This is an ‘odd couple’ post, consisting of two recent editorials in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and an update on a previous post.  Three different topics.

First, I completed reading Cassidy Hutchinson’s memoir, “Enough“, and I summarize it by adding to my initial post about it, here.  Succinctly, the book was a very good use of my time.  I highly recommend it.  Take a look.  Online there are many reviews and it is highly rated.

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Second, my local newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, often has thought provoking editorials, including the following two within the past week:

Climate Change STrib Sep 29, 2023is a very interesting take on the very long term for climate change.   Coincident with, but not because of the editorial, I had sent a brief note to my e-mail list on October 1:

Finally, Catholic Synod STrib Oct 5, 2023.  Those who know me, know I’m lifelong Catholic, which does not mean I’m typical, as if there is a typical Catholic.  We are an interesting rabble, and our power is in whether or how we choose to participate.

This second editorial is about the most interestingly named  “Synod on Synodality“.   If you’re Catholic in any sense of that word, or not, I’ll think you’ll find the editorial interesting, and the Synod on Synodality proceedings worth following.

Love it or hate it, the Catholic Church, with all its good and its bad points, is not likely to wither away soon.  And “the Church” is all of us who care.

POSTNOTE AND REMINDER:  As I have mentioned, I follow the national and international news constantly and carefully through sources I consider reputable and fair.  I only choose not to emphasize the increasingly obvious threats to our own democracy at this space, trying to give attention to other things as well.  But I urge you to be aware and be informed.  We are in dangerous times.   

POSTNOTE 3 – October. 6, 2023:  I completed the book, Enough, by Cassidy Hutchinson, Wednesday, Oct. 4.  It has become one of the unusual books that I read from cover to cover.  There are many reviews, and it is not my intention to review the book, other than saying I found reading this 26 year old’s memoir to be a learning experience.

Much happened between the day I purchased the book (Sep 29) and October 5.  Attorney General Merrick Garland was subject of a powerful segment on CBS 60 Minutes; a U.S. Government shutdown was temporarily averted on Saturday; on October 3, House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was voted out his position – the first such action in House history, and nobody knows the consequences of that.  The office is vacant, and its occupant is third in line of succession to the Presidency….

Overnight came a troubling report from yesterday, including a Liz Cheney talk at the University of Minnesota yesterday.

Ordinary citizen Donald Trump was given a gag order relating to conduct at his court hearing in New York City, and shows little sign of learning his lesson, and on and on….

It is all paralyzing, but this is no time for anyone who cares about the future of this country to be paralyzed.  The solution is with each of us, one action at a time.

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There was a great deal of foot for thought for me in Enough.  Some morsels:  Hutchinson more than once called herself a Moderate Republican; I’ve always called myself a Moderate Democrat.  What is the difference?  She admired what she knew about Ronald Reagan, whose Presidency ended seven years before she was born.  In probably her second chance to vote for President, she supported Mitt Romney.  Of course, she was loyal to “the Boss” as one would expect of a staff employee.

I never had the rarified experience she did, but I worked hard for Reagan’s opponent, incumbent Jimmy Carter, who I’ve always admired.  My vote was for Barack Obama, twice.  On and on.  We both called ourself, political “moderates” though certainly not “twins”.

These and many other vignettes in the book, with the overlay of the near three years since Jan 6 2021,  cause me to think of myself and other ordinary “American people”.

Individually and as a collective group we are much like what we experience at an ordinary family reunion.  Politics and government are akin to a gigantic buffet, smorgasbord, potluck (take your pick of the word) which I’d guess every reader has experienced, perhaps often.  There are choices to be made, and one’s plate is only so large…as is one’s stomach.  Despite the wailing we so often indulge in, we are an extremely rich country, and there is usually much more available to us than can be consumed.  (I’ll be at such an event on Saturday.  My guess is there will be lots of “leftovers”.)

Most of us are content to pick our few favorites in the line, eat moderately, visit pleasantly, and go home.  We are almost all in this category.  I would guess there might always be someone  obsessed with only one item (call it an “issue”), and won’t eat anything else.  Perhaps that might be the ideologue.

The winner at the potluck is generally all of us, who get some balance and pleasure out of the event.  Were the event to be controlled by the ideologue, there would be less participation.

