Utah Valley University

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10:24 a.m. September 12, 2025: The news conference is over and the apparent killer is in custody.  I just read a pretty compelling commentary by Thom Hartmann about the “Both Sides” argument which has already begun to rage.  I think it is important was a primer on the issue of rhetoric.  Here is the link.  I will add my own observations at the end of his post a little later.

12:14 p.m. Sep 12: A History of Violence from the Bulwark

RELATED: 9 minute video from Ukraine by Tim Snyder.  Worth your time.  I hope you can access it,

Thursday, September 11, 2025, 10:07 a.m.:   Google map link of the site of the killing yesterday is at the end of this post, after comments.  You can scroll in or out or move image around.

I do not jump to conclusions, except that the ramifications of this incident are incredibly serious.

As soon as I think there is something reportable, I’ll make an addition at this space.  Because google maps seem to be destination documents, any revisions to this document will include the map link at the end of the post.

Signed personal opinions are welcome.  I’ll time-stamp them, as I am here.

Today of course is the 24th anniversary of 9-11-01.  Here’s what I wrote on Sep 17 and 24, 2001: Post 9-11-01001.

COMMENTS (more at end of post):

from Amy 9:42 a.m.: The silence on the assassination of [Melissa] Hortman is deafening.

from SAK 1:15 p.m.:  As you wrote this incident has serious ramifications.

The first and important thing to say is may Charlie Kirk rest in eternal peace. It is also a given, to me at least, that violence ought to be condemned.

Of course we must all wait until more information is available but already politicians & journalists have been giving their views. I have looked at various sources and clearly the killing will increase the polarisation and some politicians, instead of calling for unity and urging restraint, have already tried to rally their own side. Sad.

Since Amy has already commented on the assassination of Melissa Hortman, here’s another article that focuses on that event:

I am reasonably sure one can open the link in the US but just in case here it is:

Charlie Kirk shooting

Utah Republican senator faces backlash over post condemning Kirk’s killing

Only months ago, Mike Lee had posted disparaging tweets after Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband were fatally shot

The official X account of Mike Lee, a Republican US senator, drew backlash after quickly condemning Wednesday’s killing of the influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah – less than three months from when the politician initially responded to the shootings of two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers by boosting misinformation about that case.

A post from Lee, who joined the Senate in 2011, denounced Kirk’s murder as “a cowardly act of violence” while hailing the Turning Point USA executive director as an “American patriot” and “inspiration to countless young people”. His post also solicited prayers for the 31-year-old Kirk’s widow, Erika, and their children.

“The terrorists will not win,” Lee said shortly after Kirk’s death while speaking at an outdoors gathering on the campus of Utah Valley University had been confirmed. “Charlie will.”

While some of the platform’s users replied positively to the post, many others immediately alluded to how Lee focused on advancing conspiracy theories in the aftermath of the 14 June shootings that killed Minnesota’s former house speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, while wounding state senator John Hoffman – her fellow Democrat – as well as his wife, Yvette.

“This is what happens,” Lee wrote in an X post, “When Marxists don’t get their way.” Attached to the post was a picture of the suspect charged in the shooting, Vance Boelter, evidently wearing a latex face mask.

There was no evidence Boelter is a Marxist. Friends have told local media he was right-leaning. And while Minnesota voters don’t list party affiliation, Boelter was registered as a Republican in Oklahoma in 2004.

Separately, under another picture of Boelter, Lee wrote, “Nightmare on Waltz Street”, which appeared to be a reference to Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election won by Donald Trump.

Lee’s allusion to Walz came as conservative influencers misleadingly suggested an alliance between the governor and Boelter. Walz’s Democratic predecessor, Mark Dayton, appointed Boelter in 2016 to a 60-member voluntary advisory board. Boelter’s appointment was renewed in 2019 by Walz, who did not know him.

Tina Smith, a US Democratic senator from Minnesota, confronted Lee two days after the shootings in her state to tell him his posts were “brutal and cruel”, as CNN reported. “He should think about the implications of what he’s saying and doing.”

Lee didn’t say much to Smith and seemed surprised she had confronted him, as she put it. However, he subsequently deleted the posts in question.

After Wednesday’s killing, Lee told reporters that Kirk had recently texted him about being excited to visit Utah. Lee also exalted Kirk’s “boundless energy and great love for his country”.

Lee’s lament prompted one X user to rhetorically ask the senator “what has changed” because he had “expressed no sympathy” after the Minnesota lawmaker shootings.

“It seems you do know how to respond appropriately to tragedy,” another user replied to Lee. “I wish you would have … shown that same respect to Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark.”

Yet another reply added: “I pray for Charlie Kirk’s family. They should not have to go through this. Nor did Melissa or Mark Hortman right??”

Smith posted about Kirk on Wednesday nearly an hour before Lee published his tribute to the staunch Trump ally.

“Horrific,” Smith wrote. “We all need to condemn these acts of political violence that are becoming far too commonplace in this country. We can’t continue like this.”

from Flo: 1:30 p.m.: I continue to firmly support controlling the sale and purchase of any kind of gun. They’re only getting to be worse!   Still, I enjoy eating the meat Carter and Eric both hunt for in the cabin area every November. They occasionally get one. Last year Carter got a big Buck he saw only about 12 feet from it.

