Recent Posts:1) Al Franken: 2) New School Year; 3) Ukraine Visitors; 4) Activism; 5) State Fair; 6) Mikhail Gorbachev, 7) Insecure

Yes, there have been several recent posts.  Take your pick.  Many readers are ‘activists’.  Please take a look at the post on activism.

On this Labor Day, simply some suggestions about very interesting upcoming events:

1. THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.  Thursday, September 15, Citizens for Global Solutions MN will have a Zoom Conversation with Ukraine native Natalie Etten about the situation in her home country.  I think Natalie coordinated the student visit here a couple of weeks ago (Ukraine Visitor blog, above).  Details of the September 15 session as currently available are here.  Attendees are asked to register in advance.
2. The Veterans for Peace Golden Rule boat begins what will be a 10,000 mile 1 1/2 year “Grand Loop” down the Mississippi, thence east and north up the Atlantic Coast at Stillwater MN September 17, 2022.  Earlier events are in Duluth on September 8,
   

   The Golden Rule 2022

   All details of the project, including a history of the boat, and the schedule of events are here.  See pp 5&6 of the newsletter for calendar of specific events in Duluth, the Twin Cities area, and downstream Minnesota.  This is a major initiative to highlite the need to end nuclear threats; the current tensions in Ukraine emphasize the need for spotlighting this concern.  (The west coast/Hawaii portion of the tour has been completed.)

3. The annual Twin Cities Non Violent initiative, which first occurred in 2018,  begins September 21 and goes until early October.  A 10 minute video introduces this years event.  You can view details here.  You are especially encouraged to participate in Day One.

A final thought: Sunday, Sep. 4, Fr. T at Basilica delivered another powerful message, this time for Labor Day, His sermon was based on Paul’s Letter to Philemon from prison, about a slave about to be released to his master (see Philemon 9-10, 12-17 from Grandma’s 1911 Bible: Pauls Letter to Philemon 9-10 12-17).  The Priests message centered on his recently watching three workers doing a roofing job near his home on a 91 degree day, and a brief visit with them at the end of the day.  Their work day was a difficult 10 hours.  We’ve all seen similar projects where we live.  Father’s message at the end: “The rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer in our world.”  We, sitting there in church, are largely “master’s” – rich – (though we wouldn’t think of ourselves as such) not far separated from “slaves” who provide our wants and such as clothing often from sweat shops overseas, a new roof, and on and on.

On this Labor Day, with the political messages things like inflation, and similar ‘woe is me’ narratives, we remain far and away the richest nation on earth, and it seems never enough.

Here’s an on-point commentary from Marianne Williamson.

Finally, I offer an uplifting conclusion to this post.  I was sent this a couple of years ago, and it speaks to me, and I hope it raises you up as well.

Have a great fall and year.

A post on politics, tomorrow.

Mikhail Gorbachev died August 30, 2022, at 91.  I’ll leave the news to the regular media.  This post is to pass along some long ago memories, from early June, 1990, when the Gorbachev’s visited Minnesota.

I took quite a number of pictures, such as you can take snapshots of a VIP when you’re just trying to guess where he/she will be at a particular moment.

The below three most evoke the day, for me, anyway:

Gorbachev June 1990

Gorbachev’s leaving Minneapolis June 4, 1990 photos Dick Bernard

The hand out the car window is (I think) Mikhail Gorbachev, on John Ireland Blvd.  The photographer, me, is just to the south of the Department of Transportation Building.  The middle photo is, I think, at the Lexington Ave ramp off of I-94 in St. Paul.  The lower one, as the Gorbachev’s left Minneapolis.  It was a chilly somewhat wet day, overcast, I recall.  Not prime time for photography, especially for some rank amateur, like me.  The sun lowering in the west was peaking out by the times the Gorbachevs were about to take off.  I think I at least caught the essence.

There’s a great plenty of replay of Gorbachev’s life, and about the visit to Minnesota which can be accessed elsewhere.

That he was here at all was pretty remarkable.  I do wonder how Vladimir Putin really feels about Gorbachev.  You won’t see it from any official announcement, I’d be certain (as I write I haven’t seen such announcement so far.)

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Mikhail Gorbachev was an uncommon leader for the Soviet Union.

I have no expertise beyond being an interested citizen, for years, in international issues.  My closest call were the above photos.

Gorbachev had more than ordinary political skills to become final leader of the then Soviet Union.  He is a very interesting person to study.  I look on him very favorably.  A simple first reference is the Wikipedia article about him.   Another article is about the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  One of the resulting independent countries was Ukraine.

When he visited here in 1990, the end of the Soviet Union was little over a year away.