Maybe our country is a little bit like that potluck table.  Maybe we’re only temporarily out of whack.  Unfortunately, we’re the only ones who can fix this, by who we choose to elect to all our leaders, carefully and well informed.

I do highly recommend Enough.  You won’t regret the read.

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POSTNOTE 1 – OCT 1, 2023:  Here is Heather Cox Richardson on the House and Senate votes to resolve the threatened government shutdown yesterday.

Simon and Schuster, 2023, 362 pages

Sept. 30, 2023, 2:25 p.m.: Today, I took time to dive into Cassidy Hutchinson’s new book, “Enough“.  As of this writing, I’ve finished about half of the book, up to the chapter entitled “Election”.  My impressions below:

(Unrelated to this topic, but if you wish, check also the recent posts for Sep 24 (commentaries on Putin and Afghanistan 2003), 26 (my community school election) and 29 (Haiti revisited).

On Sept. 28, 2023, came an e-mail from long-time friend Larry Gauper.

Monday night I watched Cassidy on Rachel Maddow;

Tuesday, I got her book – hard copy.  Missed Laurence since it’s past my bedtime.

Today I just finished watching her on Nicole Wallace’s program on MSNBC.

So, that’s where I’m at on this!

Yesterday, while purchasing [her book] “Enough”,  I also asked for and purchased “Cheerfulness” by Garrison Keillor.

So, I guess we’re on the same page.

6:45 p.m. Sep 29: I watched the YouTube reference, and it includes Alexander Butterfield (from Watergate era) speaking directly to Cassidy.  It is very powerful.

Cassidy is today only 26 years old, and in Jan, 2021 had just turned 24.

I remembered my life when I was 25 – that was in 1965.  By then, I, too, had experienced a great deal I’d never expected.  Youth is not a disqualified.  We have a great deal to learn from this young person, as we did from our own live.

Sept. 30, 2023, 2:35 p.m.;  I started reading the book.  I frequently buy such books mostly to support the authors effort.  Enough is well worth the investment.

“Enough” is personally, and well, written.  As she acknowledges at the beginning “names and some identifying characteristics of some individuals have been changed”, so don’t look for a who’s who.  The book is a personal story.

Cassidy’s place in history is assured, by the January 6, 2021, Insurrection hearings.  She was an employee of the executive branch of our government when the events of 2020-21  occurred.

She was 23 years old when most of the events occurred; in a couple of months she’ll be 27.

What I’ve read so far – from her birth to the 2020 election – has been interesting and informative.  I anticipate that this will continue in the ‘meat’ of the story as I continue reading.

I think I can safely say that anyone who reads this post has experienced life to age 27.  For myself, 27 was 56 years ago.  Those who know my family history, know that some of those years were challenging.  But I would suggest that everyone who has passed the threshold out of childhood can relate many similar stories as told by Cassidy, though all will be different.

Cassidy certainly had the ability and initiative to achieve.  I would suspect she has a bright future ahead of her, though her testimony and her book will certainly not be roundly applauded by those who were past and future patrons.

In the book, she declared herself as a “moderate Republican” – a Mitt Romney supporter.

I’ve always called myself a “moderate Democrat” and I have never heard an adequate explanation of what is the difference between the two terms.  But that’s a topic for another time.  I urge you to actually read Enough and use it as a springboard for thought and discussion.

I will add more comments here after I complete the book, likely in the next few days.  The old picture of the White House in 1904 (below) comes from a large collection of postcards saved vey my grandparents in the early 1900s when they settled in North Dakota.

 

Postcard of White House, 1904, from the Busch farm collection, Berlin ND

Here’s the vote:

Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday Oct 1, 2023

There will be endless analysis and postmortems of what this all means.  All that matters to this individual voter is how my Congressperson, and my U.S. Senators voted, and why.

There are remaining issues, unresolved yesterday.  Learn about them, too.

We, the people, are the electors of the government, and our Congressperson is the one closest to our own area.  Take the time to learn….

COMMENTS (more below)

May 28 to June 9, 2003, we joined my cousin and her husband on a Baltic cruise on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary.  It was a marvelous time, Copenhagen start and end; St. Petersburg, Russia, June 3 and 4; the other days Stockholm, Helsinki and rural Finland, Estonia, Gdynia (Gdansk) Poland; Oslo, Norway.  A sampler, but a rich one.

