#570 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #17. A Funeral

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A couple of weeks ago I attended the memorial service for a former colleague of mine. He was 78 when he died, and the memorial service was in a small city outside the twin cities area.
John had been my colleague for 24 years. I didn’t know him well, as we were among about 40 staff people in a state-wide organization, and other than relatively frequent staff-meetings, he & I didn’t have any day to day relationship. He was from another part of the state. But we were part of the same staff group and saw each other frequently.
John’s was an open casket funeral. We were there, family and friends and colleagues. A Methodist minister officiated.
(click on photos to enlarge)


We’d seen the obituary before the funeral, and it mentioned John’s “significant other for 37 years, Oliver…”
I asked our colleague who I was riding with, “was John Gay?” Yes. Obviously he was. I’d never noticed anything. He was simply ‘staff’ like me.
With John’s casket was a military-folded American flag, recognizing his military service. He’d been a Marine in the Korean War years. For nine years he had been a public school teacher before he was a union representative.
I’d guess there were about 30 of us at the service, mostly family members.
It was a very nice send off for John.
I noticed in the obit that while John grew up and went to college in Iowa, and had lived for almost all of his work life in Minnesota, that his burial was to be in a rural Norwegian cemetery in eastern North Dakota.
As is my tendency, I asked a stupid question of Oliver, his partner: “why is the burial to be in North Dakota?”
Oliver replied politely that the cemetery was his families cemetery, and he and John had bought adjoining plots some years earlier. It was a matter of fact answer. I felt foolish.
They’d loved each other for 37 years, why wouldn’t they want to be buried together?
John’s funeral occurred at the very time when the issue of Gay relationships is under the spotlight in the United States. In the last few days President Obama has weighed in, powerfully, on the issue; and North Carolina has enshrined anti-Gay marriage language in their State Constitution.
Such a matter is pending in Minnesota in the Fall election as well, and politically savvy people are calling the Gay issue a wedge issue….
As the casket was about to be closed, Oliver said the final goodbye to his partner. I don’t recall ever seeing such a tender farewell from one to another. It was a gentle, powerful moment.
Perhaps, just perhaps, John’s death on April 29, might be part of the death of the anti-Gay hate campaign that has been so useful to so many for so long.
One can hope.
TWO VIGNETTES plus two other points:
1. My Aunt Jean passed away in 1994, and I volunteered to give my friend, Fr. Paul, a ride to the memorial service.
Paul had married Uncle George and Aunt Jean in 1944, and had baptized me in 1940. In his later years, he and I had become good friends.
During the long drive from his home to the place of the memorial service, Paul began to reminisce about his growing up, seminary, and his many years in the Priesthood in North Dakota. By all accounts, he was a very faithful Priest, a very good man. We talked about many things: about the loneliness and isolation of his profession, and of how he and his colleague Priests coped, and of occasional serious lapses. Priests are human, after all. He allowed me to tape his reminiscences.
There was only one point at which he became visibly agitated about anything, and that was when he talked about homosexual relationships. “I just don’t understand that”, he said. And on we went.
It has occurred to me that it was not homosexuality of someone else that was Paul’s problem; it was Paul’s unwillingness to understand it that was his own perception problem. So it goes for those who rail against it. It is not a religious issue so much as it is an understanding issue.
2. The Catholic Church hierarchy (happens to be my church too) is in the forefront of the marriage/man/woman campaign. It is not quite as simple as the Bishops and Cardinals ‘teach’.
I have the marriage contract of my first Bernard ancestor in Quebec in the year 1730 (in its entirety here: Quebec Marriage Cont001)
The document speaks for itself. Quebec was a Catholic country: non-Catholics were not welcome. So this civil contract did in fact require marriage in the Catholic Church. But the civil contract was entered into two weeks before the religious marriage, and they were separate and distinct entities. Even in an all Catholic country, there was separation between Church and State. In the Bernard-Giroux case, the marriage in the church happened two weeks after the civil contract of marriage. Would there have been a valid civil marriage if one or the other of the couple died before the religious bans? Doubtless that happened more than once.
3. I keep thinking of my classmate, Jerry, who died in 1993. We were simply classmates in a tiny school (senior class of nine) and it wasn’t till years later that I learned he was Gay, from his Aunt. Recently I googled his name, and up came a short obituary of him. It would seem appropriate to add this web reference to Jerry, which speaks well for itself. I particularly note the anonymity of the two brief tributes. That is how it has been, to be Gay in our society.
4. A longer summary of the current political conversation about the Gay Marriage issue is here.

