Eswatini

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PRENOTE: There are several comments to the Valentine’s Day post.  Check them out here.

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Thursday evening an organization in which I’m active, Citizens for Citizens for Global Solutions MN, presented a very informative Zoom-cast on the assassination of a human rights advocate in a country you’ve probably never heard of, Eswatini, (formerly Swaziland).

Before the talk, I watched a one hour recommended film, “The Unthinkable”, and I participated in the very informative talk and discussion with human rights attorney HADAR HARRIS,  speaking about Swaziland and the recent assassination of the human rights attorney THULANI MASEKO.  The Unthinkable film is accessible here.  Both Film and talk are very much worth your time, and thought provoking.  About two hours in all.

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Political killing (violence) of all sorts is not unusual.

Killing someone’s reputation (character assassination) is as deadly as physically killing someone.  As I listened and watched I thought about two other situations I found analogous, from personal experience.

First, in December, 2003, I spent a very powerful week in Port-au-Prince,  Haiti, less than three months before the Feb. 2004 coup deposing Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.  Ours was a study trip organized by those who supported Aristide and his attempts to bring democracy to that impoverished country in the wake of the Duvaliers.

Six of us saw and learned a great deal.  Ours was a peaceful and very full trip but, simply recounting from my memory, here are some happenings  before, during and after that trip.

Not long before we arrived in Haiti, a representative of a growing Microfinance organization, which we visited, a man whose name was Amos, had been kidnapped, held for ransom and killed.  It seemed a ‘message’ was being sent to the organization, which survived and is today well known and effective.

We met a literacy leader at a successful school, who was assassinated a couple of days after we met him (we probably heard the gunfire that killed him while driving near the national palace).  At the time of the coup, a charismatic Catholic Priest we met was arrested and thrown in prison, and then exiled to Florida – basically, it appeared, to get him out of the country, since he was free in Florida where I met him again two years later.  It seemed he was seen as being more dangerous just being alive in Haiti.

Another cleric, Episcopal, I met there, was allegedly killed by poison a year later.  An Aristide government official we had met with had to flee the country, and of course the Aristide’s were removed, unceremoniously, dropped off in central Africa, out of sight, out of mind….

I was back  to Haiti, this time with the same Microfinance group, in 2006.  This time the trip was into the interior.  Again, a peaceful journey.

Of course, it is impossible to connect dots officially in these kinds of situations.  But we still traveled safely that year. I wrote about both visits and my reflections are accessible here.

What has troubled me ever since 2003, is that U.S. hands, and Canadian and French, were all over the destruction of the Aristide effort at democracy.  It seemed that “power to the people” was dangerous to our capitalism.

Cleansing Haiti of democracy doesn’t seem to have worked very well for Haiti in recent years.  Haiti is not a destination  due to safety concerns.  It is a do-not-travel-to country.  This is in marked contrast to the Haiti I visited in 2003 and 2006.

Second, my final thoughts on Thursday were about ourselves, what is happening in present day United States of America.

For our entire history, our country has been blessed by, and struggled with,  the Rule of Law.  Law itself is, of course, imperfect, and it is slow if one believes in due process, innocence until proven guilty, evidence, etc.  But imperfect is much better than the alternative – lies, snap judgement, etc.

Political character assassination is the preferred killing instrument here, now, though weaponry (guns) is certainly always on the table.  Every one of us has a seat in the theatre every day; we are all participants whether we think we are or not.

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At the very end of the Zoomcast I raised a comment about us for the speaker, articulating my concerns, which she found to be relevant, and she responded.  You’ll have to tune in for it.  I hope you do.

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Sunday night watch the first episode of the Rudy Giuliani Story on MSNBC “When Truth Isn’t Truth“.

On State of the Union day Feb 7 I decided to focus on public education policy given the Governor of Florida’s heavy-handedness.  It is becoming even worse.  I can’t make Florida’s policy, nor even our state or local school district.  Neither can anyone else…as individuals…nonetheless we have a lot of power if we choose to exercise it.  About all I could/can do is what I did, which is here, simply a narrative of where I come from and why.  I have distributed this broadly, beyond the addressees, including here.  I encourage you to do something similar in your own words at your own place. Public Education0001 is the letter. I urge you to not sit on the sidelines on this, or any issue.