GOOGLE MAP OF OREM UTAH AND Utah Valley University: For reference, here is the google map of the site of the killing yesterday.  You can scroll in or out or move image around.

Deceased

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Yesterday I got a note that someone I knew had died in mid-July in a neighboring state.  He was 87, and apparently had been in failing health for some years.  He was a Superintendent of Schools in large school districts in three states, including the one where I was the teacher’s union rep during the first six years of his 15 year career there.

Lew (his first name) was respected in my district.  The nature of our jobs tended to be competitive, but there was no animosity.  I left the district nine years before he did, we shared common ground for about six years, dealing with issues as our respective jobs required.

I don’t think he was run out of town on a rail!  Leastways I’ve never heard that from others I know who were there the entire time period that he was Superintendent.

I looked at Lew’s obituary, which was essentially the standard verbiage except for one missing piece of information: there was not a single word about his 15 years as Superintendent in my school district, which was then and remains among the largest in Minnesota.

Some months earlier I’d been to another memorial for another former colleague, Patrick, who was in his 90s and had even longer service with his employer.  He had been my boss.  Similarly, nothing was said about his work in our organization, from which he’d been retired for over 30 years.  A couple of us had some open-mike time to at least acquaint the others about the Pat that we knew.

I can think of many other similar examples I’ve seen over the years.  Unfortunately the blank spaces make sense, in a sense, at least.

When you get old, memorials seem to be the primary social gatherings – reunions as it were….  It has occurred to me especially in the more recent years that the deceased is not much able to plan his or her own funeral, much less write the remarks somebody will make about the dear departed who is no longer available.

Unless the person takes the time, before it’s too late, to write something as simple as a timeline of significant events in his or her life, the survivors left to plan the celebration of life will be left to their own devices, and will have to rely on their own memories.

So…before it’s too late, give some thought to how you’d like to be remembered; write it down and give it to someone who’ll likely have to deal with your last public appearance.

The Hangman

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I debated whether to title this “The Hangman” or “The Flood”.  I reference both below.  The ball is in your, and my, court.  What happens going forward in our nation is up to each of us, not some “them”.  But we have to put into action our concerns wherever we are in this huge and diverse country of ours.

Other recent posts: update of thoughts on Annunciation shooting (scroll down to August 27); a Family History post specifically towards those with French-Canadian ancestry in the midwest.  And a new post, Deceased, you may also find of interest.

*

THE HANGMAN

“Summer” as it seems to be defined in this area essentially begins on Memorial Day weekend, and ends on Labor Day.  By my count, this was 161 days during which vacations were taken, and change of pace in life.  Labor Day, September 1, was 223 days from the inauguration of the 47th President.  I have kept the front section of every Minnesota Star Tribune since then, neatly stored in a box to be dealt with by someone when I’m no longer around.  They’re just a reminder of those 223 days.

I have followed the news before and during those 223 days, and I will continue to follow it as before, but likely spend less time passing along information.  By now, everyone who cares knows the issues and has to decide not only where they stand, but what they commit to personally doing something – anything – to make a positive difference.

Basically, I’d like to summarize past, present and future with part of an e-mail I wrote on August 24 to three friends, which was followed by a response from one of three from a relative of hers who teaches in a former soviet bloc country.  Basically I think the point and the response are where I stand as the season of Fall rapidly approaches.  Don’t get caught in the deluge.

*

Portion of e-mail from Dick, August 24, 2025: This morning I compared the current situation to the Guadalupe River flood some weeks ago.  You know there’s stormy weather but you ignore it for whatever reasons you have.  All of a sudden its out of control and people start to die, but you’re on higher ground, till you find out that some cousin died in the flood, or the daughter of a good friend….   All of a sudden it becomes very real.  But then it’s too late.

*
from a friend: Oh, so well put, Dick.  My cousin in [Central Europe] sent me this:

By Maurice Ogden 
*
Into our town the Hangman came
Smelling of gold and blood and flame—
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air
And built his frame on the courthouse square.
*
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
*
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime,
The Hangman judged with the yellow twist
Of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
*
And innocent though we were, with dread
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead;
Till one cried: “Hangman, who is he
For whom you raise the gallows-tree?”
*
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
“He who serves me best,” said he,
“Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree.”
*
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another’s grief
At the Hangman’s hand was our relief.
*
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow’s sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his hangman’s cloak.
*
The next day’s sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town
And, stark and black in the morning air,
The gallows-tree on the courthouse square.
*
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and businesslike.
*
And we cried: “Hangman, have you not done,
Yesterday, with the alien one?”
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed:
“Oh, not for him was the gallows raised . . .”
*
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
“ . . . Did you think I’d gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That’s a thing I do
To stretch the rope when the rope is new.”
*
Then one cried “Murderer!” One cried “Shame!”
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man’s place. “Do you hold,” said he,
With him that’s meant for the gallows-tree?”
*
And he laid his hand on that one’s arm,
And we shrank back in quick alarm,
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his hangman’s cloak.
*
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman’s scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute
The gallows-tree had taken root.
*
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
*
The third he took—and we had all heard tell—
Was a usurer and infidel. And:
“What,” said the Hangman, “have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?”
*
And we cried out: “Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?”
The Hangman smiled: “It’s a clever scheme
To try the strength of the gallows-beam.” …
*
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again:
“Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?”
“It’s a trick,” he said, “that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow.”
*
And so we ceased and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score;
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
*
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
*
Then through the town the Hangman came
And called in the empty streets my name,
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall
And thought: “There is no one left at all
*
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help him pull down the gallows-tree.”
And I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman’s tree and the Hangman’s rope.
*
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town,
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
*
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap
And it sprang down with a ready snap—
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
*
“You tricked me, Hangman!” I shouted then,
“That your scaffold was built for other men . . .
And I no henchman of yours,” I cried.
“You lied to me, Hangman, foully lied!”
*
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye:
“Lied to you? Tricked you?” he said, “Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true:
The scaffold was raised for none but you.”
*
“For who has served me more faithfully
Than you with your coward’s hope?” said he,
“And where are the others that might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?”
*
“Dead,” I whispered: and amiably,
“Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me;
“First the alien, then the Jew . . .
I did no more than you let me do.”
*
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky,
None had stood so alone as I—
And the Hangman strapped me, and no voice there
Cried “Stay!” for me in the empty square.

POSTNOTE September 8, 2025:  For some reason, the old standard of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes is running through my head: “If you don’t know me by now“.  If we don’t know the issues that face us now in the United States, we will never….  When will we wake up and get into action as individuals – the only real solution ia each and every one of us.

The deluge continues: There is lots of credible information easily available, most on Substack.  Some of my reliable sources: Minnesota Star Tribune, Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Tim Snyder, Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, Ruth ben Ghiat, Doug Muder’s Weekly Sift, Garrison Keillor and many more.  Prof. Richardson is always on point and almost daily.

Dayton With A French Accent

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The new 473 page book, Dayton With a French Accent, is very recent, and high quality.  Disclosure, I’m one of the volunteer founders of the organization which published the book, though I had retired from active involvement before the project was envisioned and began three years ago.  I have no financial interest in the publication.  I purchased eight copies a few weeks ago, which I recently gave to all of my siblings (we’re all 50% French-Canadian) and my own four kids (who are one-fourth French-Canadian).  I’ve spent a lot of time with the book, which is a legacy document which will live on long after we are gone.  It is a treasure.

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“Dayton With a French Accent”,  hi-lites over 100 families with roots in French Canada  who, beginning in the 1850s, ultimately settled in Dayton MN area.  Today, Dayton & surrounding are northwest Minneapolis suburbs.

I highly recommend the book for anyone, particularly those with French-Canadian ancestry and/or roots in  town and township of Dayton MN and vicinity.  One of those persons is myself.  Ordering information is here.  (For the moment, my review is this writing.  I didn’t purchase the book through Amazon, and apparently this disqualifies me from writing a review there.)

CONTEXT:  Since the 1990s, I’ve known that the family of Simon and Adelaide Blondeau had come to what is now Dayton MN in the first half of the 1850s, and that they were my ancestors – the parents of my great grandmother Clotilde Collette, in turn the mother of my grandmother Josephine (Collette) Bernard.  I also knew that the younger brother of my great grandfather Octave Collette, Ephrem (Alfred) Collette had married at Dayton, and after a few years in North Dakota moved back to Dayton for the rest of his life.

I learned about the Blondeau link from John Garney, a man I’d never met, whose ancestor was the younger sister of my ancestor, Clotilde.  John somehow found out about me.  This is how this family history fraternity works.

Before meeting John, I knew very little about Blondeau’s.  That changed over time, including learning the present day address of what was once their land claim, 15521 Dayton River Road,  Dayton MN. (See note at end of this post)

Portion of Dayton MN 1873 Plat, from p. 24 of book, Dayton With A French Accent.

Clotilde Blondeau and Octave Collette wedding St Anthony MN 1868.  Clotilde was about 6, second youngest in a large family, when her family arrived in Minnesota about 1854.  Octave was about 16, also one of a large family, when he and his family arrived in Minnesota about 1864.  Clotilde was born in Pierrefonds, Quebec, Octave in St. Henri Quebec.  Both families arrived before the railroad reached Minnesota (ca 1867).  St. Anthony Catholic Church, near St. Anthony Falls, quite likely was the common ground which led to their families becoming acquainted.

I have worked on family history for over 45 years, more than half my life.  Family history is rarely easy, particularly when the subjects are ordinary people, and in a society which is male-centric (the woman at marriage takes the man’s surname, becomes “Mrs”,  and societal rules favor males).

In a real sense, this book levels the playing field.  There are about 100 families identified, including their children.

To the extent possible, the lineage of both husband and wife are identified through the great-grandparents of each, including things like date and place of birth and marriage and death.