#567 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #16. Six months from today, it'll be Wednesday, November 7, 2012…

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… the United States will wake up to the residue of the 2012 election.
There will be campaign offices in disarray, activists everywhere with hangovers, either the euphoria of victory or the depression of defeat, victors, vanquished.
Election 2012, America’s biennial Civil War, will be over…for a few hours, then election 2014 will begin.
We do Politics as War in this country. The talk will always be in war terms: “battles”, “campaigns”, “wins”, “losses”, “victories”, “defeats”….
We will pretend that this is constructive.
It is utterly insane.
Political A-Bombs and Poison Gas will be in the form of television advertising and mailers and robocalls and on and on and on.
There will be billions of dollars spent on campaign advertising…carpet bombing claiming one is good, another evil.
It has been proven that negative campaigning works.
Politics has become amoral: lies are neither good or bad, they are, in fact, expected; indeed, they are demanded. They are entertainment, like TV.
And like the rubes at the carnival, many of us will lap them up. “Boy, he got in some good licks”. While we all get fleeced.
Many, far too many, will retreat into caves and try to ride out the war: “I can’t deal with it”; “war hasn’t ended, they can all go to hell”, Etc., Etc., Etc.
There are never permanent winners in war. The winner of the battle is marked for a later loss. But, really, we all lose.
Personally, I’m going to be actively engaged, personally and financially.
I will be supporting President Obama, as I think he has done a great job overcoming overwhelming odds – his opposition has, since his victory, sworn to make him – thus all of us – fail. They haven’t succeeded.
His major criticism from 2008 supporters was that he attempted to compromise with partisans he knew wouldn’t compromise unless forced. I consider that a major strength he had, not a weakness. We are a country of diverse opinions.
There is, in my opinion, a major contest this time between a truly radical Republican Party, and a more moderate Democratic Party. There is far more than “a dime’s worth of difference” between Republicans and Democrats; this is not going to be a contest between the “lesser of the two evils”. (This is a recent phenomenon. Today’s Republicans are not the Eisenhower, or even Nixon or Ford variety. The leaders are radicals, sworn to take control of the government they despise.)
Today’s Democrats are probably quite similar to the 1950s and 1960s Eisenhower Republicans. One can debate if that is good or bad. As I said, “we are a country of diverse opinions.”
My plea, at minimum: before you vote (or refuse to vote) on November 6, know what the issues (plural, issues) are, and know what the candidates truly represent, as opposed to their campaigns, and vote well informed on all the many officials you’ll be electing.
It is the least you can do for yourself and for your childrens future.
More here.

#566 – Dick Bernard: National Teacher Appreciation Day 2012

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Today is National Teacher Day, a day with a long tradition. Since 1985 the first Tuesday in May has been the specific day, but the tradition goes back to an idea of a teacher in the 1940s.
More so than in any recent years, Teacher Appreciation Day is an essential one this year.
Especially since January 2011 there has been an organized assault on teachers and their organizations that I’d consider unprecedented. I knew it had been unremitting in the last year, but the extent was revealed by one of Governor Dayton’s veto messages here. (See CH 274 HF 1870 Veto Message). And this was just Minnesota.
Thankfully Governor Dayton, from a very well known Minnesota family, knows of what he speaks. Early in his adult life he spent two years teaching in poverty ridden public schools in New York City. A month or so ago I heard him speak about that experience at the Education Summit of Parents United, an independent non-partisan public education advocacy group.
The Governor related, among other things, his businessman Dad’s admonition that you must “inspect before you can expect”. For Mr. Dayton, this involved visiting the homes of his students.

