#766 – Dick Bernard: Changing the Ways of Political Conversation

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This column speaks of politics, but not about parties, or issues, or positions. Rather, it is about process. This relates, also, to the previous two posts. Regardless of your ideology, I’d encourage you to read on, and at least consider what follows.
Change in any long term habit is difficult.
I doubt there would be much disagreement with that statement.
People who appear to succeed in being change-agents have managed to get themselves in a position of sufficient power to move their followers (i.e. employees, subjects, etc) along. This can happen at any level, from the tiniest group to the largest. But, as they all come to learn, temporary power does not have permanence. Sooner or later they become irrelevant, hopefully not doing too much damage in the process of controlling outcomes.
Remembering August 28, 1963, and looking back at that awe-inspiring (or terrifying) event 50 years later, gives an opportunity to dust off a failed proposal I made in September, 2008. My proposal was met with yawns, then – at least I saw no perceptible results amongst the several hundred who I shared the proposal with, and they were mostly “birds of a feather”.
My “campaign” began in the Spring of 2007. I was President of an umbrella Peace and Justice organization which had about 70 member organizations even then. The organization still exists, and I’m still a member of it.
In April of 2007, I convened an ad hoc group of people I knew to meet and simply converse about the possibility of changing the way we promoted change (demonstrations, etc.) to something potentially more productive. Both energy and effectiveness were, in my judgement, flagging.
Ultimately, perhaps 15 folks showed up to talk, and we had a good conversation.
But when we left the room, it ended: a typical kind of scenario. As I say, change is difficult.
A year later, the spring of 2008, out of office, but still concerned about our drift towards irrelevancy, I thought up an experiment, which proposed to change how we might achieve a different result by using different means. Once again, I had sufficient folks to try the experiment, which, again, failed. I called it “each one, reach two”.
In September, 2008, about the time the Republican National Convention ended, I published the “failed proposal” I describe above. It remains permanently on the web, and you can find it by putting the words “Uncomfortable Essays” in the Search Box at my blogsite, Outside the Walls.org/blog. There, you’ll be re-directed to March 8, 2011. Click the link in the 3rd line, and read pages 3-7 about my failed idea. (There are two other references there. I also wrote about the idea on March 26, 2013.)
Succinctly, if you’re not interested in going to the links: what used to work, what we used to call “organizing”, doesn’t work as well as it used to for all sorts of reasons most every reader could recite. People and technology are different. What worked in my day, doesn’t work as well today.
But, because the old rules are what we understand, that is our first default position: to do things as we always did them. Power people are as susceptible as the rest, perhaps even more susceptible to ‘staying the course’. After all, what they did, used to work. …they “used to work”.
“Each one, reach two” was my attempt to move a little bit towards what I would call the strategy (or is it “tactic”?) of networking: “each one, reach two”.
It has awesome potential.
But it seems too slow, and (perhaps worst) it can careen out of control, for the initiator, who often wants to control the final outcome.
Networking works.
Why not give it a try at the beginning of these next 50 years?

#722 – Dick Bernard: President Obama's May 23 Speech on National Security, a day later

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I wrote before the speech yesterday. That story is accessible here.
The video and transcript of President Obama’s speech are both now accessible here. In my opinion, his speech, yesterday, was of far more than normal importance, and how the body politic deals with the abundant messages, long term, is of great importance to our country.
Two aspects of yesterdays speech were of greatest interest to me.
1. The encouragement to look forward, not backward: to truly put 9-11-01 in the past, where it belongs.
9-11-01 has been drilled into our individual and collective psyche, whether left or right or in-between or having no specific opinion at all.
Reminders of our rear-view-mirror view are not hard to find.
For just a single example: not long ago I was in the Hennepin (MN) Government Center, Minneapolis, the seat of Minnesota’s largest county. In the atrium area was an immense American flag with no signage about why the flag was there.
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U.S. Flag at Hennepin County Government Center April 12, 2013