In my Blondeau branch, for example, my great grandmother’s parents, grandparents and great grandparents are identified – numerous family lines for husband and wife.  Not listed is my own grandmother, their daughter.  My father and, of course, myself, and my own kids – thus eight generations in all. Multiply this by 2 and then by 100 and you get some idea of the richness of the lineage identified within the book (all the families are neatly identified in Chapter 3).

In my review of the book, I found that the neighbor of Simon Blondeau, Jules LaCroix, was actually Adelaide Blondeau’s younger brother. I learned that another pioneer, Alexis Cloutier, witness when Blondeau took his land claim, was married to a sister of Adelaide!  The three siblings were all born in Pierrefonds Quebec, part of greater Montreal today.  I didn’t know any of this before exploring the book.

In the book there are well over one hundred photos provided by the 100 families and many others which give context; plus text which further helps to give life to the ordinary people of the community, and to the community itself.

How did the book benefit me?  In strictly my own example, I started with two family units in the community, about whom I had relatively little knowledge.  So far, the book has fleshed out four additional families I had little information about.  And I’ve only begun my search.

And I’m only one in a very large pool of potential readers, some of whom will be very glad they found this resource.  Help them become aware of this.

Cover of the new book.  The organizations website is here.

NOTE: Within the last few days I accessed the google map of the Blondeau claim, 15521 River Road, at the Mississippi River, two miles from today’s  St. John the Baptist Catholic Church whose address is 18380 Columbus Street Dayton MN. Here is the link.)  There is a bonus here: zero in on the Mississippi River and note the jet plane and its contrails, as captured by the satellite in space.  Amazing.  The plane. was probably beginning its approach to Twin Cities International Airport about 30 miles ahead when the satellite took its photo.  The photo is undated.  I hope the image with the plane is still there when you look.

 

 

On Labor Day 2025

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The phrase “hand me downs” comes to mind as I post this.

Today is Labor Day.  My life, literally, has been Labor.  I am a child of two career public school teachers whose career began in the 1920s.  For nine years I was a public school teacher myself; then, for 27 years, I  represented public school teachers in a teachers union.  After all of this  has come 25 years of retirement as an activist.  This blog is part of my activism.

There has never been a Labor Day more important than today, September 1, 2025.  If you’re still wondering what you can do, start today by doing something constructive reaching out, and each day that follows, repeat, repeat, repeat….  You know the issues.  Your issues likely will be different than mine, but you know them and you can act, one action at a time.

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If you wish, here’s a place to start: zll of my posts over the past 16 years are archived, and this day I recall one from Nov. 17, 2011, on Referent Power – by far the greatest power ordinary people like you and I  have, and the power we seem to actually use the least.

Put the words “Referent Power” in the search box and there are 8 entries….

Today my favorite historian, Heather Cox Richardson, gives context to Labor Day.  Here is her post dated August 31, 2025..

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In addition:

On August 25, I published two posts which you may wish to scroll through: Smithsonian and History, and The Days Ahead.  The Days Ahead includes starter thoughts on the latest school shooting, Annunciation, August 27, in my own metropolitan area….

Together, we in the 99% can succeed.   It makes no difference whatsoever that we live in different places, or even if we have different issues.  The common element is effort beyond ourself, positive action in all of its infinite varieties.

COMMENTS:

from SAK:  Thanks Mr Bernard,

Your activism over the years is sincerely highly appreciated!

By the way someone sent me a YouTube link to Heather Cox Richardson whom you have alerted me to much earlier.

Some might like listening/watching her expound her reflections, for example:

A Brittle Administration Inventing a Crime Crisis

 

Smithsonian and History

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Heather Cox Richardson gives a good summary of the issue of rewriting history through control of the record.  It’s her post for August 20, here.  There is much, much more to say.  Stay tuned, if you are an occasional visitor.  I’ll likely not publicize this till Labor Day or after, and I’ll be hoping for comments.

Her August 23rd post expands on the recent American History theme.  It is well worth your time.

August 25, 2025: Today is first day of teacher workshop for teachers in my school district.  The day after Labor Day is the first day of the 2025-26 school year.  That is generally the calendar for Minnesota public schools.

This is also the day that war is being declared on democracy, bringing arms to the national guard in Washington DC, and threats to do the same in Chicago.  I was just watching Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzger on the issues.

I planned to hold on this post, and the accompanying one, for posting right before Labor Day.  Now is the time.

This is in OUR court, not somebody else’s.  Don’t be a spectator.   Each of you have different levers you can pull.  I won’t endeavor to get unanimity on what to do, except, get to doing, and don’t quit.  We have been watching the evolution of a dictatorship.  Yes, it can happen here, and it will if we watch it as a tv show.

The second post I’ve been holding, The Days Ahead,  is here.

POSTNOTE September 2, 2025: “The Woke Myth” Robert Reich

The Days Ahead

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People don’t like to hear bad news.  The phrase “See no evil; speak no evil; hear no evil,” comes to mind.  Unfortunately, bad news comes to us regardless, and it is important to pay attention.  And we have seen months and now years of evidence of dangers to our democracy.  In the end, we, the people, are accountable – all of us – if we choose to sit on the sidelines.  This is most especially directed to the 75 million who voted for Harris/Walz in November, 2024.  To ‘wash our hands’ of the present is to assure a future we will regret.