Gov Mark Dayton at Parents United for Public Schools April, 2012


I come from a lifetime in teaching: my parents were career public school teachers. For nine years I was a teacher, then for 27 years I represented public school teachers in teacher union work. Even in the dozen years subsequent to retirement I’ve had close and continuing contacts with public education and educators. Today, May 8, 2012, one daughter will go to her job as Principal of a large Middle School; and seven grandchildren will be off to their Minnesota public schools with hundreds of thousands of their peers.
I’ve written about some of them recently: here and here.
But the assault on public ed is real, and at least here in Minnesota the battering rams apparently didn’t quite work.
Perhaps stability will begin to return.
I wasn’t a perfect teacher, nor a perfect union representative, nor are my union or its members perfect, but without equivocation the attack on Minnesota’s public workers has been unwarranted and unnecessary. Of course, the attack is all under the guise of “reform” or other high-sounding labels. But the intent was destruction and not reform, and you can see it in the morale of public employees under siege.
But even in the blitzkrieg of attempted destruction, there are good examples, not difficult to find. They are in those school programs that I wrote about a few days ago (see above), and in other sometimes unusual circumstances.
Some weeks ago I was driver for a 91-year old friend who wanted to attend his club meeting. He has for many years been a member of a well known men’s club, whose members are all prominent in their particular fields of endeavor. It is a by-invitation only group, and you can attend only as a member or a guest of a member. He’d long ago ‘paid his dues’ – both he and his Dad before him had been President of this Club.
Each month a featured part of the meeting is a talk by someone with particular expertise.
At this particular meeting, the speaker was a man whose first name is Erik and who is more and more well known among a certain twin cities and regional affinity group: his business is “Erik’s Bikes and Boards“. His website is here.
He gave his personal history – how it was he became successful – and among others he gave very specific credit to one unnamed public school teacher in one of the public schools he had attended as a young person.
I don’t know the teachers name, and it is unnecessary to find out who he or she was at this point. I know the school district, and it has always had a very strong teachers union, and most likely the teacher was part of that union. And more than just the teacher, the administration and the school district itself allowed the flexibility that helped launch Erik into his career.
Whatever the specifics, somewhere in the background of almost all of us is someone we remember as “teacher”. It only takes one, and all of we teachers know that. Someone, some time, we touched, even if we may never hear it directly.
Thank you all. And take a moment today to thank some teacher that you know who made a difference in your life.

#565 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #15. The Political Conversation

