Fools

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POSTNOTE, SATURDAY, JULY 27:  If you read nothing else this weekend, read this.  Then decide where you fit in, and take action.  I will be offline from today through next week.

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I am deliberately writing and posting this before the first official words are uttered at the long awaited Mueller appearance in Congress today.

It has already been said that everything anyone needs to know about the Mueller inquiry is already in writing within the report; that Mr. Mueller has already said what he plans to say; that the Justice Department has ordered him to say nothing outside the words on the printed pages of the report.  And of course there is that Justice Department “policy”, apparently, that a sitting President cannot be indicted, written for some reason by somebody without thinking of the consequences of making it applicable to every situation, no matter how heinous.  ETC, ad infinitum.

That the Republican minority will do everything it can to make today appear like a useless exercise is obvious.

Possibly I’ll watch at least part of the real-time deliberations.  Today will be theater, albeit theater with a whole lot of substance.  The report speaks abundantly for itself.  I have a copy of the Mueller Report.  I can read.

I do support the premise of the hearing, of bringing Mr. Mueller to the table even if the hearing itself may be far more for show than for substance.  They already have the substance, in the Report….

My opinion: the current President is as close to a common criminal as we have ever had in the highest office in the land.  It is his hope – and that of his fervent supporters – that he will beat the rap by running out the clock and then be reelected under patently false pretenses in 2020.  Others can – and have already – gone to prison.  Not him.  Yet.

His supporters best be careful what they yearn for.

We are living in a time of false prosperity.  This strong economy is a sham and everyone knows it.  We are reliving the excesses of the post 9-11-01 era, when the advice was to “go shopping”, and the result was the closest call to economic disaster, in 2008, that we had had since the great Depression.

My most important (to me) mention of Trump in a blog was the one for December 17, 2017, the day of celebration for the huge tax cuts passed by a Republican Congress and signed immediately by Trump.  I saw disaster ahead.  The axe will fall…but not until after the next election.  Till then, the giveaways to the right people will be the order of the day.

No matter, apparently.  People like the illusion of free stuff.

Caveat emptor.  Let the buyer, beware.

POSTNOTE: The magic of word find notes that I’ve used Trump’s name in a post 71 times in the 1470 posts that comprise the ten years of this blog.  The first directly related to his coming presidency was one week before Trumps inauguration January 20, 2017.  (The first to mention him at all was March 18, 2010, a reference to “you’re fired”).

POSTNOTE 2, 9:50 a.m. Wednesday July 24:  Reference has frequently been made to the letter from 1000 prosecutors.  I believe this is that letter.

POSTNOTE 3, 8:15 p.m., July 24: I watched the morning session in its entirety and found it very interesting.  As I’ve said on previous occasions, for 27 years, my daily work was dealing with differences of opinion.  The work was with law and lawyers, and in an often political environment.  I’ll say only that I have an informed perspective.

POSTNOTE 4, 9:40 a.m. July 26: The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel letter on indicting a sitting president is here.

AFTER YESTERDAY, 9:30 a.m. Thursday:  It’s about 24 hours since yesterdays post, before the hearing.  As I note in POSTNOTE 3, I watched the morning session, I’m not a stranger to the kind of scenario witnessed yesterday.  (I have only one previous post about Mueller.  You can read it here.)

It has been and will continue to be mentioned that Mr. Mueller is old – turning 75 in a couple of weeks.  I’m 79.  So he’s “just a kid”.  On the other hand, you pick up some street smarts as you age, which our youth oriented “I want it now” society doesn’t particularly appreciate.

Previously, I said I feel both Mueller and Pelosi were handling things well.   I still maintain that.

Of course, the postmortems are infinite and predictable.  Pundits, analysts and all manner of experts opine about what they would have done differently – it’s probably still called “Monday morning quarterback”.  People who didn’t have to do anything but witness, have all sorts of certain opinions about what should have been done, and wasn’t, and that, in their opinion, cost the game.  Nobody knows….

I’m from the little leagues compared with Mueller, but for 27 years I did similar work, including being the guy in the bullseye (Mueller) in a room full of people with certain opinions, often in direct opposition to each other.  I was the one who was supposed to bring clarity, or some “message from Garcia” or something.  It is impossible.  As I write. I can envision some scenarios I actually experienced in person, as Mueller, in effect.  You do your best and you know you’ll be criticized regardless of what you do.  In the audience were people who knew for sure that I didn’t know what I was doing, but were even more clueless than they thought I was.  I wasn’t sure, myself, that my direction was correct.  But they wouldn’t sit in the same chair as I.  They had the right to criticize.

Ratchet that up thousands of times, and there sat Mueller in the hot seat, everything being analyzed.  He knew this, of course.  I think he also knew that he would have to do it, and he set the day up as much as possible with a meticulously prepared report and an insistence that he was not going to be fooled into going off in this or that direction.

I think the Democrats knew this too. But they also knew that the people actually had to see Mueller’s face and hear his words.

The Republicans did too, but their mission was singular: to do anything possible to destroy him as a witness to one of the awful chapters in American history.

Call it a game, or whatever, everybody knew the realities.

