State of the Union

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POSTNOTE Wed Feb. 8: I watched the State of the Union.   Here’s Joyce Vance’s take on it. And Heather Cox Richardson’s take.  And Jay Kuo in Status Quo.  I’ve seen Biden in person several times over the years, and his is always an excellent and authentic speech.  I’m a couple of years older than he is.  We’re fortunate to have him at the helm.

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Tonight is the State of the Union.  I expect to watch it.

This day I want to concentrate on public education policy as I remember it, and how we’re seeing it play out, particularly in Florida at this moment, with doubtless other attempts made to replicate it elsewhere.

There are about 50 million students in American public schools (the U.S. population is about 330 million), all of them children with two parents, all of them in the daily charge of millions of school staff from office personnel and bus drivers to Superintendents.  Most of us have been in school for most of our first 18 years.  Each of us has had his/her own experiences, and our own judgements.  “School” is where young people mature in their own unique ways, preparing to live independently.

In our polarized time, when one ‘side’ decides to take control of which ideas and values a child can be exposed to, there is bound to be there is trouble.

How does one attack such an elephant when you’re one individual?

What I decided to do, was to write a letter to all of the elected people, from my local legislators to the President of the United States, who manage public education as my representative.

It ended up three pages, and it was imperfect, but at the very least I wanted to be on the court.  PDF of the letter I sent: Public Education.  Each letter included a personalized note to the individual to whom it was sent.  

I invite you to at least glance at the letter.

Public Education  and all related issues are in our – yours and mine – court.

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As always, there are numerous topics.  Joyce sent along links to two posts today.  First, the Weekly Sift blog, has a discussion of National Debt.  A second, from the Status Kuo blog. is about the Chinese Balloon.  Both blogs are worth receiving on a periodic basis.  They are always excellen.  Two other sources have become staples for me: Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American; and Joyce Vance’s Civil Discourse.  Heather’s begins to deal with the deadly earthquake in Turkey/Syria; read also the following day writing.

Sunday night we watched a powerful new documentary, American Pain, about the opioid crisis.  At this time, it seems to be available only on Spectrum TV accessible with Roku.

O course, Guns.  Policing.  On and on….

Stay engaged.

COMMENTS:

Laurie Hertzel, columnist for Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote this very interesting column about sanitizing books (changing words, etc in already published works): Hertzel Star Trib 2 26 23.  Thanks to Kathy for calling attention to this.  Also via Kathy: Rich Lowry Don’t Rewrite Books

from Marion Brady 2-25-23, long-time friend in Florida, and part of this list wrote the following column for the Orlando Sentinel.  He mentions that this was published hours after he submitted it to the paper.  Marion is the ‘real deal’ with a very long history of advocacy for sanity in public education.  His website is here.

to Orlando Sentinel 2-25-23

Education Policy Needs an Overhaul to Effect Real Change

Orlando Sentinel, 2/25/23

By Marion Brady

The headline of the Orlando Sentinel’s February 19th 2023, “Opinion,” page reads, “Only you can save public education in Florida.”

Believe the headline. Call or write legislators expressing opposition to vouchers, assaults on intellectual freedom, teacher autonomy, diversity, equity, funding, and much else aligned with authoritarian thinking.

I applaud the Sentinel, but assume lawmakers will do the usual—nothing, or the wrong thing.

Education policies now in place are examples of “wrong things”—policies approved and enthusiastically promoted by leaders of both major political parties. Competition, it’s assumed, creates the necessary pressures on learners and schools to win “the race to the top,” so we have voucher-enabled school choice, high stakes standardized testing, letter grades for rating schools, rewards and penalties for teachers and schools based on performance, public money handed over to private schools and charter chains, “standards and accountability,” the Common Core State Standards and so on, all enabling and enhancing competition.

And academic performance stays flat. Healthy social institutions continuously improve as each generation “stands on the shoulders” of the previous generation, discarding its failures and building on its successes, but that hasn’t happened in education. The assumption that competition improves academic performance isn’t just wrong, it’s destructive. The deeper, more powerful and proper motivator of good schooling is the human need to know, to expand understanding, to make good sense, to find meaning, to discover how things work, to satisfy curiosity, to do better the things that need doing, and core-based schooling isn’t providing it.

If those who shoved professional educators aside a quarter-century or so ago had read what professional educators were writing or listened to what they were saying, they’d have known the underlying problem wasn’t “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” incompetent teachers, lazy kids or the institution’s lack of “rigor.” The major problem was and is the misnamed “core” curriculum adopted by America’s high schools in 1894 that continues to organize most of the school day.

The Association of American Colleges and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching say the core has failed. I have dozens of quotes from nationally and internationally known experts saying the core has failed. Classroom discipline problems, school dropout rates, a nationwide electorate with incompatible views about what’s true, right and important, testify to the core’s failure.