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I had a dream overnight – this is literally true – of living in what seemed to be a somewhat primitive society somewhere where people, whether ordinary or high and mighty, had identical rights to have good ideas and actually possessed the possibility of having these ideas considered without threat of ridicule or worse.
The notion was that in the interest of the greater good, everyone had a chance of prevailing in the marketplace of ideas.
It was a pretty nice dream, actually, but it was a very threatening one to certain members of the society who stood to lose some power if some of these good ideas were actually implemented.
Things deteriorated rapidly, and I woke up.
As I say, it was a dream.
Almost exactly six months from today we’ll be having a hugely important election to determine who represents us at all levels, anywhere that we live, and unfortunately many of us, perhaps most, won’t want to talk – or listen – about the issues in that election, except with people who agree with us.
In our time of 24/7 access to infinite sources of information, we are ever more ignorant because we don’t consider other points of view…and we don’t have to.
Already I see the closed-minded “you can go straight to hell” attitude, and it comes from all sides.
It will get worse.
We’ve been taught to despise “politicians”, but we’re the ones who are “politics”, and thus are the very “politicians” we despise, and we’ll be choosing our fate in November.
We seem to demand and expect the very things that we despise in politicians and political advertising. It is not healthy.
Hopefully we’ll vote better informed than those ubiquitous – and lying – “forwards” that race around these days, and insulate ourselves from the sickening torrent of propaganda ads that will be funded by largely anonymous wealth and pollute television these coming months. These ads will not be meant to inform; only to manipulate and destroy. They’re the modern day version of carpet-bombing.
There is another way, and I was thinking about it yesterday in my “birthday” post. Indeed, what follows is what I wrote yesterday, and then decided to fold into a separate post.
I’m old enough to remember the edges of the “good old days”, and while they weren’t all that good, in many ways they were better than what we live in now.
At least people talked with each other.
They had no other choice.
A few years ago I read the book Bones of Plenty, by Lois Phillips Hudson. It is a college education in how it was, then. It is worth reading today.
Bones of Plenty was about 1934, perhaps the most awful year of the Great Depression. It is set in a tiny rural community 20 or 30 miles west of Jamestown, North Dakota. (The town still exists, just off I-94. I’ve been there.)
In 1934 there was no television, and while radio existed nobody had one, and telephones when one had one were not used frivolously.
There were newspapers and magazines – lots of them. They were the window on the world as then known. And if somebody wrote something, it was printed.
And they were read, every word, every ad.
Then there were the meetings: at the town hall, after church, in the saloon, at country dances. You could love Roosevelt or hate him but you not only needed to talk to someone who might disagree with you, but actually listen to the point of view of someone else.
Sure there were fights, often alcohol-fueled, but at the end of the day, if your barn burned down, it was your neighbors who you’d depend on to rebuild; and they on you.
We don’t think in those terms any more, and it’s killing us as a civil society.
We are the ones who can change the conversation….
November 6, 2012 is only six months away.
Those candidates we select are the most important single decisions we will make as citizens of our nation.
Be very well informed.
Directly related Post here and here.

#559 – Dick Bernard: Jackie Stevenson. A Shero Passes On

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Jackie Stevenson passed on Sunday evening. This morning’s Minneapolis Star Tribune obituary carried a summary of her political life, and accolades about her. They speak for themselves.
Even among other Sheroes, Jackie seems to have been a cut above.
Somewhere in my photo files I probably have a better photo of Jackie than the below. On the other hand, Jackie made her difference in groups. This photo of Jackie with the DFL Senior Caucus Board in September 22, 2011, is as recent a photo as I have, and is evocative of her – she was always there to work and contribute.
(click to enlarge)

Jackie Stevenson , 2nd from left facing the camera, at DFL Senior Caucus Meeting at the DFL Headquarters, September 22, 2011


I was a colleague on the DFL Senior Caucus Board with Jackie. I didn’t know her for very long, and I didn’t know her well, but she was one of those persons who, if they talked, you listened. She radiated wisdom.
She and others of her feminist activist generation live on in many ways.
The legacy she and her colleagues in the struggle for women’s rights leave is a very rich legacy.
Just for a single example, in my own Senate District, 5 of the 6 candidates vying for three offices this November will be women; one of my two U.S. Senators is a woman; present U.S. Congresswoman is…a woman; and the person most likely to replace her in our new Congressional District is a woman.
And on and on and on.
Who’d ever thunk that would have ever happened!?
Those who worked more closely with her, for many years, will have lots to say in coming days.
As for me, farewell, Jackie.
You done great!
Here’s an old postcard to my grandparents farm circa 1910 (10 years before suffrage) that says it all, pretty well! I think Jackie would chuckle at it, though it wasn’t much of a chuckling matter back then.