COMMENTS (more at end of post):

from long-time friend: If that notion that you commented about, shown below is troubling to you, then consider the fact that we are supportive of Israel’s attempts to exterminate the Gaza Palestinians via starvation, and our support of the British in overthrowing the Iranian Democracy that was set up after their revolution against the British that ended in 1949, and the Iran Contra where we encouraged Iraq to attack Iran, then provided arms to both sides that enhance the killings, and our unnecessary invasion of Iraq in 2003, resulting in an estimated 64,000 deaths during the night of “Shock and Awe”, mostly civilians, and most of which were women and children again.  That war and its aftereffects took the lives of around a half million by some estimates, and again, mostly women and children.  Unfortunately, we are not a country of good people.

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“What has troubled me ever since 2003, is that U.S. hands, and Canadian and French, were all over the destruction of the Aristide effort at democracy.  It seemed that “power to the people” was dangerous to our capitalism.”

 

Valentine’s Day

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POSTNOTE Feb 23: Ukraine at One Year, here.

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There are several comments to the last post, from Claude, Rich, Jeff and myself about weapons of war.  You might want to take a look.

Today is Valentine’s Day.  Judging from the stash of old postcards from the farm, Valentine’s Day was significant, even against Christmas and Easter.  Below is one from the early 1900s.  Since I’ve focused on MLK’s Strength to Love this month, here’s his commentary on the word “love” from page 44: MLK Love.  Have a great day.

Postnote from Molly Feb. 15: Love Quotes 2023

Two items today:

Ukraine.  One year ago, Friday, Feb. 18, was my big surgery adventure – colon cancer.  So far so good.  The one year checkup was a couple of weeks ago.

Last year, the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, 2022, about the day that I was discharged from the hospital.  I doubt anyone knew what would happen on and after February 14, 2022, though the storm clouds were abundant.  I doubt anyone knows exactly what will transpire in the days ahead, but keep the Ukrainians in your thoughts ongoing.

A major international security conference begins in Munich, hi-liting the increasingly intense clash between democracy and authoritarianism.  Heather Cox Richardson’s commentary on this is here, well worth your time.

Last summer I was honored to be able to visit with some Ukrainian students who were gifted by someone with a one month break from the war.  Recently one of them sent several photos from that day, including this one:

August 23, 2022, Minneapolis MN

What are Ukrainian young people like?  Like young people anywhere and everywhere.  Humanity’s future.

A bit of context: Ukraine is roughly the size of Texas (233  vs 269 thousand square miles, with greater population (41 million vs 30 million).  Minnesota: 87 thousand sq miles, 5.7 million people.). Ukraine’s geographic location is more or less like North Dakota and Minnesota.  (Kyiv and Winnipeg are almost exactly the same latitude). Ukraine as an area has a much longer history than the U.S., and a long and complicated relationship with Russia, and most recently has been independent since the Soviet Union broke up in about 1990.  The USSR at time of breakup was about the size of the North American continent.  Russia today has about half the U.S. population in about twice as much land area.  In most recent history, Ukraine had been independent for over 30 years; Russia had been nibbling away at it since about 2014, and a year ago Putin decided to pull out all stops.  The objective: to restore the old empire.

How are we, as related to Ukraine, today?  I’d compare our planet with about 195 nations to ourselves as human beings.

If one part of ourself is afflicted by something unexpected – let’s say a serious cut on an arm – our body responds to the crisis, and in most cases deals with it, diverting resources as needed to do battle against infections.  We’ve all been there, often.  The body has many mechanisms to heal itself.

Sometimes our body can’t deal with the crisis – my colon cancer last year is an example.  Or the replacement of my aortic valve in 2018 another.  An outside intervention was crucial in both cases.  Without such interventions, I likely would not be around to write this post.

So it is, I maintain, with Ukraine and all of us occupying planet earth.  Ukraine needs and deserves outside help; if Ukraine falls, it is damaging to us and the rest of the body of which it is a part, including the invaders.

There is a temptation to say “it’s their problem”; or to make  suggestion, as, Ukraine should just negotiate with the enemy sworn to destroy their territorial integrity.