G. Wells was dead right when he wrote that civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. To save our skins, we need to do more than protest. We need to give the legislature a jolt and open doors to change.

The jolt: Civil disobedience. Opt out of standardized testing. It wastes time, taxes and talent by perpetuating the nonsense that recalling secondhand textbook text and teacher talk prepares the young for the future they’re inheriting.

What makes humanness possible is our ability to think—to hypothesize, infer, generalize, predict, imagine, synthesize, intuit, value and so on through dozens more thought processes not being taught. They’re not being taught because they’re not being tested. They’re not being tested because their merit depends on their quality in specific contexts, and machine-scored tests can’t measure quality.

The change: More than a half- century ago I left the Florida State University faculty and came to central Florida at the invitation of two school superintendents. They had read a journal article I had written outlining an alternative to the core curriculum based on systems thinking.

I wanted one of the districts to choose, quietly, its worst-performing middle school and let me work with its staff. At the end of the year, an unannounced several-day exam would be given to that school and the middle school administrators considered the district’s best. The test would evaluate each class’s collective ability to think creatively and productively about a local, real-world problem.

I was confident test results would trigger actions that would eventually make central Florida the epicenter of national curricular reform.

Didn’t happen. Never underestimate bureaucratic rigidity and timidity.

Hero

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POSTNOTE, Sunday Feb 5: Last night we watched the new documentary, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.  It is extraordinary.  Take the time.

PRENOTE: Thursday night was way below zero.  But good news is coming next week, I hear.  Feb. 1 I did a post entitled The First Day Of Spring.  Take a look.

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Thursday, I finished MLK’s Strength to Love, reading one chapter a day for 17 days.  A previous post refers to the book, here.  If you have even the tiniest inclination towards peace and justice issues,  King’s book is powerful and pertinent and still available 58 years after it was first published.  Check here for one source.

By habit, I don’t hi-lite.  But I did put an “X” in the margin of noteworthy statements I saw.  I counted my X’s in Strength to Love: there are 170 of them.  This is a book of writings by a preacher composed between his mid-20s and mid-30s, at the beginning of his career.

At about the same time,  MLK wrote a companion volume, which I have also had for years: “Why We Can’t Wait”, which includes the letter from the Birmingham Jail.  Your call.  You won’t regret taking the time to read and reflect on both volumes.

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In our society – perhaps it is a more general human trait – we tend to look for heroes: those who stand out; can give a good speech; write a good book; do a good deed that goes VIRAL!; take the big risks…successfully.  Of course, if the hero is very good, the end is not always good.  Dr.King was not yet 40 when he was assassinated in 1968.  Thus, not many aspire to be noteworthy “heroes”.

King, as a young man, obviously knew humanity as it was: imperfect.  He was an idealist and a realist.  He was early thrust into a leadership role, and he took it on.  It fell to him to be the avatar, a later Gandhi.  But the heroes of the Civil Rights movement were not only King, but the people around him; indeed, everyone who participated, anywhere.

The heroes we know personally don’t think of themselves as heroes.  But they are, nonetheless.

I could go on at great length about most any part of the book, but will spare you that.  But, at pp 143-44, I came across a hero in King’s eyes, in Montgomery AL during the bus boycott which began in 1955.  He devotes the better part of a page in the book to a hero of his, Mother Pollard, about whom I shard two of King’s sentences, below:

(I entered Mother Pollard’s name in my search engine, and there is a brief wiki article about her if you wish.)

Mother Pollard represents to me the legions of unsung heroes who make this country, indeed any country or community, work, day after day, in matters small and large.

Mostly heroes don’t know that they are heroes, and they are mostly unsung.

We all have a heroes role to play.  What is yours?

The cover of Sonya’s book

COMMENTS (more at end of post)

from Christine: That’s a powerful book from an inspired man who stays in our minds. I don’t know if our children and grand children etc. will still refer to him during their own lives….

response from Dick: I most noted that Dr. King was between 25 and 32 years old when he wrote the contents of this book.  All of us who can read it now have been 25 to 32 during their lives, and most of those younger than 32 will have experienced those years.  Certainly there are others in these cohorts who will inspire as Dr. King did.

from Fred: Dr. King’s speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial is one of greatest American orations ever.It should be placed in its historical place and time, with a brief introduction and replayed for present-day audiences every MLK day. I’m certain the book you are recommending is outstanding.

The First Day of Spring

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For many years – I don’t remember the first – I’ve declared February 1 to be the first day of Spring.