Now, it’s “we, the peoples” turn.  If we choose to turn this into an armchair analysis of “The Apprentice”, we’re cooked.  On the other hand, there is a “rule of law” which has more or less served our country well through our long history.  Trump justifiably has a considerable fear of the rule of law, since the law for him has never been very troubling.  Like rich people do, he has means to leverage “justice” to his ends.  He’ll never say it, but I think he’s justifiably terrified that his goose is near cooked (he used much more colorful language to describe this some time ago).

Those who revere those MAGA hats better keep them for the aftermath, if Trump continues his reign.  We’re digging ourselves a very deep hole, and we’ll need a lot of resolve to recover any semblance of our standing once the feel good days of wasteful tax cuts are replaced by the hard work of getting back on an even keel.  The end game is a few years out, perhaps, at least till after the 2020 election, but watch your wallet.  Sooner or later the piper is going to be paid for the tax cuts we didn’t need.

I’m just one of the little guys.  But mark my words.  We will regret continuing our trajectory down the slippery slope.

COMMENTS (more below in on-line section)

from Kathy: Exculpate, etc. defined.

Dick, responding to Hank (below), July 26:

Good morning, Hank.
A large part of me says “just let it go…don’t respond”.
On the 24th you filed the below comment on my blog post, which I approved, and appears with the blog.  Two other comments more or less referred to your comment.
MaryEllen (below) said  “And, Mr. Toring, the Clinton’s behavior will likewise catch up with them.”  Her comment also is in the blog.
And a third, from a friend of many years whose comment came as a separate e-mail and isn’t included in the blog, in relevant part: “I agree with Hank Toring.   Please explain the criminal things that Trump is guilty of.   What I have heard is the real criminals are Clintons / Obamas / Biden.   I know that the criminal activity they have committed; they are passing the blame to Trump to divert attention from themselves.”   
Both will be blind-copied on this e-mail and thus can respond directly to you if they wish.
Cutting to the chase: pretty obvious you and I possibly have polar opposite political opinions.  That doesn’t bother me  That doesn’t make you right, or me either.  It’s just opinions.  The troubling part is that our country has largely been divided in half, and it is not healthy to pretend that half of the country can pretend to be able to control the other half. There is a certain civil war mentality going on.
1. I strongly supported Obama and both Clintons (and others) and I’m very proud of that.   I took a formal position at the time of Bill Clinton’s impeachment.  I’ve attached the letter (at end of comment, below).  I have seen all manner of accusations against the Clinton’s, Obama et al over many years, and have made a practice of following up on the veracity of the complaint.  The usual source to fact check is here.   I have noticed that snopes.com has joined the enemies list in some quarters – it expresses uncomfortable truths about internet lies; an alternative Christian source that I’ve known of for many years is here.  It is not as comprehensive and it supports the work Snopes does.  And of course there are any number of fact check sources available today.
Long and short, your list of accusations comes with not a single source of accusation that I can fact check.  The accusation is the conviction….  There are, probably, hundreds of these, perhaps thousands, of such allegations, passed along, person to person, accepted as truth when the vast majority I’ve ever seen come up as “false” or at best “mixed”.
Most recently in the nice town of Carrington ND, in the Catholic Church, the Sunday bulletin had a wonderful quotation from Abraham Lincoln.  It was a great quote, one that I would have used in my own writing.  But I checked it out, first.  There apparently was such a quotation, by someone I had never heard of, but it wasn’t Abraham Lincoln.  So it was false in its inference of source.  The words “Abraham Lincoln” gave it undeserved credibility.  I wrote the church about it.
Of course, as I mentioned to you, I do know quite a bit about Haiti, one of your assertions.  Ain’t quite all like it seems in the lie yard of the internet….
2. The “criminal things” of President Trump.  This is more about “innocent until proven guilty”, what we all learned about equal justice under the Law.  This was the intent of the Mueller Report, to establish a base of facts for such things as indictments, etc., leading to exoneration or conviction or whatever.  Anyone who follows such things at all sees what is going on – every effort is and will be made to block getting to the truth, allowing the clock to run out.  Would Trump be found innocent?  We’ll likely never know.  There’s a policy (not a law) that he can’t be indicted while President, as was made clear in the Mueller Report.
So, there’s the polarity: guilt by accusation versus innocent until proven guilty.  Judgement by opinion might feel good in the short run, but in the long run we all will suffer, most especially those who have placed their undying loyalty to the current president of the United States (my opinion).    There has been an ongoing and vicious and successful campaign of building fear and hatred of people like myself, “liberals”, and all of the other associated hate words.  It is as it is.
PS:  The 1998 Bill Clinton letter can be read here: Clinton Impeachment001

 

 

Apollo 11, 50 years later

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It was at almost exactly this same time of day, 2:10 p.m., July 20, 1969, that I pulled to the side of Highway 2 near Bagley MN to listen to the drama of touchdown of Apollo 11 on the moon.  Three days ago, I wrote about that event, and events before and after, here.

The astronauts stay on the moon was brief; four days later came a perfect reentry in the Pacific Ocean; a triumphal gathering on a Navy ship.