I think we need to continue to be engaged with and for them.  I think Gandhi would agree.  Nonviolence has its place, but it doesn’t always work.  We can’t pretend evil away….

Continue to stay informed and engaged.  There have been numerous posts referring to  Ukraine.  Simply enter “Ukraine” in the search box (the magnifying glass symbol).

Separate topic: Social Security etc.

Jeff posed a question to a couple of us recently.  He ok’ed sharing with this list in case anyone might be interested in adding an opinion.  I’ve expressed my own, which are also shared, below.  As I’ve said often in assorted ways, we’re a democracy and in one way or another we choose our fate by whom we select to represent us….  Let your representatives know where you stand on this, and why.

Jeff:  Can Democrats consider some plans to address the shortcomings of Medicare and Social Security (SS) going forward?  Regardless what is said, the numbers don’t lie, and declining population growth and immigration bans don’t help shore up the 20-62 age group that essentially pays for the benefits of seniors ….and of course the general feeling is that I paid for it, it’s mine, which is a fundamental flaw in the history of the programs….should have been considered a social welfare benefit…not an earned benefit…but I suspect that ship left port a long time ago…

ideas being raised?
aa) raise the income level on payroll tax to at least 150,000 (or 175,000?)  something to catch more revenue that SS and medicare can pull from
bb) limit the SS benefits to people with high income or assets, emphasize it is primarily a guarantee to keep lower and middle class seniors without private wealth from poverty, I think the highest level now is about 42,000 per year and really that is well above the poverty level….
cc) raise the age at which SS withdrawals become mandatory
dd) means test Medicare: although frankly this is already being done and because of the sale of my company and the 5 year payout I am feeling this quite significantly ….my Part B premium increased by 125% this year. (a good problem to have I suppose, but I still bitch about it quietly because being self employed for 15 years I paid for high deductible insurance thru the nose and a couple years of lower cost premiums was nirvana)
ee) I don’t agree with raising the age to take SS, but I think there should be some carrots and sticks applied to allow for people who have physically or mentally demanding jobs, especially with low or lower middle incomes, to retire at 62 or 63, but at the same time make better incentives for the well heeled to wait even until 73 or 75?

Jeff added, later: I also agree, no switching to a privatized system….and don’t let the neocons/neoliberals suggest it as an option……you can see what is happening to Medicare…….. Medicare Advantage actually is not really Medicare, it is essentially a PPO/HMO program which they sell cheap because they get $860 in cash immediately for every enrollee before it costs them a dime…by running the algorithms, and setting the pay ups by enrollees and restricting the universal access of Medicare … it is growing rapidly and I fear it also will cause dangerous problems for actual Medicare if it continues.    Journalists are starting to show its shortcomings, but the selling of $0 premium plans with  2 free dental visits and a health club membership is a good deal for many people, until they get sick and have to go in hospital for 7 days or need specialists … then the bills come in.

Dick responding off the cuff:

My grandpa turned 65 in 1937, which happened to be almost exactly when SS was enacted into law.  His livelihood and his savings had disappeared when his employer, and their bank, went under in 1927 (I don’t think the two happenings were related), so I’d guess my grandma’s family was their early social security – the relatives were farmers nearby.  Of course, he’d not contributed to Social Security fund at all.
I have a couple of theories about today.
1) The money men want the schmoes to give their income to their broker, bypassing the govt.  Of course, this is the ultimate high risk for everybody – remember the roaring 20’s, and what followed?
2) The additional funds can and should be raised from those of means.  Biden et al seem to think this is $400,000 and above.  My wife and I are nowhere near 400K, but we both have social security, and pensions, and 401-k, and with required minimum distributions we can’t get ourselves below six figures annual income…which bothers my wife!  We’ve never paid more than about 15% federal tax, and we surely aren’t cheats.  We aren’t rich, but we sure as hell aren’t poor either.  Of course, the rich, (whatever number) that turns out to be, will rage: “us paying more ain’t fair.  We earned it.  We deserve it.”  It’s just another defect of our spoiled rotten richest country on earth.
So help me God!
(I have been poor a couple of times in my life and it is no picnic. Even so, speaking from the present much better circumstances, it is frighteningly easy to fall into the trap of blaming the poor for their own condition.  It is easy to become self-righteous.)