U.S. Flag at Hennepin County Government Center April 12, 2013


I decided to ask about the flag. The first person, a receptionist answering the phone, had no idea why the flag was there; the person to which I was first referred had no idea either. The third person I talked to said the flag had been there for years, and had been put up in the wake of 9-11-01: “they had to do something“, she said.
I’m still trying to flesh out the entire story of that flag; but my point is, that the reason that flag exists has nothing to do with anything other than the shock of an event that happened almost a dozen years ago…and most likely the vast majority of people who see it have no notion whatsoever about its personal story. It may as well be hanging at half-staff….
I witnessed essentially the same backward looking devotion to 9-11-01 four years ago at the International Peace Garden in the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota-Manitoba. That story is here.
When do we let go, and move on from 9-11-01? That was, I think, one of the Presidents prime messages to everyone, yesterday.
2. The significance of the protestor at the speech:
My spouse had told me someone was protesting at the Presidents speech, and later I saw the entire incident involving the protestor, Medea Benjamin. I’ve met Medea Benjamin, in September, 2008. She wouldn’t remember me. But she would if she looked up her name at the Registry of the United States Peace Foundation website where the entries are listed alphabetically, and checked Dick Bernard here (my entry is right after hers).
Memo to self: I need to gussy my bio up a bit! She and I approach the business of changing opinions a bit differently, but we’re in the same trade.
Consider becoming a Founding Member of the Peace Foundation yourself. I’ve been a Founding Member since 2006. Very few people I know who should be supporting this Foundation have taken the time to join.
But I digress: Medea is a career protestor; her reputation is built on protesting. That is what she does, her job, her role. I’ve known others like her.
The odds that the Secret Service and the President were unaware of her presence yesterday, or of what she would probably do during the speech, are infinitesimally small.
She may not have known, but I feel the Secret Service certainly did. She’s hardly a stranger in protests.
I’m pretty sure I saw one of her colleagues with her in a TV cut yesterday; she’s another activist who used to be in the Foreign Service.
Obviously I don’t know, and no one likely will ever know for certain, but my guess is that Medea was a useful part of the Presidents speech yesterday. Indeed, rather than ignoring or criticizing her, or even looking annoyed, he acknowledged her argument.
The anti-war left should be grateful. The President didn’t have to either allow or (in effect) participate in her performance. He’s made the same point she has before yesterday.
(Back in the 1990s, I recall being in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House, and witnessing one of those ‘made for TV’ demonstrations, where everyone in the ‘performance’ knew the rules, and the objective – to get on the evening news. The police were there, and the protestors, and the coordinator/spokespeople for the protest, and the paddy wagon, and a few media, and everyone was calm and well behaved. But at a certain appointed time, the demonstration took place and the protestors were arrested and hauled away.
Succintly, in my opinion, what people saw on television an hour or so later that day was simply street theatre, made for television.
And that time it was an important issue, too.)
And finally: one of my e-list noted that Ms Benjamin has a new book out, on Drone Warfare. Here’s the link if you’re interested.
But the issues raised by President Obama are very important. Do watch the speech or print out the transcript, and go to work.

#721 – Dick Bernard: Drones, etc. Todays President Obama speech on U.S. Security Policy

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UPDATE 4 p.m. CDT: Here are the printed remarks given by President Obama today. Apparently there was no live video.
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On occasion – this is one of those occasions – I deliberately do a post before some kind of major action which can be anticipated.
This morning, perhaps even as I write (9:40 a.m. CDT), the President is already speaking about Drones and other things related to National Security.
But, at this writing, I have no idea what President Obama is going to say on the issue of Drones, Terrorism, etc., except that I believe it will be important, and I will watch it in its entirety today. The White House website will likely carry the address live, and it will be archived, uncluttered by chatter by pundits or news media interpretation.
I’ve written a few times about Drones. All of the links which mention the word “Drones” are here. The December 13 & 20, 2011, postings drew particular “fire” from people who I’d usually consider allies: folks in the Peace Community. The post and the comments say what they say.
I’ve noticed that President Obama has, in past months, challenged the U.S. Congress to establish policy on use of Drones.
My guess is that he will again do so today.

But it is not in the best political interest of Congress to take unto itself its Constitutional responsibility of Declaring War, or acting on such policies as when, whether or how to use such weapons as Drones. (Constitution of U.S.001, see Article I Sec 8)
Easier it is to blame the President at the time; or to use the President as cover (it depends on whether the President at the time is my party, or yours).
Personally, I would eliminate War. But since eliminating War is not a reasonable possibility, perhaps I’d agree with changing the rules of engagement to fighting war like they did in the good old days: down and dirty, hand-to-hand and very, very personal combat.
In my bookshelf is a volume I found in a box at my ND Grandparents home some years ago. It is ambitiously entitled “Famous and Decisive Battles of the World. The Essence of History for 2500 Years” by Brig Gen Charles King copyright J. C. McCurdy 1899. I wrote about this book June 5, 2012, including a list of the 52 battles, culminating, naturally, with the Spanish-American War of 1898.
Of course, we’re no longer in those good old days when people trudged around with primitive cannons and did not have airplanes or huge megaton bombs…or drones, or cellphones, or computer technology.
We take for granted high-tech in our own daily lives.
Why should warfare be any different?
The rules of engagement have changed.
Listen to the Presidents speech, but most important, make your voice be heard with policy makers you elect.