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There has been a great abundance of media attention to Apollo 11  this past week.  Of the many factoids was one, this morning:  I think it was Neil Armstrong who gave the odds of their successfully landing on the moon July 20 as 50-50.  But they took the risk anyway.  Amazing.  There was no room for any mistake.  Such would have been a  lot more serious than going in the ditch.

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In 1970, my friend, Frank, went to Federal Prison for a year, convicted of conspiracy to destroy draft records.  It was the hottest time of the Vietnam War.  He was 26, then, and its impact is still with him 50 years later.  Part of his story can be seen here (second half of the blog).

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, today, 50 years later….

Depending on what news you choose to listen to, you’ve probably heard about the “send them back” message to the four freshman women in the U.S. Congress this week, all of them U.S. citizens; all young women of color, all but one born in the U.S.A., the fourth, a citizen since teen years.

There’s a lot of debate about “illegals” and “racism”.  We don’t seem very civilized these days.

There’s been another incident in the waters off Iran.  Threats.

Today, at the excellent “Peacestock” for Veterans for Peace at Red Wing MN, Ann Wright summarized today’s international “hot spots”:  Iran, N. Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.  These are far more complex than Trump, Pompeo, Bolton et al like to position in their sound bites.  Ann gave part of the backstory for each hot spot, and other current events in this world of which we are becoming less dominant.  She is an expert.

The best advice I can give to all of us is to make a very serious effort to become and stay well informed.  One side of the story doesn’t make for being informed.  I am guessing there were about 150 of us at the Red Wing event, and there was a great deal of active listening.  Col. Wright knows what she is talking about from many years as an American diplomat.

 

Ann Wright at Veterans for Peace, Peacestock, July 20, 2019, Red Wing MN

Just before Col Wrights talk, my friend Dr. Michael Knox presented a video on his passion: The U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation.  You can watch his approximately 6 minute video here.  I have been a founding and active member of this Foundation since I first learned of it in 2006.   Check it out.

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A couple of days earlier, July 18, I attended an intense and extremely informative talk on the reality of refugees and people seeking asylum.  It was at the Basilica of St. Mary and entitled “When Home Won’t Let You Stay”  (Here is previous post about it.)  James A. Bowey kept our full attention for near two hours of highly informed commentary, with brief highly personal stories of refugees.  If you ever have the opportunity to hear, or have, Bowey speak, take it.  Check out the links.

Bowey made reference to United Nations data, which is worth accessing and reviewing.  Link is here.  There are powerful photos, with accompanying very brief text at his aforementioned site.

At this point in time, according to the UN, there are almost 26 million refugees in the world; in a relative sense, the United States today, accepts almost no one – less than 30,000 per year – which does not even touch the long range problem.  Some estimate that by 2050 there will be 250,000,000 refugees in the world, much climate related.  The U.S. population today is about 330,000,000.)  This is not sustainable.

James A. Bowey at Basilica of St. Mary July 18, 2019

We are in a time of tribalism in this country, and it is not healthy for anyone, regardless of ‘side’.  We have to figure this out, how to dialogue and learn from each other, as we have to figure out another reality: by trying to fence others out, we are fencing ourselves into our own self-imposed prison….  We are a nation of good people, but there is a raw and very mean undercurrent infesting us at the present time.

 

 

Apollo 11

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Saturday we were at a family get-together, and grandson Ryan was telling me about seeing the Omnimax film on Apollo 11 at the Science Museum in St. Paul.   Ryan, at the doorstep of 20, was enthusiastic about the film, but didn’t have the historical context, though I had taken he and his friend, Caleb, to Cape Canaveral in 2013, and we had done the full tour.   (They were early teenagers then, and as I told him, they seemed most interested in possible sightings of alligators!)

Apollo 11 did have historical context for me, however, and brought back many memories of that long ago time, when I was 29.  In fact, yesterday I went to see the film (I highly recommend it), and didn’t grasp till a later news report that July 16 was the 50th anniversary of the launch of the rocket that led to the first human footprints on the moon, July 20, 1969.

Of course, there are endless personal memories of this event.  Here are a few snips of my own:

July 20, 1969, we were returning to the Twin Cities from a visit to my parents in Grand Forks ND.  The car radio was on, and we were on U.S. 2, somewhere near Bagley MN, when the eagle (the spacecraft) landed.  I pulled over, and we listened as the spacecraft successfully touched down.

Then we were back on the road again to home (Spring Lake Park MN), and our television brought a far from perfect picture of the events (see below).  I have resisted temptation to enhance my photo – it was as it was, about midnight or so CDT, back then.

July 20, 1969, man on the moon ‘screen shot’ off TV in Spring Lake Park MN

In those years, when we still could have a sense of wonder, and were technologically backward compared to today, such events were awesome.

I was a school teacher then, and had an opportunity to go to a national conference that happened to be in Houston TX in November of 1969.  We had an opportunity to visit the Houston Space Center exhibit about Apollo 11 (photo below).  It was more of a bare  basics operation in Fall 1969 than the later and much fancier operation that I re-visited in 2006.  Of course, it felt much more authentic in 1969, being within a few months of the actual event.