An interesting commentary on this came in Monday’s mail in the Weekly Sift, here.

Jeff added a supplement to above on Feb. 19: First, Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from and American for Feb. 18, here.


Americans do support SS and Medicare……but the things done since the 1980s in the name of “privatisation” which combined

with tax cuts led to wider income divides (the rich did get richer, the rest can eat cake) but also decreased the ability for the middle classes and poor to utilize healthcare especially.  (figures this past 2 weeks on intl healthcare and health stats show the USA has been slipping in many areas compared to our OECD peers–this is  not a surprise, it is related mainly to the high cost of healthcare here <highest among our peers>)
Medicare: I keep making this point, but the GOP already created a Trojan Horse to destroy the program.  Medicare Advantage is NOT Medicare. It is a private health insurance PPO or HMO plan made and adminstered by big healthcare and pharma corporations.  It grows in subscribers as $0 premiums combined with free workout club memberships and 2 dental visits per year are a good hook.  Behind that are restrictions on health care systems, within states, and restrictions on specialist providers, there are also copays and maximum payments.   None of that
exists in actual Medicare A+B, but sadly we are now getting to the situation where only higher income or very low income people(medicaid) are actually on true Medicare as the cost of supplement part C has been going up….because of the increase in numbers in Medicare Advantage.
The corporations are playing the long game, they are aware this damages traditioinal Medicare which they have never liked….in the short term some subscribers win if they are healthy and choose Advantage plans….and of course the corporations  and corporate execs hauling in fat bonus checks.   In the long term we could lose traditional Medicare if it is starved of subscribers except for the upper and lower extremes.  And then we will be stuck with everyone on a PPO/HMO plan which will essentially be like the ones most people hated when they were working stiffs and were decided upon by their company execs and HR depts to save costs and increase profits.

Response to Jeff’s latest from Dick: There is absolutely nothing for nothing.  “Free” isn’t free – somehow or other it gets paid for.  I watch the Medicare Advantage ads on TV like everyone else does, and they are doing the hard sell, and they will get customers who, if they are very lucky, won’t get bit in the end (and, of course, if they do get bit, someone will pay, probably all of us in one way or another).
Caveat emptor.


POSTNOTE 9 a.m. Feb. 14:  Valentine’s started normally.  Out and about 6 a.m.; walk at 7:30; now home and whatever transpires (being retired means flexible schedule….)

Friend Robert stopped by Caribou and the conversation got around to what I would call ‘NORMAL’ – how life is.

Most of us have a routine.  For me, it’s easy to track me.  Normal is defined for me by who comes and goes at the coffee shop and at the health center, and the other usuals in my daily life.  Almost never DRAMA.  Just people going about their lives.

There is another life, of course, when you turn on the TV, or read the paper, or wherever your news comes from.

My growing up years were in the 1940s, and almost every piece of information was personal and very local, within the small town.

Nowadays we know almost everything, instantly, as interpreted by somebody else: Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, Congress – you name it.  Yesterday came a full page from the Wall Street Journal weekend edition Feb 4-5. 2023, sent to me by my sister.  It begins on the front page, and is about a Minnesota Somali family whose son went bad.  The paper helpfully and likely accurately notes that “Some 170,000 people in the U.S. have Somali ancestry.  The largest share lives in Minnesota.”

It is, of course, not unusual for a regular family to have such a crisis in America, but the skeptic in me wonders why this single Somali family gets a full page of ink in one of this country’s premier newspapers.  We’re around Somalis all the time; they happen to simply be people like all the rest.

I could go on at great length about similar examples, including what I’ll see in the media today.
Was it better to be kept in the dark in the 1940s, than to get sensational and too much news today?  Personally, I think it is important that we get the bad news today, and learn how to filter out the abundant crap.

We live in a very complex world and we are inextricably connected.  What happens there, has direct implications for us, more so than ever.  Thanks for NORMAL.

If you’ve read this far, HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY.

COMMENTS (others at end of post):


from Peter: On Ukraine, I do have close friends who are very heavily impacted. But I think it is an error to focus on the “Democracy vs. Authoritarianism” frame.