This morning, here, it was near zero, 3 degrees at 8:45.  That isn’t Spring weather.  On the other hand, it was a bright, sunshiny morning, and it was calm, and the roads were dry.  There’s no slush at 3 degrees!

I’ve lived in this climate my entire life, so I’m as expert as anyone about life between 45 and 49 degrees N. latitude.

I’ve observed over those years that, while December has the shortest day, Dec. 21, January is usually the most dismal, even if one throws in the usual January thaw; even if there’s a blizzard on Feb. 1.

The odds are, at least, that the cold and stormy spells will be shorter and less awful…but I’ve seen bad snow storms as late as late April; and those who like to put plants in the ground are well-advised to wait until later May when there is less prospect for frost.

Those who survived up here had to have a certain amount of what we call “common sense”.  Mostly it worked.

Anyway, life is good, this day.

Happy Spring.

Tomorrow is Ground Hog Day, and it brings to mind a story my Dad liked to tell about a Groundhog Day in Grafton ND when he was about 4 or 5 (which would have been about 1912).

Here’s his story, to cap off today: Bernard Henry Ground Hog Day ca 1912.

The annual survival rituals after a blizzard.  Top: a postcard celebrating victory over an early Feb. ND blizzard in early 1907 (this would have been a railroad plow to open the rails); above, survivors of another blizzard at the Busch farm about 1916.  Grandma Busch is at right, the oldest four kids (Lucina, Esther, Verena and Mary) on top of the snowbank outside the house.

COMMENTS:

from Molly:  Here in MN, heading for a high of +10 today, -17 tonight with a windchill in the obscene range (-37 or so).  Hope you are well & warm, & possibly covered with fur,  Groundhog

 

 

 

Memphis et al

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The headline of today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune was hardly a surprise.  Here it is, as found at our door this morning.

I don’t find much point in commenting directly about the latest tragedies.  There is an abundance of news.  Tyre and the others are not the first and unfortunately not the last.  I’ve commented on many of these situations before.  May 29, 2020, was the first of 39 blogs in the past 3 years that at minimum mentioned George Floyd; before that,  July 9, 2016, was the first of four posts with mentions of Philando Castile’s death.  And so on.

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What I prefer to do is to share a small amount of personal perspective, along with a recommendation for personal reflection.

First, the recommendation.  Recently, Sonya recommended a 1964 book by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Strength to Love, which I mentioned a week or two ago: see MLKs birthday.

I’ve had the book for years, and decided to re-read it, one chapter a day, each chapter about eight pages or so.  Today was Chapter 12 – I have 5 to go,  It is an enriching collection of food for thought; for personal centering in these confusing times.  Whatever your ‘brand’ of belief, or your bias, it will give you something to think about –  your relationship to today and to the future.

The book is an expansion of sermons given by MLK early in his career in Montgomery, Alabama,  (1954-60) essentially around the period after the Bus Boycott of 1956.

What is most remarkable to me is that King, born January, 1929, would have been in his 20s and early 30s when he preached these sermons.

You can read his thoughts for yourself.

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In each reflection, my opinion, MLK acknowledges that we are all individuals in this world of often conflicting beliefs and ideas.

The search for our own ideal is never to be found – there is no pot of gold at the end of our rainbows – but we can contribute to a better world, one deed at a time, wherever we are, whatever our circumstances.

Some, like MLK, seem to make a bigger difference than others, but even King’s perceived success was built by legions of individual acts of courage by the people who participated.

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I think back to my own imperfect days as an advocate for public school teachers, which began over 50 years ago.

By circumstance more than design, I happened to become a teacher representative coincident with the negotiation of the first collectively bargained contract under a new Minnesota bargaining law which took effect in 1972.

None of us, management or labor, were very conversant with the new rules of engagement.  Management didn’t know how to collaborate with labor; labor didn’t know how to exercise its new power.  There was an abundance of mistakes made by all parties, on both sides, including within labor and the community at large.

One of the early observations I made, as a novice, was that our side, represented by our bargaining team, was always frustrated at the end of negotiations.  We never, ever, reached our goals, which we always thought were reasonable.  The teachers we represented probably agreed with our assessment.  Always we found ourselves compromising on some never-give-up item or other.

Each time, two years later, back to the table we went, same process, same results.

One year, maybe five or six years into my career, I took a bit of time to try to quantify whether or not we had accomplished anything at all on one crucial issue about which we couldn’t even legally bargain, but which was a constant frustration to our members.

Long story short, I was astonished at how much progress we had actually made in those years, but hadn’t recognized,  because each time we were looking at what we hadn’t achieved, rather than valuing what we (labor and management) had, together.

I’ve never forgotten that.

Looking to the present, the years MLK became enrolled in the movement, the status quo was indeed dismal for his constituency.