Nov. 1969, Houston TX

Back home, life went on.  In June of 1970, the national travelling exhibit about Apollo 11 came to the State Capitol in St. Paul, and we stood in line to glimpse things, like a real moon rock!  It was a big deal, and we waited patiently for the opportunity.  I saw one website that collects memories from the 50 state tour, here. It doesn’t have anything about St. Paul, so perhaps my photos can join it.  Oddly, searching for internet links, I found one with something I wrote in 2011 about this same event.

June, 1970 Minnesota State Capitol

June, 1970

POSTNOTE:  Watching Apollo 11 yesterday, I was struck by the fact that the images were essentially 100% white men.  There may have been a few women, and non-whites, in the visible upper echelons of the operation, but they were mostly not visible.  1969 was a white man’s United States….   And before 1969 as well.

Back home, yesterday, the big news continued to be the Presidents racist comments, which led to a House of Representatives condemnation of what the President had to say a few days ago against four women Congresspeople.

Of course, there will be debate about this, and the impeachment conversations which are intensifying, as I write.

This president relishes a divided country, where the winners control the losers.  The Civil War was our experience with this; World War I was a world experience of a divided world.  History is riddled with examples of how destructive division is.  Everyone loses.

I remember the days of the past very well.  A year before Apollo 11, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated (Memphis and Los Angeles).  And earlier, John Kennedy who challenged America to get to the moon by the end of the 1960s, died by assassination in Dalles TX.

I am one white man who hopes and prays that we do not revert to these old days before civil and human rights which really struggled into reality in the 1960s and times thereafter.  If there needs to be a battle, bring it on.  Our country will not go back.  We need to work to avoid a repeat of our abundant past mistakes.

Another good commentary from another source today: All Dug In.

Some AARP Magazine memories of Apollo 11: AARP Apollo 11001

COMMENTS: 

from Jermitt: Thanks for sharing your memories of 50 years ago, and tying it into the current situation with Trump and how he continues to throw gasoline on the flames of a divided country.

from Jay: Well-said, Dick. Thanks for awakening my memory of it. I watched the whole thing on TV and I remember it well because it was on my birthday!!

(scroll down for more comments)

 

“And who is my neighbor?”

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POSTNOTE:  See reference at last portion, here.  This was singularly one of the most powerful presentations I have experienced.

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The Gospel on Sunday at Basilica of St. Mary was Luke 10:5-37 (as we saw it, open link below the picture).  “And who is my neighbor?”  Jesus’ response is a direct and confrontive analysis in answer to the question: essence, everyone is our neighbor.

This is a difficult truth particularly for Christians in our country who think that immigrants are inconveniences, not neighbors, not welcome here.

Jesus had no boundaries.

Thursday is an opportunity  to learn more, 6-8 p.m. at Basilica (details below)

PDF of program: When Home….003

Church newsletter descriptor of Program: Basilica Program Jul 19001 “Who is my neighbor?”

Gospel Reading July 14, 2019: Gospel July 14 2019002

There is, obviously, much, much more to say.

We saw an excellent column in the July 5, Minneapolis Star Tribune, whose caption is “Be decent.  Be earnest.  Don’t lose your capacity for shock and sorrow“.  You can read it here: Keeping Focus….001.  I call it “keeping focus”.

Do check out Thursday at Basilica.  I think you’ll find it very worthwhile, in these troubled times.

POSTNOTE:  A good friend of many years recently wrote me, including this statement: “The people who are coming from Mexico were in poverty road & Mexico did nothing to help them – their problem did not start at the US border.”   Just to start a conversation on this particular piece of hopelessly biased news, I sent my friend reputable data about three countries, which you can see here: three countries001 .  The analysis is very, very simple.  The U.S. has less than 5% of the worlds population, and about 25% of the worlds financial wealth; Mexico does not favorably compare with the U.S. in wealth; the refugees seem mostly from Central America and are not “Mexican” at all.  And the countries from which they come are desperately poor, even compared with Mexico, and their poverty in many cases has been aided and abetted by past and indeed present U.S. policy.

Bennie’s Birthday

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Grandson Bennie turned 14 on Friday, and the family celebrated by serving meals to guests at the Ronald McDonald House at Childrens Hospital in Minneapolis.  This afternoon was the family celebration in Woodbury.

This was not a routine birthday.  One year ago today, Bennie was just beginning to come out of an induced comma, after a severe auto accident on May 25, 2018.  A year ago there was no reasonable expectation of any favorable outcome.

This afternoon, while healing is not complete, and indeed may never be, there was a much more optimistic view.  The EMT who had gotten Bennie out of the car last May, was at this afternoons party.  Last year at the accident scene as a first responder, he learned that Bennie was from a family he knew from the town.  It was a pretty special reunion this afternoon:

Bennie at left, his rescuer at center, July 13, 2019

The party today was like all parties, each with their own particular character.  The Bennie we saw this afternoon was essentially a normal 14 year old with only one impediment that I am aware of: a severe head injury in the accident has not yet led to recovery of his ability to read.  It has nothing to do with native ability; something in the wiring is awry.  It may correct tonight, or next week, or not.  It’s a manageable disability.

Life is as normal as one can expect for Bennie and his family.  Traumatic events such as his are not predictable, nor is their outcome, in all sorts of different ways.

But the family that gathered today, to watch as the boys attacked a pinata, and Bennie open his gifts, was you can be assured, a happy group.