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If you wish to learn more about June 4, 1990, simply search Gorbachev Minnesota for more.

This post is about activists, of whom I personally know many, including on this blog list.  Activists – no matter the cause – are not large in number.  A Lutheran Pastor I greatly respect, a man whose flock was college students in California in the turbulent 1960s, estimated that perhaps 2% of the students at his colleges were actually activists – mostly anti-war.  Mostly the collegians were simply going to college.  But the activists made a disproportionate difference by their actions.

M, around which this post is built, is an activist I’m privileged to know.  I don’t think she considered herself an activist, but she is.  August 27 she sent her occasional collection of poetry to a list of unknown size, of which I’m happy to have long been a part.  Here’s what she sent, for late Summer and early Fall, 2022: Summer-Fall 2022.  I can remember about when she started this good habit.  Something in these three pages may speak to you.  Take a look.

She introduces her recent gift, thusly:

“Enclosed, as you can see, is a bit of late summer/early fall poetry… 

It really feels like the season change snuck up on me this year, and perhaps you feel the same. Suddenly, the young crop of woodpeckers (3 different kinds) is coming into our feeders (while the young & raffish-looking blue jays sit in the nearby bush, explaining squawkily to their parents that they still want curb service…)

The flying squirrel visits the same feeder by dark; maybe once a week whoever’s getting up at night may get a look at him…he’s just so neat–& giant dark eyes… 

And, the migration is starting—geese families are doing practice runs, and I saw a hummingbird stop at our hanging plant (word is that they’re starting migration through MN now). So, keep looking skyward.

Peace, love, hugs, in these scary times,”

I first mentioned M’s name in a post on Nov. 3, 2011.  She has been a frequent contributor – I note 46 posts in which she was referenced, including in an unpublished draft I had entitled “Community Heroes” from late December 2018, where I had said this: “My gift to you, today, comes via long-time friend M, who I met years ago in Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers. Every now and then, most often at the times of solstice or equinox, M gathers a few pieces of poetry and sends them along to a list, including myself. They come without fanfare or gift-wrapping, but they indeed are gifts.”

As noted above, I don’t think M would consider herself an activist.  Last time I actually saw her was probably at a meeting more than 10 years ago.  But she inspires me, and doubtless others, in the most low-key kind of way.

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I’m one person, and once upon a time I had the fantasy that it was practically possible for a simple concept – “each one, reach two” to be doable.  It seemed so easy.  Ain’t so.  Anyone wishing to know more can easily find my story at Uncomfortable Essays at this site (pages 3-7).

So…”Each one, reach one”, is much more doable, particularly if unintended, teaching by example, as M is.

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Today the Priest at Basilica, ordained 54 years ago in 1968, shared a story which fits the topic perfectly, in my opinion.  (The Gospel text for today was Luke 14:1, 7-14, and it and the other readings focused on humility, the topic for his homily.)

Fr. T,  retired, weekend assistant, and outstanding preacher, remembered a mentor when he was a young Priest in Chicago.  The mentor was young also, but older colleague Priest, who shared a personal story when he was early in his career as a Priest.

When he was a new Priest, the mentor recalled, he got a prestigious appointment to a program in Rome.  This was during the time when John XXIII was Pope (Oct. 1958-Jun. 1963).

The Priest travelled to Rome, in steerage class on a ship.  Enroute, an older lady, dressed shabbily, saw him – he looked like a Priest – and stopped to visit.  She asked where he was from, and he said Chicago, and she said she’d been there: “where?”  He answered, including noting there were lots of “bums” where he was.

Fast forward, in Rome, the Priest went to a Mass at the Vatican, again rather full of himself, and at Communion time he noted John XXIII gave Communion specifically and especially to a group of people, one of whom he recognized immediately – the woman he’d met on the ship.

“I met her”, he said to the Priest sitting next to him.  “Who is she?”

The Priest responded, “Dorothy Day” (deceased Nov. 29, 1980).

(You need to read the Gospel and know of Dorothy Day, recommended to be named a Catholic Saint, to get the point….)

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I’d guess Molly – yes, that’s M’s name – will be embarrassed to be called a “community hero” and an “activist”.  She is.

I know lots of M’s.  One action, one day at a time….

POSTNOTE: after publishing this, and before M saw this post, her list got another item from her:

Another version, a professional reporter-type production, is somewhat longer, and has a “fuzzier” look and is here.

Love, blessings, and onward towards justice of all sorts,

Today is the first day of the Minnesota State Fair.  It’s a drizzly day, and I suppose the first regular State Fair in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Soon to follow will be the first day of SchooI.  For local teachers this is next Monday; for students the day after Labor Day.  And, of course, many  other school personnel as well plan for the beginning: bus drivers, custodians, school secretaries,  food service, on and on.  I am told that the staff for this district of about 18,000 students is nearly 3,000.