There is an enormous amount of context that is entirely missing, obscured by that narrative. Without that context, we are led to believe that it’s necessary to risk global annihilation rather than support negotiations.

Washington has quashed negotiations over and over again. The latest I heard was Blinken on NPR yesterday, asserting that any settlement must be “enduring”, and “lasting.” You no doubt remember one Condi Rice making that same argument against doing anything to stop the Israeli military from shooting thousands of Palestinians like fish in a barrel. That is morally bankrupt, besides being just plain wrong.

The policies this narrative supposedly justifies are the same completely bankrupt policies we have seen fail time and again, from Vietnam to the present, being implemented by the same people that failed the last time around.

One Ohio class submarine carries enough warheads in just one of its multiple missiles to end life, period.

Ok. One other rant for you on this Valentine’s Day, on Social Security, Etc.:

“Regardless what is said, the numbers don’t lie, and declining population growth and immigration bans don’t help shore up the 20-62 age group that essentially pays for the benefits of seniors”

This is the standard mythology that politicians all agree on, almost without exception. However, truthful numbers are routinely cited that are irrelevant. Stephanie Kelton (once the financial advisor to the Democrats) sent the following:

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“Robert Eisner…was onto this charade. He was frustrated by the policy debates, which he saw as entirely misguided.
Eisner’s main message was that the obsession with Social Security’s Trust Funds (OASI and DI) is a distraction. To borrow a phrase from Gertrude Stein, “There is no there there.” The trust funds exist merely as accounting entities. We don’t need them to carry a positive balance—or any balance whatsoever—in order to preserve Social Security for future generations.
“Here’s Eisner:
“‘Expenditures alleged to be related to trust funds are often less than their income— witness the highway and airport funds as well [as] Social Security. There is no particular reason they cannot be more. The accountants can just as well declare the bottom line of the funds’ accounts negative as positive—and the Treasury can go on making whatever outlays are prescribed by law. The Treasury can pay out all that Social Security provides while the accountants declare the funds more and more in the red.'”
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Kelton ends that post with this:
“the federal government always has the _financial ability to pay_ benefits—-to health care providers, future retirees, dependents, and the disabled. Sustaining these programs can never be about financial _affordability_. Any impediment that was written into the authorizing legislation—e.g. trust fund balances—can always be resolved by modifying the legislative text. It is always a policy choice.”

response to Peter and Bill Habedank (Below) from. Dick:  I always prefer negotiation of differences.  It was my work life, almost entirely.  It is sometimes neither possible nor wise, unfortunately.  Negotiations between parties presumes a willingness to negotiate and reach agreement.  And there is evil in our world, everywhere, and there will always be so.  MLK in Strength to Love acknowledged the same, as well as Gandhi.  Their positions, and others of similar philosophy, always had to be aspirational – a goal – as opposed to absolute truth.

The really big dilemma in democracies like ours is that ultimately the people decide who it is who will represent not only their aspirations but their biases.  The perfect candidate for any side, will probably not prevail in an election in which the electorate have differences of opinion about how to approach a problem.  Negotiations gets passed up the line.  At some point, “the buck stops”.  We hope the decision maker will be more congruent with our views than against.  We all know this to be true.

We have another example of this just today – the latest mass shooting at Michigan State U.  “We, the people” writ large refuse to acknowledge the deadliness of weapons of mass destruction under the guise of freedom.  So our dreams continue to be aspirational, but recognize the practical problem confronted by politicians in our jurisdictions, and each election help the best alternative to win.  (if one candidate is 60% on your ‘side’, and the other only 50%, the 60% is the best – but you have to vote for him or her and acknowledge the difficulties he/she faces.  After all, the “Washington” we love to despise, is actually all of us everywhere.  In our divided country this results in divided country – sometimes one philosophy, sometimes another.  Just my opinion.

from Barry:  

Note from Dick: the below article included many links, which I chose to remove.  Like all opinions offered, I am willing to pass along.  I have great respect for Barry, who passed this along.

UKRAINE: IT’S ALL ABOUT FOSSIL FUELS

  • By Jill Clark-Gollub, Popular Resistance.
  • February 14, 2023
  • Educate!