But this trip was different: two days after President George Bush visited Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg (May 31-June 1, 2003) we were there, in fact, one of our tour bus stops was  the lobby of the hotel where the Bush’s stayed.  President Bush meetings with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.

At our  Copenhagen hotel, London’s  Financial Times (FT) for May 29, 2003,  opined on the upcoming Bush visit: Putin, Financial Times June, 2003.  A few weeks earlier, May 1,  2003, had been President Bush’s premature presumed-triumphal “Mission Accomplished” visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln off San Diego.

Back in Copenhagen as our trip ended, at the same hotel, another copy of the Financial Times, this one for June 7-8, 2003, featured a review of what has come to be described as “Charlie’s War” – the early 1990s U.S. dive into the deep end of the pool that is Afghanistan.  The U.S. descent into that over 30 year quagmire was helped along by then-Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson.

The entire and very interesting FT commentary is here: Afghanistan Charlie Wilson 1990s.  Note: the link can be enlarged for ease of reading.

I tend to save things for future reference, as was the case for these two articles.  Given recent history, they seem particularly relevant.  They are offered as food for thought – snapshots of a rough draft of history.  What we choose to remember, and what we choose to forget.

It is 20 years since I saved these articles, less than two years after 9-11-01.

They speak for themselves.

Personal opinion: in our country, at least so far, citizens elect our representatives.  If we criticize them – as we do – we are criticizing ourselves.

Register.  Become informed.  Vote.  Express yourself in other ways.

I’m ending this week with ‘miscellany’ – there’s far too much going on to write about everything.  Here goes:

1. VLADIVOSTOK

Earlier this week, Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin met near Vladivostok, Russia.

I am a long-ago Geography Major.  Back then – the 50s – I would only have known it had to be a very long ride from Pyongyang to Moscow.  Those were the days when you had to look at a Globe, a map hanging on the wall, or an Atlas in the library to even find Vladivostok, if it even showed up on the immense land mass that was, then, the USSR.

Now, the handy route map on my computer  apologizes for having no data about how to get from Pyongyang to Vladivostok, but still provides amazing information.  So, my alternative was to get the route from Moscow to Vladivostok.  Here it is, as adapted by myself:

Moscow Vladivostok Russia N. Korea Ukraine

Long and short: It’s over 5000 land miles from Moscow to Vladivostok.  On the other hand, unknown to me till yesterday, Russia shares a few miles of border with North Korea, close to Vladivostok. Indeed, Khasan, Russia is at the border with North Korea,  160 miles or so from Vladivostok.

(It’s about 500 miles from Kyiv, Ukraine, to Moscow – not much more distant than Minneapolis to Chicago.)

Geographically, Russia is an immense country – roughly the size of Canada and the U.S. combined.  On the other hand, Russia’s population is less than half that of the United States; and about three times the population of Ukraine….

Of course, Vladivostok would not be in the news except for the fact that Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin were talking in person about some deals.  The in-person meeting had its own messages to the assorted audiences who would see it.

So, we catch a moment when two authoritarians apparently commit to their deal.  Of course, their power will be utterly worthless to them when they die, as they will, as we all ultimately do.

There are few scoundrels in Putin and Kim’s class.  But I could easily write a list of perhaps ten individuals who I’d consider equally or even more dangerous authoritarians – people who control power over people in assorted ways, a few of them in our own country.  Your list may well be similar to mine, but who specifically doesn’t matter.  To whom, including themselves, would more concentration of power make a long term difference?

The reality, it seems to me, is the symbolism of the armored train that Kim Jung Un used to get to the border of Russia.  It demonstrates the constant paranoia about enemies.  They and their ilk are  in prisons of their own making, with only temporary reward.  No thanks.

2. COURT

The Rule of Law has been the hallmark in our countries aspiration to democracy.   It has been and hopefully will continue to be our ideal.  By no means is our Rule of Law perfect.  But it is infinitely better than a Law of Force, such as demonstrated Jan. 6, 2021, and surrounding days following the election of 2020.   It has been a dismal time in our history.

The Rule of Law is deliberately tedious and all about interpretation of evidence, and ultimately left up to a judge (there are over 30,000 of these, state and federal), or a jury of citizens.  Justice takes time, and is foolish to predict outcomes.  I can wait.  But I will follow the process over the coming months and perhaps even years.