#717 – Dick Bernard: A 1957 Social Studies Test; and a look back to the future in North Dakota

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UPDATE MAY 23, 2013: In the third paragraph, below, is a 100 question test I took in 1957. Scroll down to the UPDATE continuation following the original post, and you will find the Answer Key which I prepared, to the best of my limited ability. If interested, first take the test, then compare your answers with mine in the key. Challenges are solicited.
This is part of a series of posts about Sykeston North Dakota.
Feb 11, 2013: “Sykes High, oh Sykes High School”
May 4 (the main article): Thoughts on Sykeston High School at its Centennial
June 12 Remembering Sykeston in late 1940s
June 28 Snapshots in History of Sykeston
June 29 Sports in 1950s small towns in North Dakota
July 3: Remembering Don Koller and the Lone Ranger
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A few days ago I did a long post about Sykeston High School, a tiny place near the center of North Dakota from which I graduated in 1958.
Curt Ghylin, now a Minnesotan but back in the early 1960s a student at the same college as I, Valley City State Teachers College, visited the blog, and noticed a state-wide test given to high school Juniors and Seniors that I had taken in November, 1957, on North Dakota History, Government and Citizenship.
For those interested, the 100 question test is here: ND Hist Govt Ctzn 1957001.
Curt asked a perfectly reasonable question: “I want to show our kids the test on North Dakota history that your referenced. Do you know if the key is available somewhere? I don’t know all the answers.”
Well, I was a kid taking the test in 1957, and I did well on it, but it was statewide, probably scored by the University of North Dakota (UND), 150 miles or so from where I was marking my sheet….
No, I don’t have an answer key, Curt.
And relooking at the test, yesterday, I wouldn’t give even odds that I’d get 50% right today, without lots of cheating!
But Curt’s was a perfectly reasonable question, and I knew I had placed second (or such) in the state that year, and there must be something…. In my bookshelf was a book I had been given at the state “Know Your State” contest at UND in December, 1957. It was an autographed copy of “North Dakota A Human and Economic Geography” by Melvin E. Kazeck of the Department of Geography of the University of North Dakota, published 1956 by the North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies at North Dakota Agricultural College (now NDSU) in Fargo.
Mostly, all of the answers will be somewhere in that 264 page book. Best I know I’m the only person in the world who has a copy (I google’d it), so if it’s going to get done, I’m going to have to be the one to do it.
And I will, Curt. Yes I will. Take the test yourself, and check back to this space by early June, 2013 for the “key” (which should be pretty close to accurate).
In his e-mail, Curt articulated a problem with such old documents: “I had to point out to my sister-in-law as she read the test that the date of the test was 1957 when she questioned why Interstate 94 wasn’t a possible answer for question 2—‘The highway running across ND from Fargo to Beach’ “
Here, from Kazeck’s book, is a map with the answer to THAT question, from page 181! (The first stretch of ND Interstate wasn’t constructed until 1958, between Valley City and Jamestown, and that was among the first stretches of Interstate Highway in the U.S.)
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North Dakota Highways 1956 from Melvin E. Kazeck's North Dakota, A Human and Economic Geography

North Dakota Highways 1956 from Melvin E. Kazeck’s North Dakota, A Human and Economic Geography