Above photo: Gas leak detected by GHGSat satellite. GHGSat/ESA.

Seymour Hersh, considered one of the United States’ most accomplished investigative journalists, has just published a story giving forensic details about how the U.S. government blew up the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines. It is an indictment of the Biden administration at the highest level and confirms growing suspicions that the tens of billions of dollars our government has been sending to prolong the conflict in Ukraine has been about bolstering the American fracked gas industry all along. The American public must condemn this act of terrorism that caused a ”reckless release” of methane and other greenhouse gases and “amounts to an environmental crime.” We must stop our government from prolonging this unnecessary war and demand accountability from a government that seems to be the planet’s greatest obstacle to meaningful action on climate change.

Whereas before February 2022 Europe had earned a reputation as a world leader in conversion to renewable energy, starting that month this trend was reversed once the flow of cheap gas from Russia became less certain. As Michael Davies-Venn reported in May of 2022, “despite EU and U.S. claims of working with “diverse sources across the globe” to replace Russian gas supply to Europe, the reality is that the U.S. seems to have simply replaced Russia.”

In the first few months following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, just three U.S. liquid natural gas (LNG) exporters—Cheniere, Freeport, and Sempra—saw up to eight-fold increases in their sales to Europe, for a cumulative total of US$6.9 billion. The industry was part of the secretive US-EU Energy Taskforce that met all of the fracked gas industry’s demands within weeks of the invasion, which were to:

  • Resume fossil fuel leasing on US federal lands, and pave the way for more fossil gas pipelines
  • Expedite six specific US LNG export licenses
  • Get regulators to authorize new US fossil gas infrastructure
  • Approve $300 million in public funding to build infrastructure in Europe, including LNG import terminals and fossil gas pipelines.

The crisis in Ukraine has been used as an excuse to rollback other progress in the transition to a clean energy future. Germany, Austria, France, and the Netherlands all moved to reopen coal-fired power plants, while the United Kingdom postponed the decommissioning of some of these plants. Meanwhile Colombia, Australia, and South Africa have stepped up coal production to satisfy new demand emanating from interrupted access to Russian fuels. By May of 2022, European countries had even begun to turn to nuclear facilities, with all the environmental problems that would entail.

In my state of Maryland we banned fracking in 2017 because it harms human health, contaminates drinking water, and releases methane into the air, which has 80 times more global warming potential than carbon. For these same reasons, local activists around the country have been fighting pipelines that carry dangerous fracked gas through our communities, defacing the environment. And for years, environmentalists in my state fought Dominion Energy over its LNG export facility at Cove Point because of its environmental and climate costs, a fight we ultimately lost. We knew that the drive to export LNG came about because our country’s fracking bonanza had produced a surplus of gas and the fossil fuel industry needed to find new markets for it around the globe. We also knew that fracked gas infrastructure would soon be useless assets were our society to transition to clean renewables, as needed to keep our planet from succumbing to irreversible climate disaster. And we realized that the fossil fuel industry has undue influence on these decisions.

But that our government would commit an act of war and climate terrorism by blowing up the Nordstream pipelines goes beyond the pale. We cannot let them get away with it. Aside from the irresponsible escalation of tensions with another nuclear power, the environmental impacts of such actions are tremendous. These do not stay within national boundaries; they affect everyone living on our shared planet. We must demand accountability from our elected officials, and give them no respite until we get it. We must use this moment to not only demand an end to yet another war fought for the fossil fuel industry, we must come to our senses and realize that the biggest obstacle to environmental justice and a future for our planet is the unbridled, short-sighted greed of the dirty industry that has a stranglehold on our democracy. It is time to put people and planet over profit, while we still have a planet to save.

from Jim: about Ukrainian refugees. Our family has been supporting refugees financially for several months. We contribute to International Institute, Ukrainian Association and Alight  formerly the American Refugee Committee. These groups have been around for several decades and have a lot of useful experience.

Dick, final thought on this thread – at least from me Feb 17:  Last week I had occasion to ask a person I know about Ukraine.  The person is a native of one of the seven countries that border Ukraine.  The response was a reasonable one: “we don’t comment on politics”.  Before I left there was a small addition, to the effect: “well, you know about Europe”.