1910 Postcard from rural Wisconsin to rural North Dakota

#558 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #14 – "The Catholic Vote" and "Making Hay While the Sun Shines"

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UPDATE May 5, 2012 at end.
This afternoon I attended the first of three sessions called “Forming Our Conscience” in the Undercroft (church basement) of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. I was most positively impressed. There were 50 of us in the room – more than I expected.
Linked is the outline for the “Forming our Conscience” session I attended, as well as the topics for April 29, and May 6: Basilica Workshop001.
Stop by Basilica the next two Sundays if you wish. I found todays session an excellent use of my time.
There is no need to interpret the words, questions and opinions of speaker and the 50 or so of us in attendance today. The attached outline speaks for itself. That’s the outline for the modified dialogue that Dr. Evans capably led. A surprising amount of ground was covered in the short 1 1/2 hours.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I’m lifelong Catholic. Put Basilica of St. Mary or Catholic in the search box on this blog, and you’ll find many references. I’m Catholic.
I go to Church, I usher frequently (as I did again today), and I’m not passive when it comes to expressing a point of view, including to those among my non-Catholic friends who think that there must be some monolith of “typical” Catholics.
When all is said and done, I contend there are really two Roman Catholic Churches, at least as I experience them today: one is the official Church, the power people like the Bishops who are quoted by the major media. Then there’s the rest of us.
We ordinary Catholics seem roughly divided into camps, much like the population at large. So, if we comprise, as we do, perhaps 20% of Minnesota’s population, on our typical days the so-called Catholic view might represent, at best, 10% of the state’s population, and not all of these think alike either. This is a rough estimate, but I think fairly close.
We ordinary folk get little attention, but we have a lot of power and we exercise it in many ways.
The American Bishops attempt to dominate certain kinds of public policy debate and thus impose religious beliefs and doctrines on the rest of the population and this troubles me, even though I’m Catholic.
This dynamic is worse now, than I remember before.
But there is no single ‘Catholic’ point of view. We Catholics adults act like other adults. The Church itself admits that only one-third of us are actually in Church on any particular Sunday.
It is likely not easy to be the Parish Priests who have the job of getting unsolicited ‘advice’ from both ‘sides’, and being leaders, message carriers and diplomats at the same time.
There is, no doubt, tension within the Catholic community about many things. This tension was not on display this afternoon. There were perhaps a dozen different opinions expressed through questions, and we all learned in the back-and-forth.
An observation I had, but didn’t have an opportunity to articulate at the meeting, is the real dilemma when religion dances into the political sphere: politicians make promises they have no intention of keeping. They all do it, as a political survival skill, but it’s incumbent on ‘we, the people’ to be aware of this natural and very practical tendency of the persons who are running for office, and look for the most reasonable alternative.
And my Church hierarchy has a different dilemma that it seems to want to ignore.
In the good old days, whether merited or not, the Church had considerable spiritual power over its flock.
Dr. Evans recalled his days in rural Minnesota when “keep holy the Sabbath day” was still the religious rule. As anyone who’s farmed knows, good weather doesn’t just happen when it is supposed to, and you “make hay while the sun shines”. In the good old days, if it looked like a good day for haying would be Sunday, the loyal Catholic farmers would troop to see the Priest after Sunday Mass to get permission to do the haying. Of course, permission was granted: it was common sense. But the Priest was asked, first.
As recently as 50 years ago this still worked pretty well.
No more.
We are adults, we need to act like the adults that we are.
(click on photo to enlarge)

