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I have been watching the news, and very often the tragedy of Syria is front and center. I know a few Syrians, and I know they are in pain, and I know of the horrors of civil war, though I’ve never been through one. It has occurred to me that Syria has been too abstract […]
George McGovern has died. He was 90 at the time of his death in Sioux Falls. Permit me a memory of a great man and humanitarian. October 21, 2005 – 7 years ago today, it was a Friday – at the Bell Museum Theater at the University of Minnesota, we went to see the film […]
Last evening I was with what seemed to be about 200 or so others who had gathered to honor Sami Rasouli at the Crescent Moon Banquet Hall in northeast Minneapolis. Sami: native of Najaf, Iraq; thence Minneapolis resident and restaurateur and U.S. citizen; thence back to Najaf to work at restoring destroyed relationships between the […]
Saturday while engaged in domestic chores, I turned on the History Channel. The just-beginning program was more-or-less the history of Hell. Hell, of course, has a very long history, predating Christianity and since, like God and Heaven, Hell is presumably not open to visit until after you’re dead and go there, it is susceptible to […]
Note from Dick Bernard: I know Barry Riesch from nine years involvement with the Minnesota chapter of the national organization Veterans for Peace. Barry served in the U.S. Army 1968-70 and was a Mortar man in Vietnam 1969-70. Barry has been the inspiration for an ever more successful Memorial Day commemorative at the Vietnam Memorial […]
NOTE SEP 12, 2011: This is becoming a voluminous post with a great number of comments. All flow from my reflection on Sep. 11, 2001, and the ten years after, here. I plan to keep this comments page up to date and current as any personal opinions are provided. Check back once in awhile. Directly […]
Note from Dick Bernard: This Essay seems particularly appropriate to present at the anniversary of the bombing of Iraq March 19, 2003, and our seeming continued reverence for War as a solution for human problems. Our wonderful friend, Annelee Woodstrom, grew up in Nazi Germany. She was 7 when Hitler came to power in 1933, […]
Someone looking for me would not start at movie theaters: movies are an infrequent destination. Still, in the past seven days I viewed four films in four very different venues. Each of the films had (and have) diverse messages…beyond the films themselves. Last Sunday, the destination was The Minneapolis Film Festival showing of a documentary, […]
UPDATE January 8, 2010, by James Nelson: On December 17th, the day I left Copenhagen, a 22 minute film was debuted concerning wide scale revegetation in developing countries. They talk about trees but they primarily use shrubs and deep rooted grasses. The film is entitled “Hope in a Changing Climate“. The case studies are from […]
Likely since Garrison Keillor’s fertile imagination invented Lake Wobegon in the 1970s, he’s had the mantra: “where all the women are strong, the men are good looking and the children are above-average.” On has to wonder where those “above average” children end up…. Today’s paper reveals that my local Congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, is to be […]