Editor

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A reader comment follows this post.
Today is my 69th birthday. I share the birthday with grandson Parker, 7, and a great number of others. Parker and I shared birthday cake yesterday.
To a great number of people in my assorted constellations my age means I’m “just a kid”; to many others, including Parker, I grew up long ago in a simple time they cannot even imagine.
Today I take the time to share a couple of stories, one from me, a family story about my Grandpa and Grandma in Grafton ND; the other from a friend “out west”, relating a recent contemporary event that shows that, at heart, true community still lives in this country of ours. To me, the stories are related, and tell of being part of, rather than apart from, the community that makes up planet earth.
Grandpa Bernard: a story from the 1940s or 1950s:
My Grandpa Bernard was a crusty old French-Canadian. He’d served in the Spanish-American War; was chief engineer at the local flour mill; President of the Grafton Fire Department; lost one leg to diabetes in 1946, and the loss of the second leg in 1957 was his sayonara to life, 85 years well lived. I was told that he wasn’t one to run from a fight. I was 17 when he died so I got to know him pretty well.
We used to visit Grandma and Grandpa at their tiny, tiny, tiny little house down the street from the Court House in Grafton ND. Why they lived in that tiny, tiny house is another story for another time.
Grandpa enjoyed sitting outside, and they had built a bench of sorts outside the front door, and in good weather Grandpa was out there most all the time. He’d regale passers by and visitors with stories and wild tales, facing down moose in the woods when he was a lumberjack in Quebec, that sort of thing. We kids mostly reveled in his other antics: like he told us that, as a lumberjack, he wore the same long underwear all winter, and it was so dirty by springtime that it would stand by itself. I remember particularly one version where he recalled a caterpillar or some such crawling out of the button hole of one set of those “long johns”. Dirty underwear meant no baths: ah, that was the life!
And then there was the time when, at the end of Thanksgiving dinner, with all five of we impressionable kids at the table, he decided to teach us how to clean our plates…by picking up his plate and licking it clean. Made a great impression on us; somewhat less impressed were our parents and Grandma.
But I digress.
Grandpa was armed and dangerous to neighborhood critters.
They had a little garden out back, and hanging by the back door was a beebe gun which occasionally came in handy if something was out there munchin without asking permission. The back door faced an alley and a vacant lot, so there was not much danger or hitting somebody’s window, or rear end.
The front porch was a little different.
Out there Grandpa had a hand-made slingshot and a coffee can full of perfect pebbles. He was pretty accurate and it had good range.
One day we were visiting with him and he had an opportunity to show off his neighborhood influence.
He spotted a big dog trotting down the sidewalk towards his house.
When it got a couple of houses away, he told us kids “watch that dog”. So, of course, we did.
The dog trotted to slingshot range of Grandpa, made a hard right, trotted across the street to the other sidewalk, made a hard left, trotted on, then out of range, made another hard left, and then right, back on our sidewalk.
There was no hollering, no barking, no shots fired!
I’ve never forgotten it!
Thanks, Grandpa.
*
From Jane Stillwater
Berkeley, CA 2009:
A published letter to the editor, Berkeley Daily Planet:
I went to the April 22 Berkeley City Council meeting to see if I could snag some of that Obama stimulus package money for Savo Island Cooperative Homes, the South Berkeley housing project where I live. And as I sat there for over two hours while waiting my turn to ask for money to repair my home, I was forced to listen to speaker after speaker, all of them asking the council for money. And after listening to all these speakers describe all kinds of projects geared to make people’s lives better and realizing how many of these helpful and wonderful projects are funded by our city, it suddenly hit me. Berkeley is truly an amazing place.
Some of the worthwhile groups helped out by our city are a foster agency called A Better Way, Lifelong Medical Care (they fixed my teeth!), the Berkeley High School Bio-tech program, Berkeley Boosters police athletic league for kids, Strawberry Creek Lodge senior housing, BOSS assistance programs for the homeless, an Alzheimer’s center, a program to help deaf children, I forget what all else. If you had sat there for over two hours, you would have been amazed too.
Earlier this week, I had gone to a People’s Park anniversary event, and had thought to myself, “Those days are long gone. Berkeley just isn’t like that any more.” But after listening to all the wonderful people speaking up for their wonderful groups that help all sorts of people here in Berkeley, I suddenly realized that Berkeley hasn’t changed all that much after all.
Berkeley is still a wonderful, caring place—a place that takes great pains to make sure that those in need are taken care of and that we Do The Right Thing. I was very proud of my city tonight.

#14 – Anne Dunn: Sweet Smoky Blues

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Note: Here’s another chapter on Sugaring near Deer River MN. Anne previously wrote on this topic at #6, published April 12, 2009, under the category, Quietings.
I’d been charged with watching the maple syrup cooker so it wouldn’t boil over. There were also three barrels of sap bubbling the steam away. Annie and Laura had just returned from emptying sap so the holding barrel was full.
After returning to camp, Annie began splitting wood while Laura renewed the fire. I was quick to see and eliminate a brief but intense flare. Using a long pole I scattered the flaming wood to cool the fire.
Earlier that day I’d noticed that the sparks clung to the shelter roof and didn’t die out as quickly as I thought they should. I also noted that the fire was swirling rather violently. But with several sugar bush veterans in camp I decided it was not going to be a problem. In fact, I told Laura that the fire had learned a new dance. She smiled and glanced into the flames but said nothing. When she went out to stack the woodpile I was alone with the fire.
Soon I smelled plastic burning. I checked my boots then stepped out to tell Annie and Laura to check their boots, too. When I re-entered the shelter I was hit by a terrible odor. Then the roof burst into flames. Burning tarpaper and melted plastic began falling into our boiling barrels. I shouted “Fire!” and we flew into action. We formed an instant bucket brigade with Annie climbing to the roof while Laura and I passed buckets of sap from the holding barrel. I went back inside and began throwing cans of sap against the inside of the roof. After many desperate minutes we got the blaze under control but there was a great loss of syrup and sap, not to mention the gaping hole in the roof.
On the following day the roof was repaired and we were back in business. The sap was still running and we were still boiling it into syrup. We finished 15 quarts that day.
On Easter Sunday we had a big dinner and egg hunt at the camp and the fire seemed quite forgotten. However, Annie was later presented with a book of spent matches. The award was given in recognition of her being the camp supervisor at the time of the fire.
It was soon decided that we would close down the camp because we had all the syrup we need for the coming year. Usually we close camp when the maple tree buds are as big as squirrel ears but this year we closed early.
We began pulling taps and bagging up catch cans. The cookers and holding barrel were still full. Some of the men said they would finish cooking the remaining sap and the resulting syrup would be given to some of our hard working helpers.
We had opened the camp with a naming ceremony, give away and feast. Now we were closing with a family dinner.
I watched the smoke drift away through the trees and listened to the voices around me but I heard no words at all. I was only aware of a certain contentment that hummed about me. Closing my eyes I felt like a fetus that had been carried into the sugar bush camp within her mother’s womb.
When I opened my eyes I looked up through the bare branches above and thanked Creator for another good gathering. I asked that I be allowed to return to the sugar bush next year and enjoy the sweet smoky blues without burning a hole in the roof.
Anne M. Dunn is an Anishinabe-Ojibwe grandmother storyteller and published author. She makes her home in rural Deer River, MN, on the Leech Lake Reservation. She can be reached at twigfigsATyahooDOTcom