Peace and Justice is a theme I’ve been passionate about my entire life, but particularly since September 2001. I began this blog in 2009. The intended focus of this site is Peace, Justice, Environment, Sustainability, Global Cooperation and related issues.
The intent of this site is to publish positive pieces with thoughts about building a better future for our world and everyone in it.
I believe in the value of dialogue. A lifelong mid-westerner, with deep roots in rural North Dakota, I have spent most of my adult life in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. dickDOTbernarddt1878ATicloudDOTcom
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A Million Copies
/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by dickbernardToday, July 26, 2026, is 100 days from Election Day November 3.
The message is simple: be sure you are registered to vote, and vote well informed, for every office on your ballot.
Every place will have differing specifics about who’s on the ballot, and specific procedures.
The place to visit first, wherever you live, is https://vote.gov/. Insert your address, and you’ll find out your registration status, etc.
The buck stops with each and every one of us. The first key is to VOTE well informed…. There is plenty of time, but don’t waste it. Share.
A BRIEF NOTE ON THE TITLE OF THIS POST, “A MILLION COPIES’
Years ago, during Vietnam days, John Denver popularized a Peace Anthem, “Last Night I had the Strangest Dream”, including the lyric “A million copies made”. YouTube has several John Denver renditions.
In 2007, I heard an old man, Lynn Elling, then about my current age, sing the song at a meeting I was attending, and I was hooked. Later I learned the song had been composed by folksinger Ed McCurdy about 1950. Here is an early version by McCurdy.
In 2008, I put up a still-existing website, AMillionCopies, a Tribute to peacemakers Lynn Elling and Joe Schwartzberg, which includes a half hour movie produced by Lynn in about 1971, which features John Denver singing the peace anthem (it is early in the film, between about 2:30 and 6:00 minutes, and it was performed in the Twin Cities specifically for the film, a private and authorized use of the recording.)
It occurs to me that “A Million Copies” had a different meaning in 1950, when McCurdy first performed the song, in 1971, 2007 and today.
In 1950, “A million copies made” was a big deal, requiring printing and distribution.
Today, a million copies is a pretty simple viral matter on-line. But it’s a very thin number.
McCurdy’s Million was a work number – it took effort to achieve results.
Not so with the Tip Tok number, which can be consumed instantly, and as instantly be discarded for the next million views.
As we elect our representatives in November, lots of boots on the ground effort will be required. I urge you to get in action in your own way at your own location.
AHEAD:
I stay abreast of the news from credible sources with reputations earned over the long term, I’ve shared the sources before. The sources continue.
It does not seem productive any more to just regurgitate the outrage of the hour – We are well into the 6th year, the most recent 18 months the worst.
So…I will continue writing, but basically off the beaten political path as much as I can stand, This does not mean I have gone to the dark side – not at all. Rather just a reorientation at least on this ‘printed page’.
I’ll keep on, keeping on.
OTHER POSTS: If you wish, here are some other posts in July: Click on archive calendar at right. The July 3 post, in the first two paragraphs, has links to reflections by 8 individuals, related to America’s 250th. July 6 re Air Force One; July 7 – Mt Rushmore; July 16 – Vote; Buy 20 – Hitler, Stalin; July 24 – 1963-66 personal reflection;