It was a great afternoon.  Happy Birthday, Bennie.

Congratulations to a great family for hanging in there…

Bennie vs Pinata. It took four boys and plenty of swings to vanquish a very tough pinata. But they did it!

Opening gifts

A Family Matter: Carol Tscherter

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The funeral for my cousin, Carol Tscherter, is today at St. Gabriel Catholic Church in rural Reinbeck IA.   Just a few months ago, March 22, her last surviving uncle on her Mom’s side, Melvin Berning, died at 90 in Eureka CA.   Here, thanks to Carol’s sister, Susan, is one of Carol’s many photographs:

Rose, Carol Thimmesch Tscherter, August 21, 2004

I knew Carol had been in ill health, but was surprised to hear of her death; similarly, I knew Melvin was old, but…no news is good news….  Such is life as generations pass, relatives multiply, and spread out across the world.

Carol was my first cousin, I think.  Her grandmother and my grandfather were sister and brother.  My grandmother and  her grandfather were sister and brother.  Their childhood homes were one farm apart in rural Grant County Wisconsin (near Dubuque); in North Dakota, they were in adjacent farms, less than a mile walk between the farmsteads.  Indeed, their antecedents in northwest Germany, Salzbergen for the Bernings, Borken-Heiden for the Buschs, were only about 45 miles apart.  They came to the U.S. beginning in the 1840s, and even in those days there were likely some kinds of connections in the old country.

I don’t think that Carol and I ever met in person.  Back in 2005, she contributed many family photographs for the family history I was completing.  Some of them are below.

Strictly by coincidence, on June 26, I had stopped by the old ND farm where her mother was born in 1912, and where her Grandparents moved in 1907.  (Busch’s came west in 1905).  The Berning farm was sold in 1954, so all that remains are the farmstead trees, some of which produced apples, according to neighbor Pat Quinlan who used to stop there during the season.   Here are a couple of photos from June 26:

The Berning trees, in SW quarter of Section 13, Henrietta Township, LaMoure Co, ND. Looking west. The actual farmstead, long gone, was near the road this side of the trees. Grand Rapids is about 4 miles to the right and behind the photographer (NE of the old farm). Berlin is about 5 miles to the southwest.

The Berning and Busch farms in 1936 are shown here:  Berning – Busch farms 001 .  The  area and now, can be seen on google maps here. The Berning trees are about a mile to the north of the Quinlan farm (6967 96th Ave SE).  The   Busch farmstead can be seen about a mile to the northwest of the Berning trees (6856 95th Ave SE).

The Berning parents grave in St. Johns Cemetery in Berlin ND June 26, 2019

Carol’s grandmother died in 1950, and grandfather in 1961.  Their funerals may have been occasions for family visits which included her.  That is not known.  Of course, every family has their own experience and traditions and circumstances.  In the Bernings case, for just one example, Carol’s Mom was born and started school in North Dakota, but grew up in Dubuque.  So Iowa was probably always considered “home”, though in another sense, North Dakota and Wisconsin were home, as well.

Back on July 6, 2005, Carol scanned for me 32 Berning family photographs, some of which are below.   As is the usual lament of family historians, few of the photos were dated or captioned by the takers, but nonetheless they tell a story, and the same family historians are grateful for the scanning technology which in 2005 was still evolving.

August and Christine Berning, probably in the 1940s, and two separate snapshots, in North Dakota. Carol’s grandparents; Melvins parents.

Cecilia Berning (Mrs. Thimmesch), Carol’s Mom and Melvins older sister, was a national champion level shooter. Her husband,

Don Thimmesch, Carol’s Dad, was, according to Carol “one of the elite “first fifty” Iowa Highway Patrolmen.  He & Cecilia set several national records for rifle & pistol shooting.”

Don Thimmesch sometime in the 1930s

Every family has their stories, and at sad times such as this, they give us occasion to remember how we all fit in to the tapestry that is human history, wherever we live.

Thank you, Carol, and Susan, for your great contributions!

The Busch graves, St. John’s cemetery, Berlin ND, June 26, 2019. There are five graves: Verena (1927), Ferd (1967), Rosa (1972), Edithe (2014), Vincent (2015)

The Census

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My sister was talking about the 2020 census as she, I and her husband were on a long road trip last Sunday.  They live in rural Minnesota, and the conversation was about how important it will be for people to participate in the census.  In her case, for example, there are several apartment buildings in her small community, and many of these residents tend to be poor and mobile.  To be counted is important for them; but they are the very ones to tend not to get or fill in such forms.

Then we have the current national controversy about who should qualify to be counted; rather, how to discourage certain people from even participating in the count.

This morning I googled the Bible story from Luke and found the supposedly inerrant words of scripture on the topic to have their own controversy.  Here’s a starting point for that conversation.  Like the other texts of Christian scripture (“New Testament”), Luke was likely written several generations after the events on which it reports.

I don’t think the U.S. census began as a game to be played for political advantage.  They simply wanted to find out who was out there in the new land that had just become the United States.

If you are interested (I hope you are) here is some information, at least as grist for conversation.  (All sources are the Census Bureau for the United States).