Of course, it’s hard not to know about the basics of history of Europe.  To start, I’m European descent, and European countries were very aggressive colonizers, and not humanitarians and the U.S. pitched right in as we expanded after the original 13 colonies formed the U.S.

The sins of our predecessors cannot be ignored.  Basically, we attribute the origin of those sins to the old days before 1900.

Ground zero for words like genocide are first applied after 1900, but they certainly existed in practice before 1900.  In our case Native Americans were victims.  One needs to be careful about finding fault with the latest pretender to Empire: Vladimir Putin.  But he’s treading dangerous ground, not only for Ukraine, but for his own country and the rest of us.

The EU has reformed from the fractionated old days.  There are still European countries, but basically they cooperate closely, and no one is running around rebuilding their empires.  The U.S. and others have thus far successfully kept their involvement within the borders of Ukraine, and hopefully that will continue.

And one has to be ignorant of history to justify Putin’s dream of a new USSR (which really didn’t exist until 1922, and by 1991 had ceased to exist).

Where this will all end is unknown to everybody.  I’m on Ukraine’s side – everyone has a lot to lose, if Russia wins….

A Week

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I did a post at the time of the State of the Union, which you can read here.  My focus there is Public Education more than the speech itself (which I watched in its entirety).  [At February 11 (below) Joyce Vance comments on the Weaponization Committee of the House of Representatives.]

There seems to be a ‘tsunami’ of ‘breaking news’ every day.  In those ‘good old days’ we old-timers like to remember, we were insulated from incessant information/misinformation – the outside world was not instantly accessible.  But it was real then, too….

The Earthquake in Turkey/Syria: the death toll is now in the tens of thousands.  [see also Richardson, below, para beginning February 11].

I’ve had reason to remember another earthquake, Jan. 12, 2010, Haiti, where over 200,000 perished.  I kept the newspaper tear sheets then.  Here was the first report on January 13, 2010:

Minneapolis Star Tribune, page one, Jan 13, 2010

There were daily reports through Feb. 4, 2010 – about three weeks.  The official death toll was over 200,000 – some estimate many more than that.  Public memory is short.  On to the next crisis.

Again, there are endless emergency appeals.  My personal belief is that the United Nations system is ultimately the most effective  and efficient director of relief efforts.  Whatever the case, It is at least good that we are made aware of these catastrophes and that communities come together at these times of crisis.

(I was literally about to relegate the Haiti news clips to recycle.  That was yesterday.  They will be kept.)

The Chinese Balloon.  I got to thinking back to the blinking eye in the night sky I witnessed from a farm yard in the fall of 1957.  It was Sputnik, and we watched it wink as it moved, as I recall, from southeast to northwest.  It sure made a difference in policy decisions after it appeared.

The other more relevant memory is of the famous North Dakota Pyramid I saw a few years ago, a relic of the gardens of missiles planted in North Dakota and Montana to protect us from nuclear attack in the 1960s.  Then, it was the USSR.

The Nekoma ND Pyramid July 2009.

Atlas Obscura tells more of the story of the Pyramid.  Succinctly, the Pyramid was never operational.  Cooler heads prevailed: what if a missile we launched ended up devastating someplace in Canada or even Alaska?  Dumb idea.  Project scrubbed.

As for the Chinese Balloon, anyone who has any illusions about intrusions, just count the number of times, your next day out, that you are ‘photographed’, in the post office, grocery store, etc.  The safe presumption is that there are no secrets for anyone.

The least well kept secret is that every country spies on everybody else, constantly, in diverse ways.  It’s called national security.  The first spy I remember personally is Francis Gary Powers of U-2 fame in 1960.  Spying has no borders.

Yesterday, Congressional leaders were given a private briefing on the Balloon.   Here’s what Sen. Mitt Romney apparently had to say afterwards: “Leaving today’s classified briefing on the Chinese spy balloon, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) told CNN’s Manu Raju that he thinks the U.S. “made the right decision to wait and shoot down the suspected spy balloon.” “I believe that the administration, the president, our military and intelligence agencies, acted skillfully and with care. At the same time, their capabilities are extraordinarily impressive,” Romney said.”