Part of group April 22, 2012


For past and future posts related to Election 2012, simply enter those two words in the search box and click. A list will come up.
UPDATE MAY 7, 2012:
The April 29 and May 6 sessions were equally strong, with the attendance higher than at the first, approximately 60 at each. The outlines for the subsequent sessions is here. Basilica Workshop002.
It would be nice if everyone could see how a civil dialogue can take place within a church as diverse as my Catholic Church. Dr. Evans outline and remarks were consistent with official Church teaching, while respectfully listening to questions and noting other points of view within this large institution. Most of the 4 1/2 total hours was devoted to dialogue.
We do not all think alike. There is not a “Catholic bloc”.
During dialogue time I raised a single question, essentially as follows: “The 2012 election is exactly six months away. The only objective of any political party is to win, and to do this they and their candidates and supporters will make false promises and false charges against the opposition. We will be inundated with this. What are your thoughts?“
I didn’t expect a definitive answer, and I didn’t get one. There are assorted factcheck websites, and Dr. Evans mentioned one or two of his own. He was justifiably nervous (it appeared he was a bit nervous) about recommending specific news media, so I won’t go there. These days it is probably impossible to find a truly objective media source. All that differs is the degree of bias towards one pole or the other….
One lady mentioned the possibility of checking the actual record of persons actually in office.
I thought to myself, as others brought up their own issues, that even voting records are not a surefire way to the “truth” since in this polarized political world, there is almost no legislation that is politically “safe” to vote for or against: it usually includes some component with which the lawmaker will disagree. “Poison pills” are often inserted in legislation so as to be used against a sitting politician later. In addition, far too many of us don’t think of the consequences of our vote, or even know why we’re voting a certain way, or vote based only on our interpretation of a single issue: all very dangerous practices.
All we can do is urge people we know to pay attention to what is really the most important decision one has to make in a democracy like ours: who we choose to represent us.
We are, after all, the very “politicians” we despise, or more hopefully, respect.

Directly related post here.

#557 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #13. Attending Cong. District 4 Political Convention.

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I’m a Democrat (called DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) in Minnesota).
Today I attended the 4th Congressional District Convention as a voting delegate. This was my first 4th CD Convention. It was a simple matter of redistricting due to the 2010 Census. The previous ten years we lived at the same address, but in the 6th CD.
Registered were 225 delegates, earlier elected at Senate District Conventions. I described mine here.
(click on photos to enlarge)

CD 4 DFL Convention in Vadnais Heights MN Apr 21, 2012


Political Conventions are where the crucial decisions are made concerning representation at the levels leading, ultimately, to the general election in November. It takes some patience to last through parts of long convention days dealing with important but often uninteresting stuff, but at the end of the day it is the delegates – people like myself – who make the crucial decisions selecting those who will represent us at state and national levels.
Assorted candidates appeared from time to time during the day, and all were given an opportunity to speak.
The DFL State Convention is in Rochester on June 2-3, and the National Convention is in Charlotte NC Sep 3-6, 2012.
The important business of todays Convention was endorsing our candidate for Congress, incumbent Cong. Betty McCollum, as well as to select eight delegates – four women and four men – to the National Democratic Convention. (Delegates to the State Convention had been elected earlier at the Senate District level.)
It was the selection of the national delegates near the end of the afternoon which was of most interest to me.
DFL rules pay great attention to affirmative action, and four women and four men as delegates was no accident. In fact, there were separate secret ballot slates for election of women delegates, and men. We all voted for every one of the the eight.
There were 14 female candidates and 17 male. I was in a new setting, and I wondered how the process could possibly work at all.
It worked very well.
Every candidate was given an opportunity for what I’d characterize a one-minute “elevator speech”. Some had fliers; some had likely done some pre-convention work with delegates.
They were an amazingly diverse bunch, representing all manner of the diversity of CD 4. I would have been comfortable being represented by most all of them.
In the end, 28 of the 31 candidates appeared to give their “elevator speech”; two had used leaflets to advertise themselves earlier in the convention; one was highly recommended to me by a delegate I know as a friend.
I voted for five of the eight winning candidates.
During the hiatus when votes were being tallied one of the Congressional District officers gave us a little quiz, showing the following quote:
“Fairness is the Final Result of
Years of Effective Effort
Combined with the Experience of
Diversity.”
“How many “f’s” are there?”, she said. I counted seven.
How about you? (clue: I was incorrect.)
Her point was a good one: we humans are wired in peculiar ways. Sometimes we selectively miss things that are obvious.
And so forth.
Election 2012 is not much over six months away.
Get involved.