1790 Census The population of the United States: 3,983,635

1860 Census The population of the United States: 31,443,321

1940 Census The population of the United States: 132,164,569

2010 Census The population of the United States: 308,745,538

U.S. and World Estimates, 2019:  as of 6 a.m. July 6, 2019

U.S.: 329,192,029

World: 7,589,259,940

SOME OBSERVATIONS:

1790, from the Census Bureau narrative:

“The six inquiries in 1790 called for the name of the head of the family and the number of persons in each household of the following descriptions:

  • Free White males of 16 years and upward (to assess the country’s industrial and military potential)
  • Free White males under 16 years
  • Free White females
  • All other free persons
  • Slaves

Under the general direction of Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, marshals took the census in the original 13 States, plus the districts of Kentucky, Maine, and Vermont, and the Southwest Territory (Tennessee).

Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson expressed skepticism over the final count, expecting a number that exceeded the 3.9 million inhabitants counted in the census.”

The 1790 population of the U.S. was, more or less, about 1% of todays.

1860 was the dawn of the soon to begin Civil War.  The total U.S. population was about 10% of todays.

From other data collected a few years ago, the Civil War total casualties were 498,333.  Today that would translate into about 5,000,000, about the same population as my own state.  And presumably most of these would be “Free White males of 16 years and upward”….

1940 is the one  census that I studied most closely a few years ago, specifically about a tiny town in which I lived for several years in the later 1940s and 1950s.  Part of the 1940 census questionaire leads this blog.  (I happened to have been born in 1940, but I showed up late – I was born a month or so after the enumeration).

Here is the text of the specific section in the above illustration:

“If born in the United States, give State, Territory, or possession.

Foreign born, give country in which birthplace was situated on January 1, 1937.

Distinguish Canada-French from Canada-English and Irish Free State (Eire) from Northern Ireland.”

There is a citizenship column: “Citizenship of the foreign born“.

There is a great deal of data in the pages about this little town, which I delved into in some detail in 2013.  I noted the town had “67 households… 161 adults…113 under age 21.  Their birthplaces, in addition to ND, were 16 other states and 11 foreign countries.  5 adults were listed as working for CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and 13 adults working for WPA (Works Progress Administration).  Another 13 were 65 or over, qualifying for Social Security” [then just beginning].

And here we are, in 2019, engaging in another Civil War, about who qualifies as a person deserving to be counted.

Learn.  Get involved.

POSTNOTE:  During my time on the road – most of the month of June – I made a practice of keeping the front section of the local paper wherever I was.  In a couple of papers in North Dakota I found two columns by Lloyd Omdahl, one time Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota, which I found to be especially interesting.  Here they are: Omdahl Foster co 6 24 19002 and Omdahl Forum Jul 1 19001

 

The 4th of July

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This year, July 4th is especially significant for me.

June 30, my sister, Flo, her husband Carter, and I, drove to Grafton ND, for an event to  honor two casualties aboard the USS Arizona, Dec. 7, 1941: my Uncle Frank Bernard, Grafton, and another Walsh County sailor, Floyd Wells, Fairdale, ND.  Frank was 26 when he died; Floyd was 24

At the beginning, the events origin was somewhat mysterious to me.  A man had written some months earlier that he had a fragment of the USS Arizona, and was going to gift it to the Walsh County History Museum in Minto.  Later, the curator of the History Museum confirmed the gift, and said that there would be a ceremony, and we were invited to attend.  The donor declined to identify himself by name or where he was from.  Still, this was an invitation I did not want to refuse.

We arrived just in time for the ceremony.  The fragment was small and authentic (see below), and was hand-delivered by the owner, a Florida man who had purchased it at an estate sale.  It was encased in a glass frame with a photograph of the wreckage of the Arizona.  Beside it were two vases with two red roses, one for each family.  Another plaque identified the givers Dad, a veteran of the 82nd Airborne in WWII.

Note fragment 311 at the lower part of the photograph. Authentication was on reverse of the photo.  (It was impossible to get a good photograph given high sun.)

The gifting ceremony was brief and extraordinarily meaningful: an Honor Guard, 4-gun salute, Taps, invocation, no oration….  It was extraordinary.  I am very grateful to the donor and to the museum.  Before leaving the area, we went to the grave of the parents of Frank and our Dad, and our grandparents at the Catholic cemetery in Grafton, and my sister left the rose we had been given.  (Henry and Josephine Bernard died in 1957 and 1963, and had lived their entire married life since 1901 in Grafton, and Henry 8 years or more before that.  But the graves are the only reminders they existed in that place.)

Back home the evening of July 2, I prepared for a talk I’d been asked to give to a group of primarily international young people at a conference on Global Citizenship organized by the group ARK for Peace.  My topic was on “Servant Leadership” within the general area of Democracy and Freedom.

As part of my talk I decided to invite my friend, Frank, who was sentenced to five years in federal prison about 1970 for the crime seeking to destroy Draft cards.

This day it was obvious to me that he had things he needed to say, near 50 years after his imprisonment at age 26 (which ultimately lasted about a year).  His talk was powerful, and he had a very attentive audience, and afterwards he thanked me for the opportunity he had been given, at age 75, to tell his story.  (See postnote at the end of this post.)