In the current day, when it comes to political conversation, people choose what they want to believe, and self-censor their own access to other opinions.  It is a dangerous situation

Occasionally I come across thoughts that deserve the time, and following are some recent ones.

It up to you to choose to take the time to read and really think about how the present applies to you, personally, in these very troubled times.

The Big Picture for August 21st from Jay Kuo on “Sadopopulism and the Fascist MAGA ethos”

Robert Reich on August 7 wrote an insightful piece of  “What you can do now“.

The Weekly Sift  for August 25 gives some important inservice education.

Get in action.

August 26: Robert Reich on Trump’s Downfall; and his Sunday Thoughts August 31.

August 26, Heather Cox Richardson Letter from an American.  Also August 28.

Wednesday, August 27, 2025, Annunciation: This morning a solitary killer murdered two young people at Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.  Additionally there were 17 injured, most of whom were young students in their first week  of the school year.  Tonight was the first vigil, which I watched on TV.  Flags around the country are at half staff.  The story is newsworthy – but such stories have almost become commonplace.  They are all tragedies, multiplied over and over and over in our country awash in guns, which makes killing so easy.

Ironically, the previous day, August 26,  I met with my son, visiting from Littleton Co, and gave him two items of clothing to, in turn, give to his daughter, my granddaughter, Lindsay.

The gift was significant, even more so given what happened 24 hours later a few miles away at Annunciation Catholic Church.  The items were the shirt and trousers I wore on a sad day in early May, 1999, when Lindsay, her parents, and I were among those who slowly walked up what had been dubbed “Cross Hill” overlooking nearby Columbine High School, erected in memory of those killed at Columbine in the massacre there a week or so earlier.

I was in Littleton by coincidence: weeks earlier.   I had booked a stopover in Denver enroute home from hiking in Utah with a brother and sister.  A few days before my flight to Utah from Minneapolis, first at a meeting, and then on my car radio, I first heard about the massacre at Columbine High School.  I didn’t know where the school was or the details at first.  It turned out to be about a mile from where my family lived.  Lindsay, then a middle schooler, was 12.

Columbine was an unprecedented disaster 26 years ago.  It seems to have become almost commonplace.  The list of mass murders is now very long. [POSTNOTE August 30, 2025: as noted above, son Tom and family were near neighbors to the Columbine tragedy in April, 1999.  On the ten year anniversary of Columbine, I reprinted Tom’s memories of that awful time period.  You can read it here.  The post is from April 20, 2009.]

Also yesterday came a photo of grandson Spencer, just promoted to Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Marines.  Thirteen years ago – Dec 14, 2012 – I was at a suburban mall where Spencer’s Middle School Band was doing a concert.  I think he was 8th grade at the time.  Enroute home from that concert came another announcement on the car radio about another school massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown CT.

Will we ever take action against largely unregulated weapons of war awash in todays United States?  I don’t know.  But I hope we keep trying to bring sanity back.

August 28, 2025: This mornings Minnesota Star Tribune front page is pretty clear.

Minnesota Star Tribune August 28, 2025

Leaving the Health Center after my morning walk today, the tune playing was the Bruce Springsteen anthem “Born in the USA”(1984).  Listen to it.  It has a lesson for citizens today.  Let’s continue the conversation….

POSTNOTE August 29, 2025:  Today’s Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the police “have recovered 116 rifle rounds from the church“, and that the death and injury count is now up to 20.  The topic of Guns is no stranger to this blog: a search just now shows reference to “Guns” in 101 posts over the last 16 years.

Minnesota Star Tribune page 1 Aug. 29, 2025

POSTNOTE August 31, 2025: Today’s Minnesota Star Tribune was full of photos and commentary about Annunciation (see photo, below).  The newspaper had commentary about a 2005 school shooting at Red Lake MN in 2005.  I had written about this at the time and I still have it online, here.

This morning, at Basilica of St. Mary, my church, Fr. Gillespie handled the difficult topic very well.  Here is how the Basilica’s website carried the story (see Fr. Griffith”s comments. here).  Also, today, I got to thinking about the church response to 9-11-01, which I’d also written about at the time: Post 9-11-01001.

Minnesota Star Tribune August 31, 2025

POSTNOTE September 1, 2025: Over the years I have started to pay closest attention to the tone of the real conversation among real people in near proximity to me – such as at the coffee shop, or the people in church, or gatherings of any sort.

As I think about the people, generally (rather than the news as reported), I am noticing more of a quiet determination to make the world a better place, than to get mired in fear and loathing.

In the aftermath of 9-11-01, for instance, the national mood was revenge, pure and simple; Nineteen years later, in the wake of the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis, ordinary residents gathered to help clean up  in the aftermath of the many fires set by as yet unknown provocateurs.