Denny Schneider and Grace Kelly at the Convention April 21


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#556 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #12. The Proposed Minnesota Voter Disenfranchisement Act.

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Highest on the list of contemporary issues I am concerned with is what I would call the “Minnesota Perpetual Voter Disenfranchisement Act”. This Act, HF 2738, is the proposed Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution which covertly (at least to public gaze) ends same day registration (the means used by one of six Minnesota voters) and replaces it with something called Provisional Voting. The HF 2738 is a voter dis-empowerment disaster in the making…exactly what its proponents intend.
Regardless, polls suggest that most people – party affiliation makes no apparent difference – think this idea is a good one and, at least at this moment, they will probably vote for it in the fall. If it passes, it will be a tragic mistake extremely difficult to undo. It will not pass if people know what it will do.
The proposed Constitution Amendment passed virtually unanimously in the 2012 session of the Legislature by solely Republican votes. (One Republican legislator voted against it, no Democrat voted for it, and it was intentionally passed so that it would bypass the potential veto by the Governor. There was no bargaining on this bill.) It does not even have a name as yet, and its descriptor masks its intent.
There is a fundamental (and encouraged) misunderstanding of what the bill is. Koolaid laced with Cyanide seems as good a descriptor as any.
My personal file on this issue, including the final bill passed in the Legislature, and the ALEC Model Legislation that is the birth mother of this monstrosity, is already an inch thick. (The Bill itself is only a few short paragraphs.)
All I can say is make every effort to learn everything that you can about this proposed Constitutional amendment in the coming months, and encourage your friends and neighbors to do so as well. There will be many sources of reliable information. Clear your calendar if you see or hear about a presentation in your area. You will want to know about this piece of poison you are being asked to enshrine permanently in our states Constitution.
And it is not absolutely certain that it will even pass court muster to be on the ballot in November. It is too deceptive and misleading.
I keep thinking of “Russian Roulette” – the deadly game where one bullet is placed in a revolver, and if you spin the cylinder of the six-shooter and pull the trigger and nothing happens you live.
HF 2738 is Russian Roulette with your right to vote, EVEN IF you think it can’t possibly affect you. What if you show up late to vote, and forgot your ID at home? Or you moved recently and do not yet have a valid ID with your new address? And on and on and on. It CAN happen to YOU.
(A while back I did a little exercise about my own voting history. I turned 21 in 1961, and cannot recall a subsequent election in which I have not voted (except in U.S. Army year of 1962). 2012 will be my 26th biennial Election in the United States.
Some time ago I reviewed my residence history in those 25 Election years: I lived in 10 different towns, in three different states. In four of the years I had been resident for three months or less; in five more, less than two years.
We are a migratory society and I’m not unusual.
I’d suggest doing your own history.
You may be surprised at what you recall.
And commit yourself to learning about one of the most disastrous initiatives ever to be foisted on the electorate of this state.
Related here, here and here.
(For all posts on Election 2012, simply type those two words in the Search Box.)