But what about the title of this post, “A look back to the future in North Dakota”?
As I was leafing through Kazeck’s volume, I came across the last chapter “The Future of the State” of North Dakota.
That chapter was written 57 years ago, by someone very well versed in his topic and published by a respected institution.
This morning I pdf’ed that 35 or so page chapter, and for anyone with an interest, here’s how a North Dakota geographer saw the future of North Dakota in the year 1956: ND Geog 1956 Kazeck001
I find the chapter quite interesting.
I hope you do, as well.
UPDATE May 23, 2013:
Here is the Answer Key for the 1957 test: ANSWER KEY for ND Test 1957.
All I can say is that I’ve tried to give answers that seem consistent with what the test authors would have said were correct in 1957. With some luck, most of my choices are accurate. I was a geography major in college in North Dakota, but over 50 years away has taken its toll. I avoided the traditional student response to multiple choice – “multiple guess” – but at times it was very tempting.
I was very fortunate to have in my bookshelf two books which were source works about North Dakota geography written during the general time period of the test. Melvin Kazeck’s volume is described above; and Bernt Lloyd Wills book, North Dakota, The Northern Prairie State, was a text for North Dakota students. This book included a pleasant surprise (see below).
Neither book appears to be currently available.
A third book in my bookshelf is Dr. Elwyn B. Robinson’s History of North Dakota. I didn’t use this book when searching answers, but it appears to remain the definitive history of North Dakota, and it is still available for purchase.
Each author was, at the time they wrote their book, professors at the University of North Dakota. Kazeck and Wills were geographers; Robinson an historian.
Robinson’s Preface is very interesting to read, and in a few words gives context to North Dakota, and (probably) reveals the reason for the 1957 statewide test for young students like myself:Dr. Elwyn Robinson001
Bernt Lloyd Wills was apparently a graduate of Valley City State Teachers College (VCSTC), my own alma mater.
His Social Studies book appears, in retrospect, to have been a cooperative venture involving college geography teachers across North Dakota. George Kennedy, who expertly taught me all the classes towards my major at VCSTC, contributed a number of the graphs incorporated into the book. Among many VCSTC teachers who stood out, Mr. Kennedy and Mary Hagen Canine (journalism) stand out for me.
On page 262 of Wills book are ND school statistics for 1960 and earlier years. In 1960, in North Dakota, there were 135,548 students in North Dakota Public Schools, of which 35,600 were high school students (most likely grades 9-12). Thus, perhaps 15-20,000 ND students took that Social Studies test in November, 1957.
Wills book includes a chapter on his future vision for North Dakota: “Retrospect and Prospect” is a very interesting read, joining Kazeck’s future view (see above): ND Bernt Wills 1963002
Wills also includes a significant number of poems by Dr. Soren Kolstoe, born in 1888, who was a long time professor at Valley City State Teachers College, and apparently retired in 1958, right before I enrolled at VCSTC. The Kolstoe poems included in the book reverence the land we all know as North Dakota: Soren Kolstoe poems001
And since it can still be purchased, I’d suggest Dr. Elwyn Robinson’s History of North Dakota as a Legacy Book for your descendants. His last chapter, “The Character of a People” catches the essence of the state in which I grew up.
Thank you, North Dakota
Comments:
From NDakotan Rick, May 9, 2013:
I enjoyed the read. I picked out a few plums.
1. Population has been fairly stable since 1920 or so. Low 600,000 number
until recently with the oil boom. Now projected to go over 1 million.
2. Back in 1950, some analysis suggested that if ND developed all of its
natural resources: Oil, Coal and Water. We would add 1 million in
population. ND has developed the coal and most recently the oil. And, it
appears we will add population accordingly. Pretty good insights by those
economists back then. The water never got developed. It was a major project
called the Garrison diversion project that would bring Missouri river water
east for irrigation through-out central and eastern ND. Depended heavily on
federal dollars. Garrison diversion did start in the 60’s and was on and off
again through-out the 60’s,70’s and 80’s depending on which administration
and which congress was in power to dole out public monies. Finally, in the
80’s, it died a final death (Reagan’s terms I believe). Now sits half
finished. I think they brought it as far east as about north of Jamestown.
3. Population was only 2400 (non-native) people in 1870 when statehood was
in the works. Wow, can you imagine. I think ND is desolate now, that’s just
over the population of Hankinson scattered across the entire state.
4. It only cost a total of $70,000.00 in 1950 to own the land and equipment
to operate profitably an average farm of 650 acres. Sounds like simpler
times to me. That total bill today for 650 acres including equipment is 3.2
million.
5. Here’s a real gem for you Jeff. Page #32. If you have a hard time
figuring out the politics of ND. It’s in our DNA. Back in the 1950’s, the
legislation was considering a progressive property tax to keep a level
playing field with farmers. Not let the large farms get bigger at the
expense of smaller farmers. The more land you owned, the higher the property
tax until at some point, the property tax was so high on large farms that it
became unprofitable to be a large farmer. I like it. Never got enacted
though. Sounds like a true progressive liberal policy to me.
From NDakotan Carl May 9, 2013:
After reading the ND forecast article, it reminded me of the uncompleted McClusky Canal. I was teaching in McClusky when they were surveying. (1960-63) My wife is from McClusky so we went out there and checked on the progress of the digging when we went home to the grandparents. It is a shame they didn’t finish the less than six miles to connect to the Lonetree Reservoir. I got the information below by Googling the McClusky Canal. There are some good fishing lakes created by the canal be lower than the surrounding area. In fact one lake was drained an another created. Enjoyed your recent blogs. Carl
Lonetree Wildlife Management Area
The original Garrison Diversion Unit plan utilized the McClusky Canal to transport water resources to the Lonetree Reservoir. The reservoir was intended to be a regulating reservoir connecting the McClusky Canal and the New Rockford Canal. It was deauthorized by the Dakota Water Resources Act of 2000 and, instead, developed into a wildlife conservation area. The Lonetree Wildlife Management Area is operated by the North Dakota Game and Fish Department.
The McClusky Canal is a 73.6-mile-long canal designed to transport Missouri River water to the Sheyenne River, which flows into Lake Ashtabula reservoir above Valley City and, eventually, the Red River, and to the New Rockford Canal, another part of the GDU. The McClusky Canal crosses the continental divide between the Gulf of Mexico drainage basin and the Hudson Bay (Canada) drainage basin. The McClusky Canal has not been completed and currently (2006) does not connect to the Sheyenne River or the New Rockford Canal.
From Bismarck Tribune May 2, 2012, here.

#715 – Dick Bernard: On growing Elder.