Turns out his one year sentence effectively continues.  He has a prison number, and he’s not sure it would be safe for him to leave the United States and be able to return – even 50 years later.  He feels a prisoner in the same country in which he has lived his entire life.  “Democracy” and “Freedom” are tainted words in this country of his birth.  His sin was to act on his protest of the military Draft in one of the dark times of this country of ours.

*

As I awoke on the morning of my talk, I had a thought which I wrote down and read at the beginning of my own talk to the young people:  “Peace is messy.  Anything that can go wrong, will.  But compared to war, peace is always the better alternative.  I choose peace.“

Peace is not easy.  I said to the group that in a later rendition I might take out the word “always”, mindful of our worlds own past.  A participant disagreed.  One war simply begets the next, and on and on.

Those folks Frank and I talked to on Wednesday were, and are, their and our, future.

I wish them well.

Thank you, Judy, for the invitation to speak.

Frank speaking at the conference on Global Citizenship July 3, 2019.

POSTNOTE: Frank gave me an 80 page publication on his life, “The Vietnam Era Oral History Project” published by the Minnesota Historical Society based on interview conducted by Kim Heikkila in 2018, and published by MHS in 2019.  More can be found on the internet at the website on the Minnesota Eight.  Note especially the links to Earthfolk and Outlaw Visions in the right hand column at the home page.

Frank Bernard in Honolulu, late 1930s

Walsh County History Museum, Minto ND, June 30, 2019

COMMENTS (More at end of post):

from Frank (co-leader on Wed): I am deeply and truly grateful for the opportunity you opened for me to speak and listen. Your work is praiseworthy. Peace,

A Fete at Faribault House

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At Sibley Historic Site June 23

Sunday afternoon Greg sent a message “what’s the rain plan?”, referring to our La Fete de la Saint -Jean-Baptiste scheduled for 5-7 p.m. at the Henry Sibley Historic Site at Mendota.  The day had been threatening, but it appeared the skies would clear.  But you can’t predict Mother Nature, and enroute to the event, rain came down so hard I almost had to stop due to no visibility.

So, Greg’s question was appropriate. and the 50 or so of the brave souls who ventured out crowded into Jean-Baptiste and Pelagie Faribaults living room, and began what was a memorable event in the 1839 home of one of early Minnesota’s premier French-Canadian traders.

Here is a pdf of the program booklet which includes a brief history of St. Jean Baptiste Feast, and Sibley Historic Site: St. Jean-Baptiste Jun 23001.  Friends of the Sibley Historic Site,  the French-American Heritage Foundation of Minnesota, and Jane Peck were primary sponsors of the event.  Also involved was the Dakota County Historical Society and La Compagnie.

Afterwards Mark Stillman, a stellar squeeze box artist who performs with Francine Roche (link is Francine’s Facebook page), wrote Ann Essling of the Friends of the Sibley Historic Site: “The amazing thing is…once we had everything up and running in the Faribault House…it actually felt like we were French Canadian Voyageurs back in the early 1800s. It was great!”

Ann added: “Our performers did amazing.”

Jane Peck, with Gary Schulte, the other performers, said “It was fun to think of all the dance parties held in that very room by the Faribault family!”

I chimed in: “Well, Greg, I guess we found out what the game plan for rain was! … I congratulate Jane and Gary and Francine and Mark for doing a great job under far, far less than ideal circumstances.  And the Sibley folks and Friends of Sibley for their good work.  “The show went on” regardless of the weather … Thanks to all.  I think my jacket will be dry this morning.”

All in all, I think we had about 50 in that living room of the Faribault house.  Unfortunately, there weren’t young kids, but their absence was understandable given the threatening weather.

The Sibley site is lovely (photos below taken the next day when there was still intermittent rain.

Do visit the site and learn more about Minnesota’s history.

Jane Peck and Gary Schulte demonstrate and teach dance in the French-Canadian Voyageur and Metis style. Faribault House living room.

Francine Roche and Mark Stillman performed music for those attending.

Faribault House at Sibley Historic Site, Mendota MN, the performance was in the living room behind the windows at lower right.

The beautiful, still damp grounds, at the historic site, June 24. No outdoor activities were possible the previous day. All activity was indoors.

Don, 89, whose ancestry is substantially French-Canadian and includes Native American was among those in the audience who much appreciated the music and performance.

Near neighbor to the Sibley site, just a block to the south, is historic St. Peter’s of Mendota, one of Minnesota’s oldest churches, dating back to 1840.

 

 

Two-fer – Iran and the Wages of Slavery

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Iran – June 22, 2019

Yesterdays banner headline in our local paper, Minneapolis StarTribune, blared “Trump orders, cancels Iran Strike”.  Already, of course, Trump is about the business of evading responsibility.  The only safe way to deal with Trumps communiques, of any kind, is to believe nothing he says, rather than gamble on the random “truth”.

Here  is how the CIA  Factbook describes Iran today.  Iran is about 2 1/2 times the size of Texas and has about one-third of the U.S. population.  It is not an insignificant place (as if any places really are, especially in today’s world.  I personally know Iranians, and have for years. )

Iran and environs, 1987 Readers Digest Atlas of the World

Here’s a pdf of the same map: Iran and environs001

My personal base line in this particular case (Iran):  Early on, it was essential to Trump to kill the Iran nuclear deal, laboriously negotiated by the Obama administration and involving many countries.  Thus, the path to potential peace, was traded for the certainty of potential war.