#555 – Carol Turnbull: Election 2012 #11. Thoughts about ALEC

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From Dick Bernard:
Carol Turnbull is a local friend, about as fair and even-handed a person as I know.
Recently ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) has gotten into her spotlight, and she wrote the following excellent column for our local paper, the Woodbury Bulletin. The article appeared in the April 5, 2012, edition. [UPDATE April 26: We have subscribed to this newspaper for years, and initially this article was accessible to us on-line, but apparently has now been restricted for public access. Most interesting.]
Near the end of her column she refers readers to a website, Source Watch, which follows ALEC activities and provides lots of information about the organization and its members. That, too, is well worth a visit.
Carol is undaunted by being a force of one. She would not fit some ideological profile. She is reasoned and she is reasonable.
ALEC members (and their legislator followers) are lately getting very nervous by the public attention provided by people like Carol Turnbull.
All it takes to make a difference is the determination to do so.
Thanks, Carol.
Here are some other comments by Carol on the issues raised by ALEC:
April 6: [T]here was one lone Republican who voted against the voter ID bill? He’s first-term Sen. Jeremy Miller of Winona. He looks like a kid!
“Minnesota State Senator Jeremy Miller (R-Winona) was described by the Winona Daily news as ‘increasingly reluctant to support constitutional amendments’ lately favored by MN’s GOP legislative majority. Miller seems to prefer cooperation and negotiation to brinksmanship…”
He of course now has a big target on his back. We can thank him at: sen.jeremy.miller@senate.mn
Carol on ALEC’s own newsletter: [I] particularly liked this statement I found – as though that makes it way better:
Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law was the basis for the American Legislative Exchange Council’s model legislation, not the other way around.
April 11 from Carol: Have you seen this blogsite? Check out some of the postings re ALEC on the right – he’s wonderful.
NOTE: For other posts on Election 2012, simply enter those two words in the search box at this site.

#554 – Dick Bernard: Parents United for Public Schools, looking forward

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Towards the end of yesterday’s most stimulating conference of Parents United for Public Schools, a slide appeared on the screen:
“I skate to where the puck will be,
not to where it has been.”
Wayne Gretzky
Gretzky was the almost superhuman hockey player who made it all look easy. I had the privilege of seeing him in person, one time, at the old Bloomington Met Center in the mid-1980s. We were at center ice perhaps a half dozen rows up, and when Wayne Gretzky was in the neighborhood, you knew you were in the presence of greatness, even amongst other great National Hockey League players.
“I skate to where the puck will be….” What a great metaphor for success in anything. Possibility replaces impossibility.
Our guest speakers were truly a dynamic duo: Dr. Tom Gillaspy and Dr. Tom Stinson. They’ve been advisors to the high and mighty in Minnesota and even folks like me have been privileged to hear them speak in other settings. Their specialties tend to make the eyes of mere mortals glaze over: economics and demography. But like Gretzky and his hockey puck, they make it all make sense, and make it interesting to boot!
In fact, much to my surprise, this mornings Minneapolis Star Tribune gave Tom Gillaspy page one treatment in the Variety Section. Imagine that: a demographer featured on page one of the entertainment section of the newspaper! (And I can say that Tom Stinson deserves equal time and treatment.)
I wish their message were on film. But it isn’t.
(click on photos to enlarge them)

Mary Cecconi, Tom Gillaspy, Tom Stinson, April 16, 2012


Second best is that their entire Power Point presentation is accessible at the Parents United website. It is here (click on “keynote presentation”), and very well worth your time.
We were also privileged to hear brief and inspiring messages from MN Gov. Mark Dayton and Education Commissioner Brenda Casselius. Sen Al Franken appeared on video.

Mn Governor Mark Dayton, April 16, 2012


Mn Commissioner of Education Brenda Casselius April 16, 2012


Two veteran retiring legislators were honored yesterday: the first time Parents United had made such a presentation. The Awards went to two long-term Legislators: Republican Senator Gen Olson (Minnetrista), and Democrat House of Representatives member Mindy Greiling (Roseville).

Rep Mindy Greiling, April 16, 2012 - courtesy Parents United for Public Schools


Sen. Gen Olson, April 16, 2012


It is always interesting to watch how people like these leaders, who we in the public are taught to view as combatants, treat each other: with respect. Senator Olson, who I knew as a public educator in long ago Anoka-Hennepin days, received her Award from former Democrat Senator and current lobbyist Kathy Saltzman (my former Senator); and Rep Greiling received her Award from Roseville School Superintendent John Thein. Sen. Olson got her start in public education; Rep Greiling got her political start on the Roseville School Board.
We saw, Monday, and we need more of, these highly visible lessons in political competition and respect as opposed to vicious political combat and loathing. There is a big difference.
We saw it in Roseville, yesterday. Absent teaching, we need to learn this skill ourselves.