There is, I sense, a movement towards community, rather than towards more division.  This is, I emphasize, only a feeling.  But it is a feeling.   I hope more build from it.  We – all of us – are the future.

POSTNOTE September 6, 2025:  There have been subsequent photos and stories in the local paper, but I decided to call a halt at September 1.  I hope lots of people take up the issue with their legislators – that is where the solution has to begin.  It will continue to be a very tough sell.  People love their guns….

“Guns” have been part of over 100 posts at this space over the last 16 years.

If you looked back at them, you’d see a consistent set of talking points.

  1. I qualified as an expert marksman with the M-1 in Army days, 1962-63.  But I have never owned or had a gun or in fact used a gun in all the years since.
  2. Getting rid of guns in this gun-ridden society is impossible.  It is as difficult as it was to get rid of booze during prohibition days.
  3. It is easily possible to regulate guns through registration and other means, and stiffer penalties for violations.  A minority of the citizenry owns a large percentage of the guns, especially the most lethal ones.  Best I know from the Annunciation case, there was a single assailant who fired over 100 rounds in a very brief time period.  There is absolutely no reason in a civil society for that kind of armament being allowed on the street.
  4. Having and using a gun to facilitate a crime is no guarantee of success.  In the Annunciation case, the perpetrator apparently committed suicide.  Those who survive their felony have almost zero chance of evading accountability.
  5. In my state, state legislators are probably the most crucial focus of lobbying, followed by other elected officials, local, state, national, who depend on being elected to hold office.

POSTNOTE September 7, 2025: My pastor, this morning, dealt with the issue in a brief and very effective way.  Exactly what he said is not as important as that he said something.  I am sure there were different pairs of ears hearing the message in their own way, but that makes no difference.  In this case, silence is not golden.

Forward

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Our country is lurching towards the hoped for 250th anniversary of the American experiment in representative democracy.

For all of these years. till now, in our own imperfect way, we’ve exercised the right of “we, the people” to select our representatives and abide by a rule of law which acknowledges and accommodates differences of opinion.  In the last many months we have been witnessing the conscious efforts to overthrow democracy,and replace it with autocracy.

By our vote (including our non-vote) we have selected, and therefore are the ones accountable for, the results we may see in the coming months.  Our tradition is to blame somebody else.  Most everybody does it, including and especially the high and mighty.  It’s called “identify a scapegoat”; we “kick the can down the road”.

But the ball is totally in our court, we citizens  one action (or non-action) at a time.  It isn’t rocket science.

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Where from here, for you…and me…and everyone?

One of my gurus on the topic of organizing is Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, and very well known in the academic and commerce communities.  On August 7 he published a post with his generalized ideas for people in the body politic – like myself.  Here is the August 7 column, well worth the time to read and incorporate into your own life.  I recommend subscribing to Dr. Reich, along with others I’ve mentioned before, and will again.

I’ve mentioned the group, Indivisible, before.  It is worth getting to know it and getting involved in it where you live.  Here’s the latest communique, from August 14, 2025. Sign up here to get Indivisible’s actions in your email every week.

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Plans for myself till Labor Day is ‘family time’ in a real sense.  Probably one or two dozen will ‘swarm’ into this area for a little family time, including my siblings and my kids and grandkids.  The excuse is an upcoming 80th birthday for one of our members,  The actual birthday is in mid-November in the snow belt.  You know how these things evolve!

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Back to the reason for this post, a little restatement of who I am politically, which is no news to anybody who knows me at all well.

For years, here, I’ve described myself as “a moderate pragmatic Democrat who speaks from his heart in matters of family, justice and peace.”  Within this definition I could easily have been a progressive Republican – indeed, my informal political mentor was a Republican Governor and business leader.  (He’s long deceased, and by now would have been excommunicated from his lifelong party, and likely would be horrified by the state of the former Republican Party as it now operates).

More to the point, specifically, I live in a state Senate District which has to have a special election Nov. 4 to elect a new State Senator.

Minnesota Senate Districts include roughly 70,000 citizens each.  On Tuesday of this week, I was among 51 DFL (Democrat) delegates assembled to endorse a candidate for the special election which will include a primary and the election itself on November 4.  (Those who attended the Tuesday meeting were those who had previously been elected as delegates prior to the 2024 general election.)

I suppose, being among the 51 at the Tuesday meeting makes me part of the “political elite”.  All it meant to me, and probably to the others in attendance on Tuesday, is that we had been, and remained willing to show up as part of our obligation as citizens.  There are millions of us out there in the world.  I never tire of Margaret Mead’s quotation: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has“.

We endorsed our candidate on Tuesday, and if she prevails, there will be yet another special election to replace her…this is what democracy looks like.

Get involved.

Personally, I hope to be “radio silent” from now till Labor Day

POSTNOTE: When I composed this post I was not aware that the meeting between Putin and Trump was happening in Alaska today.  It seems pertinent to add a short commentary from Remi Roy, which I published here on August 6,  a thumbnail history of his Germans-from-Russia ancestors home country which is the general area of Odessa Ukraine and eastern Romania.  You can read it here: Roy 3 Destruction of the Old Country.