By no means has the promised land been reached in 2023, but the foundation and the lay of the land is much different now than it was…if one takes the time to reflect back on the fact that a great deal of positive has been accomplished, while continuing the great deal of work remaining towards building a better future for us all.

Keep on, keeping on.  As the saying goes, “be the change you wish to see”.

POSTNOTES: Joyce Vance, The Importance of Video 

Last night we watched the latest remake of “All Quiet on the Western Front”, the classic about the end of WWII.  It is not a ‘feel good’ movie, that is for sure; but like Memphis and all the rest the movie provides a huge amount of food for reflection.

I felt similarly after viewing the latest SciFi hit, “Avatar, the Way of Water”, last week.

COMMENTS (more at end of post):

from Joyce:

“Our Librarian Was Forced to Remove a Quote by a Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel.”

 

50 years

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Monday is the 50th anniversary of the decision in Roe v Wade.

Letters from an American gives a good brief discussion of the history, here.

I note that I have written something including references to abortion 38 times since 2009 at this blog site.  That’s about three times a year.  I have not changed my position, now in place for over 58 years.  Respect life, but respect women’s human rights, and reality too.  By no means does everyone believe the same when it comes to ‘life’….

This morning at Mass the Pastors sermon was on the topic.  This was not surprising, his was carefully worded, the institutional – Roman Catholic – position.  I would have expected nothing else.

Codifying and even enforcing belief used to work better than it does now.  The Catholic Church, and any denomination for that matter, knows it’s an ever more lonely place to be when declaring some belief as absolute.  There will always be the cadre of supporters, but it takes much more than believers and laws to force belief.

50 years is two generations in human time.  That is a long time.  Moving from a moral imperative to a legal high ground, then controlling legislation and the courts which interpret the law, is a bridge much too far in a diverse society as ours is, in my opinion.  The above noted “Letter from an American” notes: “about 62% of Americans support the guidelines laid down in Roe v. Wade, about the same percentage that supported it fifty years ago, when it became law.”  One could guess that the same general percentage goes way, way back….

There is a tendency to divide us into good people and bad people.  It is not nearly so simple as that.  I’m not a ‘babykiller’ (an epithet that no doubt is still spewed by some).  Neither are all purist pro-lifers possessed of a consistent absolute ethic of life towards all who are born, wherever and whatever their circumstances, whether accidents, unwanted, immigrant or whatever.

Onward.

Postnote Jan 23: I published the above in early afternoon yesterday.  Later in the afternoon, we went to the latest Avatar, ‘The Way of Water,  and it wasn’t till last night that I learned of the latest massacre, this time in Monterey Park CA; and this morning about other major incidents.

My position on the epidemic of dangerous and essentially unregulated firearms has been conveyed many times.

For this morning, I yield to Joyce Vance (who grew up in Monterey Park) and Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American.

Regarding Avatar, The Way of Water:  It is a very long film – about three hours.  I saw the original Avatar.  I liked and recommend both.  There is plenty of Star Wars sort of violence, but I think its essential message especially to younger audiences is very positive.  The ‘bad folks’ don’t fare well, and the role models portrayed are the kind of people you’d like to know, and the sea creatures are phenoms!  I’d like to see comments from others who have seen the film, or heard from others.

Just received re Supreme Court: Status Kuo, the Kavanaugh Cover-Up.  Pertinent for today.

COMMENTS:  More at end of post.

from Fred: Excellent piece on a terribly difficult subject. Thanks!

from Jeff: Firstly, the leak investigation at SCOTUS didn’t even include the justices (irony abounds when the arbiters of ultimate justice are essentially above the law) when the most obvious leak was via Alito’s chummy dinners with big donors to conservative causes.

2nd, re Kavanaugh, yes sunlight is an antiseptic, but we also have not heard a good explanation of how his big debts miraculously disappeared during that period as well.
Kuo and others make a good point, the SCOTUS  is truly non transparent, it needs huge reforms to its practices and independent review of its ethics.     Adding 4 or 6 new justices won’t happen in our lifetime.  It is the right idea though.
in the end I see the Senate as the source of much of America’s problems. it is the most undemocratic legislative body in the developed world that has actual power.  (A similar body , the Lords in England, was demoted in any actual power making many years ago.)

responding to Jeff, your last para especially: our Founders were geniuses, and lucky, but unfortunately didn’t have vision over 200 years out.  Their model, good and bad, was England.  They tried to build what they thought was a perfect union.  In a democracy, the crew in power is not going to voluntarily give it up – look at the obsolete veto power held by five countries in the United Nations.  It made sense, perhaps, in the wake of WWII, but no longer.  Same is true with the dis-proportionate power to the small population ‘red’ states.  It almost takes a life-ending catastrophe to bring serious changes.