Interesting comments and photos from Claude and Rich, below.

Ukraine: We are coming up on the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.  I was in the hospital at the time.  Here’s what I wrote Feb. 16, 2022.  Personally, I didn’t think the invasion would happen, but it did, and here we are.  I will likely write more later, about the time of the ignominious anniversary itself.  More in a week or two about this.

Public Education: In the State of the Union blog I comment on personal history in public education.  Because of my history, I think always in terms of “public”, which to me is everyone.  What troubles me deeply about the situation in Florida, repeated in other places at other times, and replicated now, is the pretty transparent attempt by one ideology to stamp out or permanently disable even discussing any other ideology keeping kidsfrom being exposed to other ideas through misuse of Law and Government at all levels.  I’ve seen attempts at this over the years. It is dishonest and it is unfair to say the very least.  Society over the centuries has set norms for society at large.  When the issue becomes who can dominate by making the law and then interprets it, there’s cause for great concern.  This doesn’t even require a deep analysis.  The intention is very, very obvious – muzzle opinions that are not consistent with a particular point of view.

Age:  Of course, everybody is breathless about how old Joe Biden is, and certainly – it I claimed – he’s not up to being President again.  Pardon me for being amused.  I was 2 1/2 when Joe Biden was born, so sort of know how this age thing works…and doesn’t.  I’ll leave it at that.

Have a good weekend.  Stay well informed and engaged.

February 11: Relevant Commentaries overnight: Heather Cox Richardson on the Turkey/Syria Earthquake and autocracy in action; and Joyce Vance on the “Weaponization Committee” of the U.S. House of Representatives

COMMENTS:

from Claude: Let me offer what might be a correction from what I remember of the Nekoma pyramid from a Star Tribune article many years after.

It WAS operational for about two weeks but then the US and USSR signed an agreement to not use whatever technology this was for. I believe it used long-wavelength radio signals to communicate with nuclear subs worldwide. The whole project became a microcosm of how the cold war was disrupting economies of both countries. There was a lot of infrastructure built into the town which was to have a permanent military base on the outskirts. Then after two weeks of being operational a lot of government entities including the town were stuck with a lot of debt.
I drove by and took pictures many years ago just to see it.
Part of the reason I paid so much attention to this is I finished both my degree at the U of MN and a Heavy Equipment Operators course in Homestead, FL in 1974. Before I drove back home I managed to secure a three hour interview with Morrison Knutson at the site of the Space Shuttle landing strip which they were building at Cape Kennedy which was the name at the time. During that interview the guy told me about how he helped build this pyramid in Nekoma, ND that was designed to withstand a direct atomic blast. It’s most steal although technically it’s steel-reinforced concrete. What a waste. I didn’t get the job either at Cape Kennedy or later when I checked out another project of theirs, an early ethanol plant west of the metro about two hours as I recall. Just as well. A job with a company like that means constant transfers.

from Rich: True “NoDaks” understand what is public knowledge. As “Cold War” kids, living our youth well before highly sophisticated spy satellites, we realized this aspect of the “nuclear deterrent” was really quite public, yet protected and secured. For these reasons I find the advice of the military presented to the President perfectly acceptable.

from Jeff: I did business with farmers up in that panhandle area of Nebraska….there is a large area that I drove thru with underground bunkers and storage facilities for

weapons….I dont know if that was actual missile pads, I was told it was more ammo facilities…it is still there, decommissioned but I suspect still govt owned
with fencing around it…goes for miles.  Just west of US 385 between Sidney and Gurley NE…..

response from Dick:  I was a North Dakota teenager and college student during most of the Air Base and Missile development so it was not an abstract thing to me, but mostly viewed from a young persons perspective, defending us from them.  Seasoning of many years changes perspectives of course.
At coffee this morning two friends recommended rewatching the movie Dr. Strangelove (which I’ve not seen); and I’m reminded of what I recall as a rather bizarre visit to the International Peace Garden (ND and Manitoba) in 2009, which I wrote about at the time.  You can read it here.  I had visited the Peace Garden earlier the same day I saw the Pyramid pictured above….

 

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