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This afternoon, at the annual Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, the obvious salute at the end of the regular parade was to “Grandmas and Grandpas”
(Click on photos to enlarge them)

Near end of May Day/Cinco de Mayo Parade, south Minneapolis, May 5, 2013

Near end of May Day/Cinco de Mayo Parade, south Minneapolis, May 5, 2013


A Grandpa (at left) and a Grandma honor the May Day Parade as it nears its end, May 5, 2013

A Grandpa (at left, partially obscured by a lady) and a Grandma are honored by, and honor, the Minneapolis May Day Parade as it nears its end, May 5, 2013

.
It was an especially nice, and particularly pertinent, touch to a topic that has been much on my mind in recent days, but has been on my thought screen for many years: how elders fit in (or not) in our contemporary American society.
In the last week or two I’d been concentrating on a long remembrance of past days at tiny Sykeston ND High School: the place I had graduated from in May, 1958.
Among many other memories, it occurred to me that at the time of my high school graduation 55 years ago, my Dad and Mother – he was the Superintendent and one of my teachers – were 50 and 48 years old respectively.
My oldest son is now 49. And my parents seemed plenty old, back then in May, 1958.
Then in mid-week last week, more or less impromptu, I had something to do with a gathering on Law Day, May 1, which by design celebrated several Elders, most over 90, all of whom had been prominent in their working lives, and now are part of the huge category called “who’s he?”, or “she?”.
In conversing with one of them – a man I scarcely knew before April, 2013 – I had occasion to remember a workshop from 1998, which became my Christmas card in 2000.
The topic was “Canyon of 60 Abandon”. The card is brief and can be read here: Canyon of 60 Abandon002
The premise of the Canyon story is really very simple: ours is a society which tends to discard its Elders at an arbitrary time called “retirement”. Oh, we give them things like Social Security and Medicare, but basically they’re marched off into a remote area to their old person thing, and (I suppose) hopefully leave behind a substantial financial inheritance.
The story goes on about one family who violated the society rules, and hid their Elder under their porch, ultimately to their great benefit.
In my recollection of that now-15 years ago workshop, the story-teller, Michael Meade, didn’t go into specifics about what value their Elder added to the family that benefited from his or her presence.
That is the essence of story-telling. It is left to the listeners to create the real-world basis of the story.
I’ve now been in that “Canyon of 60 Abandon” for over 13 years, and it has been a most interesting and extraordinarily enriching life experience.
There is something that the Elders possess that those younger cannot, and it is important that the Elders be valued and included and not discarded.
How our society relates to those “out to pasture” tells a great deal about us.
And it is important for us to really pay attention to these relationship questions, as we struggle, ever more, with an uncertain future, and with difficulties in inter-generational communication (think Facebook versus the face-to-face word-of-mouth) that our ancestors would have relied on not too many years ago.
Who do you know in that Canyon? How can they be more truly valued while they are living. And if you’re in that Canyon, what is important about not isolating yourself?
Can we talk?
ADDED Posts on this topic: June 7, 2013, September 1, 2013

#709 – Dick Bernard: The Boston Marathon

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Yesterday morning, before 9 a.m., I was at the gym exercising at my usual place. Behind me, visible in the mirror, were two women, exercising beside each other and quite loudly chatting.
One of them mentioned to the other that her husband was in Boston, running the Marathon, checking in from time to time.
A few hours later I heard the news of the bombs at the finish line at the Marathon. This probably changed the woman’s conversation. Perhaps I’ll read in the Woodbury MN news something about this today or maybe next week…. Such is how communication goes these days. Instant and worldwide.
I got to thinking about two happenings in my own life.
Back on April 20, 1999, I was in the car on the freeway in north Minneapolis when I heard that there had been shooting at a school in Littleton, Colorado.
Littleton. That was where my son and family lived.
Soon enough, I learned my granddaughter, then 13 and in Middle School, was safe. No cell phones then. It was via e-mail.
I tried to find where Columbine high school was on the then-version of Mapquest. The school location on the map was misplaced, I soon learned. My son and family, it turned out, lived only a mile from the high school, and later he said he probably had seen the two killers the previous day in a local McDonalds restaurant – just three of the customers at that time, that day.
But in those days, communications was not quite so convenient or instant (though it was pretty good.) There were cell phones of a sort, but not ubiquitous like now. There was cable, but not hundreds of stations vying on the competitive edge for news. I don’t think I was thinking, then, about what has since become something of a mantra for me: “too many news people, too little news.”
Then I thought back further, to December 7, 1941, when my Uncle – Dad’s brother – went down with the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.
I was alive then, just 1 1/2, so I didn’t pay much attention.
Dad told me about his memories of that awful time years later. They didn’t know for certain that his brother, Frank Bernard, had died until some weeks later. The time was so chaotic that I don’t think there was even an organized Memorial Service for Frank. His parent were in Long Beach for the winter and had no car (they traveled by train, then), his sister in Los Angeles, and his brother in rural North Dakota. Making even a phone call was not a routine matter. No television. Less radio. The news coming via newspaper – I have the clippings.
We tend to forget that.
And now we are besieged for hours upon hours by repetitive images of the same exact thing; by speculation by experts about who done it, and why it was done. Everybody with their own agenda for communicating whatever it is they choose to communicate.
We’re a big country, and such incidents will happen from time to time.
We used to worry about the Russians bombing our school in central North Dakota in the 1950s; now, well you know….
We need to get a grip and keep things in a bit better perspective.
It was bad, what happened in Boston, yesterday.
As a city and as a nation and as a world we’ll survive it.
We really have it pretty good, here.