POSTNOTE 2 August 16: According to History.com, the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) came into existence Dec 30, 1922, and collapsed in 1991

COMMENTS (more at end)

from Lawrence: And don’t forget that the state of Rus’, begun in 862, quickly absorbed Kiev.  More to the modern point, the Russians who live in the Donbas have as much right under international law to refuse to be ruled by Kiev and the Ukranians as the Albanian Kosovars had to refuse to be ruled by Belgrade, or in common parlance, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

from Judy: Thank you Dick for your thoughtful pieces……….I turned off the TV after I saw Putin and Trump get in the same car without helpers……..very dangerous!  Judy

from Brian: Thanks so much for posting.   And Putin?   Another Hitler.  Ciao!

POSTNOTE August 21: I have been following somewhat caually the ongoing events in re Russian and Ukraine.  I have no particular additional comment about the Alaska red carpet treatment for Putin.

The White House meeting with Zelenskyy was fascinating.  It reminded me of an intervention where a group and the subject sit in a circle, the object to articulate a problem, say drugs or alcohol.  In this instance, the occupant of the Oval Office was surrounded by Zelenskyy and his European peers.  No bully behavior this time from he or his minions, as happened earlier.

There is still a long road to resolution of any kind.  This is a conflict with a long history.  In a sense, it reminds me of how the United States came to be in its early years, a collection of acquisitions, including Alaska and Hawaii, and the subjugation of the native Americans and the defeat of the English and the French and the Spanish for particular piece of real estate.

No country is with clean hands, especially in the colonial period.

But we are no longer in the colonial period.  This requires some sorting out.  We are one world of, currently, 194 separate and distinct parts.  Lawrence talks about the Bus absorbing Kiev in 862.  If memory serves Kiev (Ukraine) existed before Moscow and the huge piece of real estate that is Eurasia was basically a wilderness until much more recent history.  I’ve long believed that the definition of “history” in a particular conflict depends on when the story-teller decides to begin the story, and how the subsequent chapters unfolded.  “Slava Ukraini” (glory to Ukraine) is how I see the current issue.

 

August 9, 2025

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PRENOTE: Overnight came a post from Heather Cox Richardson that deserves your time, and is about Russia/Ukraine/U.S. You can read it here.

Earlier this summer my cousin, Remi Roy, took a trip back to the home area of his German-from-Russia ancestors in the Odessa Ukraine and Romania area.  His post is here.

Saturday we went to Garrison Keillor Birthday Party at the Fitzgerald in St. Paul.  August 4 he made his report on the evening.  You can read it here (scroll to end of Garrison Keillor section)..

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Today, August 9, 2025,  is the 80th anniversary of the second atomic bomb in war, Nagasaki.  The bomb exploded at 11:01 a.m. August 9, Nagasaki time.  My computer says that the exact same time here would have been 9:01 p.m. August 8.

Hiroshima 2025 Minn Star Tribune is the article in the August 7 Minnesota Star Tribune (a snip of the article is below)

The two events were horrendous.  Nobody knows with any certainty the deaths August 6 and 9, 1945.  Here’s a source that seems thoughtful on the issue.

The events at the end of WWII will be debated forever.  The tendency is to try to simplify what is an extremely complicated history. The horror of WWII has been documented, and all that is left is what have we learned for the present day and the future.  That is up to us, of course.  We know what happened before.  Have we learned anything that will help prevent a repeat?

My ‘witness’ this year to WWII was to watch the two hour American Experience program on PBS: “Victory in the Pacific”.

The good news is that the atom bombs were used only twice in combat, both by the United States, 80 years ago.  The bomb and even more powerful successors have not been used in combat since.  Their effect was the best argument against their use.  But they continue to exist, and they are constantly in the dark minds of despots, including our own.  The campaign against them has to continue.

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In the August 6 post this year I took a slightly different tack on the issue.  You can read Peter’s comment  here.

For today, August 9, I want to recall a powerful two day workshop I attended in early February, 2005, at the University of Minnesota titled “Paths to Sustainable Peace: Accountability, Reconciliation and Problem Solving“.  My recollection is that the workshop had a specific connection to the 10 year anniversary of the Rwanda genocide of 1994. It was co-sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program partners — the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Pubic Affairs, the U of M Human Rights Center and the U of M Law School.

Included here is some of the content of the two days, specifically my now-20 years old personal commentary at the time of the conference.  It is simply my writing at the time, and I think it may help the reader to clarify his/her own notions on a most complicated topic: Sustainable Peace Feb 2005 UofM

I’ve participated in one way or another in hundreds of this kind of event over the years, and this is one of the very rare ones where I kept the file.

We are doomed if we fail to learn from the past.

(The workshop was 20 years ago.  We had been entangled in the Iraq War since 2003.  Twenty-two years later we, and the world, continue to be awash in very serious problems: Israel/Gaza, Ukraine/Russia, our own Civil War in the United States….  Resolution – sustainable peace – is up to us, not somebody else.  Your choice whether to open and read what I said 20 years ago.  I hope you do, and that the attachments give you some food for personal thought and motivation to action.)