Everyone knows exactly what Trump is by now: a liar who rules by threat and desires domination, and whose goal is always humiliation of the losers.  He may dupe enough of us to continue to rule, even a second term; but foreign leaders, including Irans, are not fools, and have long been on to his game (and it is a game, albeit a very dangerous one).  Sooner or later Trump – and ourselves – will reap the furor.

Just Above Sunset catches the current situation well.  Here is today’s edition, What Those Two Said”.  Take the time.

Yesterday I wrote a brief note to our Marine grandson, in part: We think of you all, of course, with what is going on in the Middle East  We are no fan of Donald Trump, fyi.  I think back to 1962 when I was in the Amy & we watched President Kennedy on a tiny television in an Army barracks when he talked about the Cuban Missile Crisis, then at its most crucial point.  We were at Ft. Carson, at Colorado Springs, but we were in the bullseye as there are many military facilities there, & were, then, as well.  War is not a game & we are no longer in a superior position in the world.  We need to learn that lesson.  Folks like you are really necessary and I respect you all a great deal.  But keep it in its proper perspective.”  Grandpa.

War has always been a lethal weapon for warriors, with, unfortunately, the willing accomplices the people who will end up as victims in the long run.

My all-time favorite, not fake news, is this quotation by Hitler’s second in command, Hermann Goering, as he awaited trial and likely execution at Nuremberg in 1946.

“Of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?

Naturally, the common people don’t want war, neither in Russia, nor England, nor for that matter, Germany. That is understood, but after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simpler matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

(Goering was long time Nazi, Reichmarshall, and heir-apparent to Hitler, His statement on history was recorded while imprisoned at Nuremberg after WWII. Goering was sentenced to death by hanging for war crimes, but committed suicide first.

Quoted in the book Nuremberg Diary, p. 278, Gustave Gilbert, Farrar, Straus & Co., 1947. Gilbert was psychologist assigned to the Nazi prisoners on trial at Nuremberg.   Initially I was skeptical about the quote, until I found the actual book, and read it till I found this exact quotation within.)

POSTNOTE June 23:  This mornings Washington Post sends an excellent opinion column by David Ignatius. Ignatius is a veteran of the pundit scene.  I don’t know his ideology.  What he includes in his column is important; what he misses, intentionally or not, is at least as important as the rest of his story.  Few Americans know (or care) about how Iran became an item of interest: few know about the American sponsored coup that led to American puppet Shah of Iran between the early 1950s and late 1970s, culminating with the hostages in 1979.  Etc.  There is a huge amount of hidden history left out of the Ignatius story.  Take this on as a personal history lesson.  Quietly absent today are the 83,000,000 Iranians who are, like it or not, pawns of the conflict.  Trump in effect declared on Tuesday that he saved 150 Iranian lives by calling off the drone strike, but the bigger story is holding an entire country hostage for “regime change”.  Friends this morning also noted the presence of Israel in this conflict: Apparently John Bolton was in Israel strategizing about next steps.  Bolton is a high level operative in the Trump administration and is the one most famously remembered as being ambassador to the United Nations who quipped about taking off the top stories of the UN Building.

The Wages of Slavery

Separate but related, a very interesting letter – from 1869 – arrived in my in-box yesterday, from Carol.  It is on a different but very current topic, and relevant as a stand-alone about another war in which we engaged whose issue in large part was dominance and control of one race over another.  It is sent exactly as received without further comment.

In 1825, at the approximate age of 8, Jordan Anderson (sometimes spelled “Jordon”) was sold into slavery and would live as a servant of the Anderson family for 39 years. In 1864, the Union Army camped out on the Anderson plantation and he and his wife, Amanda, were liberated. The couple eventually made it safely to Dayton, Ohio, where, in July 1865, Jordan received a letter from his former owner, Colonel P.H. Anderson. The letter kindly asked Jordan to return to work on the plantation because it had fallen into disarray during the war.

On Aug.  7, 1865, Jordan dictated his response through his new boss, Valentine Winters, and it was published in the ​Cincinnati Commercial. The letter, entitled “Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master,” was not only hilarious, but it showed compassion, defiance, and dignity. That year, the letter would be republished in theNew York Daily Tribune and Lydia Marie Child’s “The Freedman’s Book.”

The letter mentions a “Miss Mary” (Col. Anderson’s Wife), “Martha” (Col. Anderson’s daughter), Henry (most likely Col. Anderson’s son), and George Carter (a local carpenter).

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jordon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, — the folks call her Mrs. Anderson, — and the children — Milly, Jane, and Grundy — go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jordon Anderson

from Lois: Jordan’s letter to his former “employer” Mr. Andersen touched a heartstring.   No one can change time, or get back to the “good ole days” that were not good for many; there is a lot of naivety by people with regard to political leadership and it behooves us to read and listen to all sides for opinions, not just go with one promise or another as justification to follow and/or promote an idea.   So keep the blogs coming!