#706 – Dick Bernard: Meeting the Space Age, up close

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I suppose the space age began for me sometime in late October or November, 1957.
We were visiting my grandparents at their farm in south central North Dakota, and the Fargo Forum had published the expected track of the Russian satellite Sputnik, which had been launched October 4, 1957, igniting the space race and intensifying the Cold War of those good old days.
Right on schedule, and on the exact predicted course, Sputnik appeared to all of us gathered on the lawn of the farm house under the dark star-laden country sky – at least you could tell it from the stars as it “blinked” on and off as it tumbled across the heavens, reflecting the sun earthward.
The rest is, as they say, history.
And what started as Cape Canaveral and became Cape Kennedy, and then again became Cape Canaveral on which stood Kennedy Space Center, became famous for generations of ever bigger and more impressive rockets, triumphs and disasters.
I’d visited there with my then-13 year old son, Tom, in June, 1977.
And on March 13, 2013, I went back with 13 year old Grandson Ryan, and his friend Caleb, to once again do the tour of Kennedy Space Center. Here is a Facebook Snapshot Gallery taken on the day of our visit.
While there, I learned that there was to be a launch on April 19. I had never seen a launch, and as it evolved, I was visiting a relative perhaps 30 miles down the coast, and excused myself to go north for the launch of an Air Force Atlas, watching it from the Indian River-side property of my friends the Brady’s. They’ve watched launches from their property since the early 1980s.
March 20, 2013, was my first.
I would like to say the launch was an amazingly impressive sight – the launch I saw – but it was not very dramatic. We saw liftoff at 5:20 p.m., and my snapshot is essentially the view that those without binoculars had from the Brady’s.
You had to be attentive for the telltale speck of light off on the horizon. My host knew about where it would launch, which helped.
(click to enlarge – look for the orange dot near the horizon!)

Launch March 19, 2013

Launch March 19, 2013


We watched liftoff till the evidence of the vehicle disappeared, which seemed to be more or less the time that the first sound waves reached us, a minute later. This meant we were about 12 miles from the launch pad.
The last photo before the launch vehicle disappeared from sight.

The last photo before the launch vehicle disappeared from sight.


The more astute observers got a closer view, as reflected in the below photo on the front page of Florida Today Newspaper on March 20. You can see the video behind the photo on the Florida Today website, here.
There can be endless debate about the space program, and the purpose of this particular launch; whether it was a waste a money, or a vehicle for good…or for evil….
For me, it was rather exciting to actually see this one launch, probably the only launch I will ever actually see in person in my lifetime.
Photo from FloridaToday.com March 20, 2013

Photo from FloridaToday.com March 20, 2013


For more on the U.S. space program, a good “launching” place is the NASA website, here.
Equally interesting, in the same area and enviroment, is the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, one of America’s finest. In a sense, at least, wildlife and high technology seem to co-exist just fine.

#686 – Dick Bernard: Going to listen to Al Gore on "The Future. Six Drivers of Global Change"

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Al Gore was in Minneapolis on Thursday, and while I’ve been to lots of speeches, including by Mr. Gore, and didn’t really need to go, there is something that draws me to such events. I got to Westminster Presbyterian Church an hour early, but turned out to be a half-hour late: I got a seat, but in one of two overflow spaces. The house was packed for the longstanding Westminster Town Hall Forum.