These have not been easy times for school people, if there has ever been such a thing as ‘an easy time’.  Every year school staff and kids are nervous the night before the first day of back to school. A new year means new students; new teachers; new relationships; new challenges.

My entire life has been in public education: as son, teacher, parent and grandparent.  Public Education is very familiar to me.

Some years ago I wrote a little essay trying to define the communities that make up school.  It’s only a page and a half, and you can read it here (click on the link in the second paragraph).

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The key word in the preceding section is “public”, and as this year starts I want to reflect on that.

Succinctly, over the over 60 years of my own career, ‘public education’ has increasingly become a battleground for ideology; and in many ways a troubling new arena for conflict.

I had an unexpected reminder of past troubles going through personal stuff recently.

Nov. 10, 1998, I wrote my Uncle and Aunt in North Dakota about an October 9-11, 1998, visit to the ancestral relatives and farm in western Germany, very near the Netherlands.

It was a standard letter, but it had an additional dimension, since I was visiting kin – Germans in Germany – in a place where the ancestors had lived for hundreds of years, including WWII.

This is what I said 24 years ago: “We don’t talk a lot about WWII, except to learn that WWII, the why’s etc., is still talked about by the common German citizen.  Even people my age – including my hosts – were very young when the war ended.  I wonder about how we in the U.S. would be if our country was taken over by a Hitler-type.  Probably we’d be no different than the Germans in the 1930s and 40s….”

Hitler and the Nazis envisioned a 1,000 year Reich.  They got about 10 years.  They could not see their ignominious end.  Lust for power has a way of overrunning common sense.  As I write, we have our current pretenders to authoritarian rule at all levels in all states.  Will we ever learn?

Welcoming a guest, Germany, 1954, recovery from WWII took a long time for the German people.  We tend to forget that.

As I reflected on my old letter, I thought back to the late 1980s and early 90s when a battle was declared over what kind of things children would be allowed to learn in our schools.  The phrase “values and choices” might have meaning to some.  It was controversial then, but righteous religious zealots were determined to control what kids could be exposed to.

Most recently, there is the aggressive battle for the control of freedom of speech and expression in schools.  Things like what can be taught or said in curriculum or in other forums are public matters.  The Primary Election positioning by the current Governor of Florida comes most dramatically to mind, but similar actions are coming up everywhere.  Contemporary American politics is War.

“Bullying” has always been a concern of schools.  Its incidence probably never changes – a small percent are bullies – but the sophistication now is much more a problem, as is role modeling by adults and leaders.  “Children learn what they live” is a truism.

With current technology bullying is much more brutal now than in the ‘sticks and stones’ days.  A victim is within reach, publicly, universally, 24-7.

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Yesterday, August 24, was the school board meeting in Uvalde TX where the school district Police Chief was fired for alleged mishandling the earlier carnage at the elementary school.  There seems, always, the need to sacrifice someone in such situations – whose fault was it?

I also note, however, that never has the legally acquired military weapon responsible for the deaths of the children and teachers mentioned.  The Gun is the sacred exception; the solution proposed is more Guns…the result more carnage, where and when is the only thing we don’t know.

June 13, 2022, in my post titled Leadership, I had this segment which, I am certain, directly related to Uvalde:

“2:00 p.m. June 15: This afternoon I took a trip to the post office, and enroute pass by the elementary school attended by one of my grandkids grades 1-5.  (He’s near 23, so this was awhile ago.)

Nonetheless, it was jarring to see a parking lot full of police vehicles and policeman in SWAT gear, and one of those immense combat vehicles.   No, it was no school incident – school is out for the summer.  But it was obvious that these folks were there for area police training, and the choice of place was not random – it was a school.

I drove by there twice more.  There was no good vantage point for a photo; it was raining and I wouldn’t have parked and walk in anyway.  But visualize your own neighborhood school and something similar going on.  It’s come to this in this country: School is a risky place.”

The School Police Chief in Uvalde was fired.  What is solved there, or anywhere else?

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Recently, a good friend, Molly, more or less my age, wrote about her own education to her own list: “This article [linked here] is about American education K-12, and about the growing
movements towards censorship of content, and of elimination of “how to” methods like teaching critical thinking skills.

The article—be warned–is a bit long—ie, needs a better edit job—but is an important, well-documented one (has a ton of references), & I think is worth it.