MLK, redux

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Sonya’s book

My brief post on Monday (here) brought eight comments, all well worth revisiting.

Among them was a note from Sonya: “I have been reading Strength To Love, a book of Martin Luther King’s sermons published in May 1964. Its pages are now dog-eared and full of underlined sections that I thought especially profound. I would love to have heard him speak in person.”

I replied to her comment at the blog, and sent a photo of my photo-copied volume from the April 1968 edition.  (See my note at end of this post, below the photo.)

The photos lead and end this post.   (You will notice that Sonya’s book cost 50 cents and the one I copied, 75 cents.)   I think the book is out of print, but you can still get used copies.  Thanks to Sonya, I am rereading the book, one chapter a day (17 chapters, 175 pages).  Each chapter is filled with food for thought, wherever you are on your personal journey, regardless of your personal religious beliefs.  The book was published when MLK was in his mid 30s….

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I began this adventure of blogging more than 21 years ago, late September, 2001.  It started in late Sep 2001 as “P&J” (Peace and Justice), dealing with Sep 11 2001; thence became “Venturing” for a short while; thence “Outside the Walls”, thence the present “Thoughts Towards a Better World”.    It has been a personal opportunity to clarify my own understanding of issues, and to learn from others.  Some readers have been with me for the long haul.  We’ve covered lots of ground.

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J. Drake Hamilton of Fresh Energy gave a very interesting talk on Zoom last night, Jan 19.  You can watch it here.  “Climate Loss and Damage at COP 27“.  The talk is 30 minutes, with an additional hour discussion of audience questions.  I predict you will be glad you watched it, and share it.  I am a long-time active member of the sponsoring organization, Citizens for Global Solutions MN, and an active supporter of Fresh Energy and its work.

Ukraine: A couple of days ago, Fred sent along a link to a very informative commentary on the historical background of Ukraine/Russia: “A truly masterful analysis on the war in Ukraine. This is from [Fiona] Hill’s talk in ceremonies marking the BBC’s centenary. An aside: The role and influence of the BBC in Europe, 1922 to 1970s, particularly, is vastly underestimated. Hill is a highly regarded British-American foreign affairs expert, with special interest in Russia.”

Native Americans: Back on Jan. 1, 2023, Brian commented on the New Year’s post on some work he’s done with native Americans and their Credit Unions. (Brian works out of NYC.  He and I met on a study trip to Haiti in 2006).  I think his comment fits here, and it is shared with his permission I have added some links: Oh, and the Dakotas/Montana and Native Americans.  I have good news.  After 5 years and several trips out to Lame Deer with my working with them, the Native Americans (Northern Cheyenne and Crow) now have a credit union of their own–it was just chartered.   And the Lakota credit union, which I worked with 10 years ago on the Pine Ridge Reservation, really helped out, too.   And they just expanded their service to eastern SD, to the  Rosebud Reservation–I had to get involved with that, the regulators were such asses. 

Cuba:  The Golden Rule Boat made a trip to Cuba in early January, and Thursday came their observations, along with this ‘clip’: “Without U.S. hostility to an independent, socialist Cuba, we would not have come so close to nuclear war in 1962. There are a lot of lessons to learn from the Cuban Missile Crisis. But have they been learned?“.

Population, climate etc:  Occasionally side conversations start out of some post here, and recently Chuck and Claude entered into a good-natured back-and-forth about the future.  Along with their exchange of opinions, came a couple of videos by persons I would categorize as ‘futurists’ (which is a compliment) – attempting to predict the future.  If you wish, here are the videos, worth your time.  From one of the corresponding duo: “Here’s a [30 minute] video of optimism if you dare watch it.”  From the other: “I’m going to ask you to watch the first 44 minutes of this presentation of Dr. Rees to the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome.”  

If they wish, I may do a “Chuck and Claude” post sometime later….  Constructive discussion is always good.

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There is more, of course, for another day.  We tend to be dominated by the headlines of the day on whatever our choice of media might be.  In the end analysis, there is lots of action happening with lots of people on lots of issues.  Keep on, keeping on….

 

POSTNOTE:  Everything has its own story.  Sometime in the late 1980s I had occasion to visit an African-American couple in Albany GA.  I saw the “Strength to Love” paperback and asked if could borrow it, and back home I copied it.  The book appears to be out of print, but still available used.  I’m very happy I had it, and that Sonya reminded me of it.

MLK Day

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Today is the 37th Martin Luther King Day. MLK 1/15/29- 4/4/68

On Saturday, my friend Joyce sent along a message about the Jan. 14, 2023, New York Times, a column by Jamelle Bouie.  I’d recommend that you read this column, here: NYT Jamelle Bouie Jan 2023.  