Al Gore speaks Feb 7, 2013, Westminster Town Hall Forum Minneapolis MN

Al Gore speaks Feb 7, 2013, Westminster Town Hall Forum Minneapolis MN


I won’t write a review of the speech: you can listen to it here. (This is the instant video of the speech. Mr. Gore’s portion begins at approximately the 40 minute mark). At about the ten minute mark is a 30 minute musical concert by a twin cities musician, who was also very good.
Neither do I plan to review Mr. Gore’s book, “The Future. Six Drivers of Global Change“, which is readily available everywhere, and is meant for reflection, discussion and personal action.
“The Future” is a book for thinking, not entertainment.
I’ve long liked Al Gore. He is a visionary, not afraid to articulate a realistic vision if we wish to survive as a human species.
Visionaries, especially prominent ones, are often viewed as threats, and are vilified in sundry ways by their enemies.
So it was with Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth which was released in 2006, ridiculed by his enemies. But as current events in our country are showing, the film has been in all relevant particulars true, if anything, even conservative. Yes, there are “yah, buts” in the film, but as an acknowledged climate expert said at a meeting I attended a year or two ago, he said the film was 90% accurate, and this was from wisdom of hindsight.
We saw Mr. Gore speak on An Inconvenient Truth a year before the film was released, in 2005, and it was a memorable, never to be forgotten event. Here’s what I wrote about it then: Al Gore July 2005001. It is remarkable that this was eight years ago, already. Of course, largely, denial continues to be a prevalent reaction to things like Climate Change.
In so many ways we humans live with short-term thinking (“me-now”) and we imperil not only our present, but certainly our future. “An Inconvenient Truths” dust jacket made some suggestions back then that are still relevant today. They are here: Al Gore Inconven Truth001
“The Future” covers numerous topics other than just climate change, and covers them well.
In his talk, Mr.Gore said he got the idea for “The Future” several years ago – 2005 I seem to recall – from a question someone asked at a presentation he was making somewhere in Europe.
From that seed grew extensive research and reflection.
Mr. Gore suggests – that’s all he can is suggest – a wake-up call.
To those who think the cause is hopeless, he asked simply that we remember changes like Civil Rights in this country, which in his growing up days in Tennessee would not have been seen as a possibility either. It is the people that will change the status quo, he said, recalling a particular learning moment in his youth when a friend of his made a racist comment, and another friend told him to cut it out. It is small moments of public witness like these that make the difference, he suggested. He gave other examples as well.
Of course, Gore is a prominent world figure, a former Vice-President, and now a very wealthy man.
But in his appearance, yesterday, he was part of us – he even stopped by the overflow rooms before his speech to give a personal welcome. It was a nice touch, we felt.
By our demeanor – I like to watch how audiences react at events like this – we were very actively listening to him.
It’s past-time to get personally involved, but never too late.
(click on photos to enlarge)
Mr. Gore stops by one of the two overflow rooms prior to his speech.

Mr. Gore stops by one of the two overflow rooms prior to his speech.

#684 – Dick Bernard: Towards a rational conversation about guns and need for their regulation….

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UPDATE February 11, 2013: February 8 I posted a very brief survey to 46 persons on my long standing peace and justice mailing list. The survey was about Guns. Ultimately, 23 responded to the questions, and the entire compilation can be read here: Gun Survey Feb 82013R1. I was surprised both by the number of responses, and the kinds of responses received. This may help the reader clarify his or her own mind about the issue of Guns in our Society, and the survey certainly hi-lites the complexity of the issue needing affirmative resolution. This is an issue that needs both speaking and very active listening with an eye to resolving the issue.
Here is how I summarized my feelings on the issue to my Government representatives: Gun Issue Position Feb 2013
THE ORIGINATING POST.
Today is the holiest of holy days in the United States: Super Bowl XLVII Sunday, where gladiators from Baltimore and San Francisco meet on the field of battle in New Orleans to determine the Champion of the World, at least for today. Then there is the Super Bowl of Super Bowl Ads. Now there’s clamoring for a National Day Off for the day following the Super Bowl….
But then we’re also in the real world: Yesterday’s paper front page lede was about a gang member being convicted for a random act of violence: shooting up the house of a rival, killing a 5 year old in the process. It was the second family member killed in that house. Later in the day, on-line, the same paper had a picture story about President Obama shooting skeet at Camp David…which the NRA mostly ridiculed.
I wish the President hadn’t felt the need to prove he’d actually shot a gun, even in skeet, but, hey, this is America in the year of irrational talk about the need for rational gun regulation.
Additional Post on this specific Topic: here and here.
It happened that the same day a cousin (her Mom and my Mom were first cousins, their parents brothers and sisters) sent a photograph of her Dad, Don Thimmesch, who was among the first 53 highway patrolmen in Iowa (1935). (More here.) And it reminded me of another photo she had sent me some years earlier, of her Mom, Cecilia Thimmesch, who was a national champion marksman with the Rifle.
Best I know, Cecilia is the only National Champion on either side of my family. Hers was a well-earned accomplishment.
Their photos are below:

Don Thimmesch, ca 1935, first class of highway patrol in Iowa


(click on photo to enlarge)

Cecilia Thimmesch, Champion with the Rifle, 1939


Daughter, Carol, is rightly proud of her parents, as she has a right to be.
They were responsible gun users.
If we could go back to those olden days.
But not likely.
As I write, a radical government hater in Alabama is holed up in his survival cellar with a young school child as hostage after shooting the school bus driver last week. In his mind he had some point to make. [Note February 5, 2013: the kidnapper is dead, the child was rescued, yesterday.]
There is no good end to this gun story, as there are seldom good ends to gun stories, unless the gunman comes out of his cave with hands-up before the youngster and the gunman both die.
I suppose the guy thought he could beat the government by being armed and dangerous, having a hostage, and going into his underground shelter.
The moment he took action, he’d lost. And so had his innocent victim.
Yes, we do need to talk about rationale and new gun policies everywhere in this land. A suburban police chief from this area described the problem well, very recently: According to my friend, Greg, who knows the chief personally, here’s what he said: “He told of the progression of weapons his police officers carry. First it was a shotgun in the squad car. Then it became an MP-5. Now his officers carry an AR-15. The reason for the progression to greater and greater firepower? As Scott testified, the changes were necessary to keep pace with what the bad guys are carrying.”
In my opinion the NRA spokespeople can go to hell, at least in their current role as shill for the gun industry.
Where does one start on a “rational conversation”? Maybe how guns were viewed when Donald and Cecilia became noteworthy in Iowa, in the 1930s.