I pay a great deal of attention to the legal issues front and center regarding Jan. 6, Mar-a-Lago, Fulton County GA, New York, etc., but   I have devoted very little space to them here.  To the best of my recollection I have not personally used the words “Donald Trump” in this blog since January 2021.   (There have been rare mentions since Jan 2021, and have been in comments by others than myself.). To me, “Donald Trump” is really only the people who voted him into office and still support him.  As an individual, he is nothing – a modern day “Wizard of Oz” behind his media screen, a fraud gifted in front of a microphone.  In my opinion, he will stand alone as the worst president in all of our history as a country.

In progress now are the first of endless court cases which deserve to be watched.  There are  over  1,300,000 lawyers in the U.S.  who will be especially attentive.  Their function is to argue points of law.  So disagreements and losing cases are not alien concepts to them.  Every lawsuit is at some level one versus another.

My continuing mantra: be sure you’re registered to vote, and that you vote well informed in the upcoming elections; and urge others you know to do the same.

 3. MAUI:

This week I came across a 2013-14 calendar I’d kept which featured a series of ancient maps.  I leafed through it, and January was an 1885 map of Maui:

Maui, 1885

If you look carefully, on the far left of the map, there is a circled word, Lahaina, which has immediate meaning in these days.  Here’s a pdf of the  map,  Maui 1885

Lahaina, the site of the recent disastrous fires which gripped us all,  is but a speck on Maui, as Maui is just a speck in the Pacific Ocean.

Detail is important, but it is also important to retain perspective.

(The colors on the map connote ownership in 1885, the green and the yellow were either government or crown properties.  Hawaii became a U.S. territory in 1898, a state in 1959.)

4. MISCELLANY:

Of course, there’s always “breaking news”. everywhere.  This week a strike of United Auto Workers began; there is harping about impeaching Joe Biden, etc. etc.  Bad news always sells better than good.

I like to notice the people I have contact with every day, in every context, whether I know them or not.  While there are exceptions, I am struck by how truly decent people are.  It is good grounding in reality.  I would guess others have the same impressions.  We know we’re a polarized society, but I see signs that folks are working on that, one interaction at a time.  There is hope.

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Molly sent an article about Covid vaccination for the upcoming fall season. “There’s a lot of general info & background in this article, fyi. here sounds good to me!” .

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Frank suggests the following:

Father Harry Bury, Maverick Priest was interviewed by Don Olson on Thursday September 14th on KFAI on 90.3 FM’s “Northern Sun New”.

This talk will be archived for 2 weeks.

Play at Landmark “War, Resistance, and Protest: The Trial of the Minnesota 8”  October 5th & 6th – 7 pm | October 7th – 2 pm, 2023      $10

Dick’s note: The play is Frank’s personal story of the  important trial and subsequent imprisonment at the time of Vietnam War protests in the late 60s early 70s.  Frank is a long-time friend, but I did not know him till long after the events of the Trial.

5. RECOMMENDATION:

Like everyone, I’m besieged with information.  Every time I publish a post I say publicly what I consider my self to be – you can see it at upper right: Moderate Democrat.

Over time, I’ve come to rely on several commentators as frequent sources of credible information, especially on politics in general.  I recommend you check out any of these sources, any time.  Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, on matters of Law; Heather Cox-Richardson, Letters from an American, on matters of public and international policy and history; Jay Kuo, The Status Kuo, on matters of Law; Doug Muder, The Weekly Sift, on general matters of public policy.  There are many other reliable sources, but these are good, reliable, frequent sources of informed analysis.  I especially thank my friend, Joyce, for making me aware of these and many other resources.

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POSTNOTE SEP. 17: Last evening I happened across a very relevant TV program, released May, 2020, which is still accessible.  It was a 2020 William Shatner program on the topic of Cults.  At least take notice of it, here.  I did not seek the program out, but it is very relevant to today….

COMMENTS (see also the end of this post): 

from Howie: Thanks for the geography lesson. Having driven from the Midwest to Seattle and from the Midwest to DC, I have a personal experience with the size of the US, about 3000 mi wide. 5000 mi within Russia takes on a personal scale. I suspect that many who travel at 300 mph, 30k ft above the earth, will not have that personal perspective.

from Darryll:  Early in Trumps rule, I compared him to the Wizard of OZ.  I also compared him to a carnival barker.  I now believe “mob boss” is the best description. I cannot understand the people, I know well, supporting him.  The book, by his niece, describing him is right on the money.

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