Bouie focuses on a sermon given by MLK at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Christmas Eve, 1967.  It speaks for itself.  (There are several sources for the entire sermon on the internet.  Simply search the specific topic.)

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I repeat  another recommendation this day.

Take the time to tune in on J. Drake Hamilton’s talk via Zoom on Thursday of this week at 7 p.m. CST.  All details are here.  There is a very simple reservation process.

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If we are to survive as a community of people, however local or global that might be, it will be up to all of us, working individually and together.

I’ve always liked the quote attributed to Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

COMMENTS (more at end of post):

from Jeff: Happy MLK day monseigneur! this is a good post for today as well, especially the ending admonishing us that heroes are all around us….

from Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, especially pertinent for today.  Here.

from Jay Kuo, The Status Quo, on Martin Luther King and Thich Nhat Hanh, here.

from Molly:

I highly recommend this thought-provoking 16-minute reflection by a local ( & also national, & international) peacemaker, Ray McGovern.  (see 4th para for link)

He’s a  former career Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who later turned into a political activist. He has quite an interesting biography in Wikipedia .

If you’ve been active in some of the ongoing peace work/events done in the Twin Cities over the last 20 years or so, you may have encountered him.
It seems an appropriate piece for Martin Luther King Day–because Ray McGovern is such an articulate, knowledgeable, and creative person.  The last quarter of the film talks about Dr. King.

I found myself going back to re-hear various clips as it went along, so give yourself some time to check it out.  Be aware, this is not an upper.

from Chuck: Here’s the best 3 min video that I believe gets at the root problem of EVERY earthly issue we are concerned about.

Today, on Martin Luther King Day, this is his “War is Obsolete” speech.

Compliments of a close friend with media promotion and editing talents.

“Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable…. And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort….” Jen Easterly. Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency’s director in a speech Oct. 29, 2021. [CISA is our nation’s newest federal agency established by the Trump Administration in 2018]

Hopefully, Ms. Easterly understands that our environment is our most vital infrastructure! And human security everywhere is inherently and irreversibly connected to it as well as every aspect of our health.

from Claude:  Yes, that’s certainly a great speech. It’s a shame it hasn’t gotten more traction to actually get people and countries to think more ecumenically to work together to avoid a course of action that has brought us to the point of ever warming global temperatures. I’m sure you’re right that not being willing to work together is the root of every problem we face.

As a life-long world federalist I must admit the Citizens for Global Solutions has failed to bring about a system at the international level that would save us.
As a half-century UNA member I can certainly see that the UNA has failed to increase the UN’s effectiveness to solve our problems through it’s efforts.
One of the co-authors of the landmark book “The Limits to Growth,” which came out with lots of attention fifty years ago, recently took part in a retrospective of the book’s legacy. Jorgen Randers freely admits that he and the others who wrote and promoted the book (from MIT research and published by the Club of Rome, by the way) failed to make their message palatable to government, industry and people at large, that endless growth will end in disaster. But interestingly he said he doesn’t think the failure is because the message wasn’t understood but rather that hearers didn’t like the message

Life

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The primary purpose of this post is the following paragraph.  I know J. and her work well.  The talk on Zoom next week is very much worth your time.

Upcoming: One week from today, Thursday, January 19, 7 p.m. CST.  J. Drake Hamilton of Fresh Energy will be guest speaker via Zoom for Citizens for Global Solutions MN Third Thursday.  All details are here.  Free, available everywhere.  Pre-registration required.

J. is an exceptional presenter, highly experienced and respected.  You will be happy you spent the time.

Related, and pertinent is this, sent to me on Jan 4 by Claude. The 19 page monograph by Dr. William E. Rees,  is already published online but it will be part of the 2023 Vienna Yearbook of Demographics.

I must say that the impending Climate Emergency makes a lot of other issues look like rearranging the deck furniture of the Titanic.

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While you’re at the Global Solutions website, consider watching the recorded November, 2022, Third Thursday, featuring Natalie Etten, Ukrainian native, about Ukraine.

Also, Sunday’s post on the House of Representatives will be, and has been, updated with additional information, as you wish, about issues of the week just passed.  I will likely continue to augment for some time – something of a ‘filing cabinet’ on the issues arising.

There are pieces about the uprising in Brazil, the Biden papers, etc.  Lots to learn about.

Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and February is Black History month.   Devote some of your time in positive engagement where you are.

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“A Privileged Moment” was the title of  Janice Andersen’s column in the Jan. 8 newsletter of my church, the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis.  The column is well worth your time regardless of personal beliefs: Janice Andersen Jan 8 2023.  In paragraph two, Janice refers to a Jan. 1 message from Pope Francis.  You can read his relatively brief message here.