Here’s a commentary I received from a great friend who’s a school bus driver and lives on rural property in Vermont:
From Peter, February 1, 2013
The Samurai Always Left Their Long Knives at the Door
For some reason it has been slow going, looking at this crazy, bloody couple of months. My school has been locked down for a week now. Some jerk said something scary.
As a school bus driver it kind of struck a nerve when somebody shot a driver in Alabama and (at this writing) is holed up in a bunker with a kidnapped five-year-old. I guess the NRA would say all school bus drivers should be packing now. Among the drivers I know, every one of them would get between a shooter and a student without thinking about it first, and still would not carry a gun on the bus.
Among all the people I know, I can’t think of more than one or two I’d want to be around if they were “carrying.” For myself, if I ever find out somebody’s packing heat, I will explain that this is a problem that precludes whatever purpose brought us into the building, and leave.
Around here people check with the parents of their children’s playmates to see if they have guns in the house, and whether they are safely locked away. Half the kids around here, at a guess, are crack shots with a deer rifle.
As for hunters, almost every hunter I’ve met on my property has been drunk, and has pointed the gun carelessly at me or at their friends or their own feet, heads, whatever. I have zero faith in hunters to be “responsible gun owners.” We lose two or three a year, here, including kids, to accidental shootings. A farmer was shot while driving his tractor, mistaken for a deer. A blueberry-picker was shot, mistaken for a bear. Two died last year when one mistook the other for the deer, and then, seeing his mistake, shot himself. Best friends and long-standing hunting club members. This is in a county it takes about half an hour to cross on dirt roads.
I thought the police were supposed to be the ones with the guns and the training about when to shoot people. Imagine whipping out a Glock 9 in a shopping mall, for any reason. Whom would the cops point their guns at?
I like one idea I’ve heard: gun-owners’ insurance, similar to car insurance. Mandatory and expensive and track-record based. This sort of solution functions like a check-dam, changing the course of change rather than trying to plug the system. We used to call this “trim tabbing.”
The NRA is simply out of control, and should be investigated and drowned in lawsuits and put out of its misery, like the KKK.

#582 – Dick Bernard: The Street

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“Back in the day”, my Grandpa Henry Bernard (born on a farm in Quebec in 1872) spent most of his adult life in Grafton ND.
He came to Grafton area with a first grade education and carpentry as a trade but had a particular gift for figuring out how mechanical things work. For years he was chief engineer of the local flour mill, and long-time volunteer and President of the local fire department and the guy, the Grafton history notes, who drove the first motorized fire truck to Grafton from somewhere.
Both my Grandpa’s had inquiring minds – Grandpa Busch was a farmer with a couple of patents – but he didn’t have easy access to the streets of any big town.
Grandpa Bernard did, and in retirement he loved to “kibitz” or be a “sidewalk superintendent” in his town of several thousand. Most times it was on his bench on the front stoop of their tiny home at 738 Cooper Avenue. Sometimes it was watching the action elsewhere in town.
There exists a wonderful film clip from a day in 1949 which includes him watching a crew lay a concrete section of street in Grafton (here, beginning at about 4:15. He even merits a subtitle!). In the fashion of the day, he was dressed up. He was a common man, but when you went out, you dressed up!
Paving that street in Grafton was the ‘street theater’ of the day!
I think of that vignette because for the last week or so the crews have been in our neighborhood rebuilding our street – the first time in about 20 years.
(click on photos to enlarge)

Romeo Road, Woodbury, mid-June, 2012


Such projects are essential nuisances to folks on the street, but a change in routine.
Kibitzing a few days ago, a neighbor and I were wondering why they replaced some sections of curb and not others, so we went to look (cracks were the villains, mostly).
Some unlucky folks had the entryway to their driveway blocked for a few days because their section of curb had to be replaced.
As I write, the street is prepared, and repaving is about to be begin, but early Tuesday morning came another inconvenience. The neighbors across the street – the ones who couldn’t get into their driveway for a few days – had another unfortunate happening.
Early on June 19 came those violent winds, and one of their trees blew over, blocking that driveway again….

Early morning June 19, 2012


Its all better now. The tree was rapidly removed, and life goes on.
We have assorted complaints, of course, but work crews are doing their work very efficiently, and somebody somewhere in our communities did the planning, letting of contracts, etc., etc., etc. None of us had to worry about this planning and implementation.
Yes, we’ll have to pay an assessment, but it’s a small price to pay as part of our community.
And a bonus is the chance to re-view Grandpa Bernard in action at 77 years of age, now 63 years ago.
I wonder what he could have been able to do had he been able to pursue an education.
He died in 1957 when I was 17.
I’ll visit his and Grandma’s and others graves in Grafton and Oakwood ND next Monday.
Thanks for the memories.