It [the article] scares the socks off of me. That’s partly because I was very very lucky, back in the Stone Age, to have a 2-year English class in high school that very deliberately taught critical thinking skills in our reading & writing…

It  has  been more and more evident to me that these skills are increasingly lacking in US society, but I did not realize that they are being consciously omitted/suppressed  in some educational systems… [emphasis added]

Sigh, and Blessings of the day,” 

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One final story: months ago, possibly even last summer, a good friend of mine introduced me to a friend of his, someone I’d never met.  The friend knew a bit about my background, because almost immediately caught me blind-sided: “what do you think about non-traditional school” or some such.

I did have an opinion, and I probably also caught him unawares. My teaching years were with junior high kids over 50 years ago; my daughters school of about 1,000 students is a middle school – same general age range.  As I recall, I said something to the effect that “school” is as much about building social skills – getting along with people you don’t necessarily like or agree with.  Parents cannot insulate kids from life – sooner or later everyone is on their own.  It doesn’t hurt to have had some practice in relationships with others.  We all learn through experience.

The three of us parted cordially.  I think they tended to agree with me: school is a primary place to learn to be part of a society larger than oneself.

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Have a great year.  School, writ large, will do its best even in the most difficult of times.  No, it’s not perfect.  Tell me, who or what is?  Nobody.  Nothing.  I know that, from life.

The ball is in each of our courts.  Here’s something Gandhi had to say about that.

I have ten or so posts on assorted topics in the works, but will probably not send out reminders until after Labor Day.  To check on recent posts go here, which always shows the most recent post; and the Archive is ready access to any past post.  I usually post once or twice a week, “as the spirit moves”.

The three below items are recommendations, should you have passed them by, previously (they are all from previous posts).

One:  Thoughtful viewing of these two videos can be very helpful understanding yourself and others, and they’re uplifting too.

[from July 29, 2022]  “4.  A Learning Opportunity for You: A Private Universe

Back in the late 1980s, my friend, Kathy, then a 5th grade teacher, sent me a handout from some inservice she had attended.  It had spoke to her.  I read it, and I kept it.

A couple of weeks ago for whatever reason she sent me the exact same handout she’d sent years ago.  It caused me to look at it much more carefully, and it spoke to me, and I think it can speak to all of us in these days when getting stuck in our own certainty is a major problem for our very society.

I think it came to me because she and I had recently chatted about the difficulty of conversing about politics in general, even with people we know well.

This time, I looked up A Private Universe on the internet, and I invite you to do the same.  In 1987 it was a learning research project with junior high school students, which apparently endures.

I invite you to in particular watch the videos #1 (the original, featuring junior high kids) and 8 (Q&A some years later with the ‘star’ of the original), which won’t take much of your time, and then translate their topic to your own contemporary idea about communicating with people with differing opinions from your own about most anything.

I think you’ll find the time well spent, and learn something about yourself as well.

Here’s the sheet Kathy sent me, not complete, but you’ll get the idea: Private Universe 1980s.  The videos will add much more.”

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Two:  The two films, below, are directly related, about 40 years apart.  “The Day After” attracted 100,000,000 viewers in 1983.  “Television Event”  is about the making of the film.  The Director of the 1983 film, Nicholas Meyers, is the live guest on the webcast on August 24 Pre-registration info next para).

[from Aug. 7, 2022]: “PRENOTE: I’ve previously identified the on-line event relating to this with several very interesting remaining segments Aug 10, 17, 24, 31.  Details are here.  Please note especially Aug. 24 and 31.  Pre-registration is required for each segment, and early registration is recommended.  This is worth your time.  Take a look at the descriptors and enroll.

I watched “The Day After” with several hundred others ….  It was a wise use of time, as was viewing of Television Event, the story of the making of The Day After, a couple of days earlier.

Both films are easily available on-line.”

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Three (upcoming event): [see posts for Aug 5, 2022, here, see #3; and here]

The Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule 2022

The Golden Rule  begins its Grand Loop of the midwest and eastern U.S. at Stillwater, Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota Sep 17-23.  Details are here:

Stillwater: Golden Rule Stillwater Sep 17-19

Minneapolis-St. Paul: Golden Rule Mpls:St Paul Sep 23-25

Grand Loop 15 month Draft Schedule: Golden Rule Grand Loop Sep 22 – Jan 24 at many places down the Mississippi and Gulf Coast, then up the east coast, etc.

The very interesting Golden Rule website is here.  For those on Facebook, GoldenRulePeaceBoat.

Anyone with any interest in the folly of  nuclear and other weaponized war will want to participate.  This is an opportunity to support an important demonstration of concern.  Please share.

COMMENTS:

from Judy:  your comment are always excellent.  Please take care.