An unexpected companion came early this week in the belated Christmas letter from my long-time friend, Fr. Vince from another midwest state.  He and I met years ago at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington DC, where he commented to the congregation he was from Minnesota, and I happened to be at Mass.   (At the time, I was at meetings at the National Education Association just down the street.)  Vince and I have stayed connected over the many miles over the years.

Here is a part of his Christmas letter which I think fits the spirit of this post, this season and this time in history: Fr. Vince letter Jan. 2023.

House Rules

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Postnote January 11 & 12, 2023:  What rages on, beginning yesterday, are the papers found in Biden’s office which were immediately reported and produced to the National Archives.  There is much more to this story, and more to be told.

Personally, I support the established legal process of the Department of Justice.   One of the admittedly aggravating strengths of our justice system, generally, is that it is a slow and deliberative process of establishing fact, etc.  Such a process takes time, which is irritating to the ‘hang ’em high’ crowd and their cheerleaders.  It is easy to jump to conclusions.  In due time we will have more facts to go on.  And newspeople are not the ones who establish the facts or argue the cases….

Today’s mail brought the latest Letter from an American for Jan 10. on the Biden and Brazilian situations.  Civil Discourse by Joyce Vance was issued Jan. 11 also.  Letters from an American Jan. 11; Letters from an American Jan. 12

Postnote January 10:  for the time being, likely through January,  I’ll use the space to include items of interest relating to the 2023 U.S. Congress, and pending issues related to the ex-president.  Check back 0n occasion.

Letters from an American, Jan. 8; The Weekly Sift Jan. 9;  Verdict Justia Jan 9; Weekly Sift Jan 9 (new); The Status Kuo Jan. 10

So far, my choice for worst new committee, sponsored by Jim Jordan, is to include the words “Weaponization of the Federal Government” in its title.  Of course, no one knows what this will mean – the committee has not yet met – but the guess is that the intent is to tar and feather any individual or agency within the government that dares to challenge anything Mr. Jordan’s ‘side’ does.  This would include the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service among others.  Bullies like to take on disabled or weaker adversaries.

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Postnote January 9: Joyce Vance sent a good explanation of what’s ahead, beginning tomorrow, with procedures in the U.S. House of Representatives.  You can read it here.  It is worth your time.

Another from Joyce Vance.  I note an invitation to subscribe to this free service.  This is also true with Heather Cox Richardson, I’m going to subscribe to these, as I do to NYT and WaPo and StarTribune, in recognition of invaluable service.  I’d recommend the same to you, your choice of information, of course.  We need credible sources.

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Sunday, January 8, 2023: I am about as expert on the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives as anyone, which means I know next to nothing about them – a lack of knowledge I share with virtually 100% of us.  They have been established by tradition and in other ways over our entire national history.  Each Congress starts over – every Congressperson is ‘new’ every two years.  One of the tasks tomorrow is to establish the rules….

We are all familiar with rules, petty to profound.  if you have a partner in any sense of that word, there are rules of engagement.

So it goes with society, any society, anywhere.  Some folks would like no rules whatsoever.  But anarchy doesn’t work very well.  ‘FREEdumb’ isn’t very free. shall I say.

Some folks would like to make the rules which everyone else must follow.  Dictators or aspirants are always lurking, but never last.

Most of us live in the in between zone.  We have to live with spouses, with teenagers, with annoying neighbors, on and on and on.

Last week I was in a post office line, a bit longer than usual.  In front of me was a woman who feared ‘dead air’ and was in a one-way conversation with another lady whose lot it had been to be polite, which was perceived as an opening to the person I’m describing.

The polite lady escaped when she had her opportunity to take care of her business, which left me, behind, as the next target for the loquacious person.  I didn’t take the bait – you can do this without being rude.  She tried….

We run into these kinds of dissonances frequently, and we learn to adapt.

I think rules of engagement are essential for any civil society.  There is a need for order.

What will happen in the U.S. House remains to be seen.  Each and every one of us has one member of that Congress.  I think the current ratio is about one Representative for every 700,000 or so citizens.

Best we can do, I think, is learn what we can about the House Rules, and keep close tabs on, and communicate with, our own Congressperson, whether or not of our party.

It is an easy task to identify this person, and easy to communicate to the person provided you live in his or her district (that’s a common rule, which makes sense in this day of mass communications of petitions etc.)

My Congressperson is Betty McCollum.  Who is yours?

Speaker of the House

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Last night the Speaker for the 118th Congress was elected 216-212: two years after January 6, 2021; two months after Nov. 8, 2022; three days after January 3, 2023; 15 ballots after….

My post, is here.  I have read all of the comments, from 1o individuals.  I welcome more, which I will add here.