COMMENTS (more at end of post):

from Brian:  Thanks for posting!   As a pre-teen kid I remember asking my Momma about why we nuked civilians in Japan’s cities?    She hugged, hugged and hugged me and said “Brian they attacked us in Pearl Harbor and Might Makes Right dear.”   Oh Scheiße!

I just went to a great anti-nuke parade where Brooklyn For Peacers like me participated.  I LOVED it!

from Marion: Thanks much, Dick. Just  finished reading Erik Larson’s, best seller, In the Garden of Beasts–pre-WWII Berlin, mostly from perspective of Ambassador Dodd.from Sandy: Thanks Dick!  I will read this because you always post great information! Hope you are doing well

from Sandy: Thanks Dick!  I will read this because you always post great information! Hope you are doing well

from Fred:

Friend Bill sent [the below]. It’s the best discussion on the 1945 use of the A bombs I’ve heard.
The great WW2 US Naval historian, Jonathan Parshall, is a Minnesotan. He often shows up at the WW2 roundtable in St. Paul, regularly.
He methodically examines all factors concerning both sides in the decision to use atomic weapons. Great maps, talking points, casualty estimates. Parshall is also quite good looking, something else Bill points out.


from Bill:

I’m just getting into Episode #438 (!!! how could one ever catch up?)
of the “Unauthorized History of the Pacific War” project, which features Jon Parshall’s presentation on “War Termination Scenarios and the Numbers Behind Them” that he gives to those attending his tours of Hiroshima/Nagasaki.  (It will have occurred to you by this time that you and he are dead ringers, with your beards and high foreheads.)   Anyway, it’s shaping up to be an outstanding segment, and I thought I’d pass on the link before I forget to do it.
from Dick in response:  Episode #438, which I did watch (worth your time), prompts me to send the column I did which was printed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune on the 60th anniversary:  Atomic Bomb 60 years after 1945.

When I wrote that column, I didn’t know that a cousin of my Mom and Uncle George was a Captain in the Marines and was involved in the battles at Okinawa and other islands, and in fact was on Okinawa when the atom bombs were dropped.  I also didn’t know at the time that a cousin of mine, about my same age, was killed during the horrific liberation of Manila in Feb-Mar 1945.  She would have been 4 or 5 and died in her mother’s arms when hit by shrapnel from someones shell.  In the genealogy, there is no specific date of death.  Her father was a POW in the Santo Tomas Prison at Manila at the time her death.  I also didn’t know at the time, that a cousin of my Dad – in fact the best man at Dad and Mom’s wedding – was a field-promoted Army Colonel and at the end of the war briefly served as the occupying Governor of one of Japan’s prefectures.

War is hell.


from SAK:

Interesting, thanks.

Makes one wonder is man wired for war or maybe not?

Looking around & to the past, it might seem that wars are inevitable.

The anthropologist Douglas P. Fry initially thought so but then changed his mind as mentioned in the BBC 3-part series about this question.

It seems the west has to change its mind as well!

 

Maintaining Peaceful Societies w/ Douglas Fry

I remember when I first hit upon your website Mr Bernard it was all about Peace & Justice & you addressed your readers as P&Jers!

Perhaps both are possible in spite of the current wars, increasing military budgets & loud mouths here & there.

Germans from Russia 2

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PRENOTE: Today is the 80th anniversary of the first use of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan.   I wonder what centuries of war and destruction have taught humanity, if anything.   Today, and on August 9 (Nagasaki) are items directly related to the whole business of peace.  They are notes ‘off the beaten path’.  I hope you take time to take a look.

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In late May, 2025, my cousin Remi Roy gave a preview of a planned trip to the area of his mothers ancestors in what is today southern Ukraine and easter Romania.  The post is here.

Remi and group subsequently made the trip earlier this summer and in the last few days he sent his summary in three pdf’s which are shared here.  These three items are not lengthy, include photos and are very interesting, as was the originating post in May.  They speak for themselves.

 A RETURN TO CARAMURAT;  Destruction of the Old Country;   postcards

POSTNOTE FROM DICK:  Remi and I tend to highlight the diversity of North America.  Our great-grandfathers were French-Canadian who travelled together with most of their family to the United States from Quebec in the 1860s.  They both married French-Caanadians in what became the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and from their respective unions were born our grandmothers, who would have been first cousins.

Remi’s great grandparents moved from North Dakota to southern Manitoba (Morris-Ste Elisabeth) in the early 1900s.  His French-Canadian grandmother married her French-Canadian grandfather and they took up farming in Lampman Saskatchewan, north of Portal North Dakota.  My grandmother married a French-Canadian from Quebec, and they lived a long life in Grafton ND.

Remi’s maternal parent was part of the large German from Russian population in southern Saskatchewan.  It is her family that originated in the Black Sea area and ultimately were forced to move during revolution times in Russia.

My maternal parent was 100% German ancestry, whose roots were in northwest Germany.

Remi is lifelong Canadian; I’m lifelong U.S.  All that separates us is the border.

North America is really a nation of immigrants.