The comment I found most interesting is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, 10 August 1824, sent by Lois.  Jefferson was then 81 years old, and died less than two years later.  This was apparently his “letter to the editor” of a new newspaper.

I have two personal comments, from personal history.  Everyone will view this history and its implications differently, as well as how to approach it, individually.  The few words following are two direct experiences that impact on my view of this latest development.  Personally, I have always identified myself as moderate, pragmatic Democrat (pragmatic for me meaning practical – we all see things differently as I learned every day in my career.).  Again, personally, I probably most identify with the progressive Republican view of things generally.  I see no contradiction.  Progressive Republicans have basically been rendered irrelevant in contemporary Republicanism.

The first is Halloween night, Oct 31, 2000.  My wife and I were in Washington D.C. and got tickets from our Congressman admitting us to the Gallery of the House, which was having an unusual evening session.

There were a few of us watching the proceeding, which was strange enough to cause a member of Congress, from Illinois, to come up to apologize to us (none of whom, I gathered, were his constituents) for what we were witnessing below.  Somebody was speaking, apparently to a camera.  There was not any semblance of unity or attention down there.  There was a gaggle of legislators on one side; on the other, another gaggle.   This was 22 years ago….

The second was ten years earlier, in 1990.

I was a full-time teacher union field representative, and had just been transferred to work in a large metropolitan school district with well over 1,000 teachers.

Since 1972, our state had collective bargaining, and part of the law required selection of an exclusive representative.  There were two competing unions.

The District to which I was transferred had not long before had a bargaining election in which the other side from mine had won representation rights by a single vote.

I don’t know why I was transferred to work there; what I do know, by that point in my career I had no enthusiasm for aggressive competition to “win” in another election.

Fast forward: the teachers, apparently, were also sick of it.

Three years later, in 1993, the locals merged, the first such merger in Minnesota, celebrated by state and national affiliates.  This was not an individual accomplishment, nor an organization win.  This was a truly collective venture, one conversation at a time.

Five years after that, in 1998, the state unions merged.  This year is the 25th anniversary of that merger.  Most present day union members were not employed when that happened – it is ancient history.

What does this mean for the future of our republic?  Obviously, I don’t know.  But it is possible to work together.  And I refer back to that Thomas Jefferson letter sent by Lois.

Rather than lament whatever, each one of us has a role starting today.  I urge you to play your part!

COMMENTS:

from SAK: I am worried at the extent the “conservatives” in the US & the UK are pandering to their extreme factions (e.g. Freedom Caucus in the US & Reform UK). The conservatives in Germany didn’t mind naming Hitler chancellor being confident they could control him! This pandering has been & will be detrimental to the country at large – exhibit A: Brexit in the UK which has divided the country & devastated its economy. Exhibit B: the House of Representatives’ election fiasco: McCarthy & his humiliating concessions in his bid to become speaker of the house as well as the more general mess that is the Republican party.

from the Atlantic:  

“Republicans don’t have a Trump problem. They have a voter problem.”

“Because I think that was what was so shocking to me, was the ease with which one in America can slide into that kind of radicalism.”

“And they sit. They watch hours of Fox News a day, and [they say,] “Our biggest problem is all of these pedophiles [sic] running through our streets or these antifa gang members marauding through our streets—like, that’s, like, our biggest problem. And if we don’t stop this, you know, caravan over the border”—I mean, you know, sort of pick your menace of the week, right?”

ACLED: Growing far right violence in the US.

I second your view: the Jefferson letter is great, reminds me of JFK’s remark honouring Nobel Prize winners of the western hemisphere:

“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

Is it me or don’t they make ’em like they used to!?

from Dick, responding to the last sentence, and to Jim, below:

I just saw Jim’s comment (below the fold), and I have only a couple of minutes before we leave for late Christmas gathering, but I do want to take a stab at this, briefly, then the two of you, or others, can respond.

Humanity is a sum of many inherited parts, and there probably are plenty Jefferson like folks who have come along since he was  among us.

The difference is called the ‘playing field’: in his day, there were only a few Americans, and only a few of the few had any opportunity beyond the plow.

Nowadays, a tweet passes for intellectual rigor, as we noted with a former President with mega-million followers, everyone talking in headlines (which is all tweets are).  Today’s Jefferson’s are basically drowned in background noise.  Back to the two of you.

PS: I was thinking, after clicking send on this post, the difference between the people in the MINNESOTA ORCHESTRA, and the people sitting in similar situations in the House of Representatives this week.  A good orchestra makes wonderful music by working together.  They are all unique individuals, with unique specialties, but along with skill, teamwork is absolutely essential.  Rivalry and tribalism are the go-to words in American governance, and probably always have been.  Getting to the top of the heap, however small the heap has to be to be on top of….