Author: admin

“If the President is in favor of a number of things that he has discussed openly and publicly, and I know that if we pass it, it will become law, I’ll put it on the floor.”

Mitch McConnell – Majority Leader of US Senate

“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

U.S. Constitution – Article 1 Section 1

“Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law.”

U.S. Constitution – Article 1 Section 7

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has taken the position that he will not “waste” the Senate’s time voting on bills that the President has indicated he will not sign. (See the above quotation from a September 3 interview.) I kind of understand the reasoning behind the statement. If the President is going to veto a bill why burn up the time on the Senate floor considering it. But Senator McConnell, listen to what you just said!!! The Lord knows I am not a constitutional scholar and clearly, I do not understand the arcane rules of the Senate that allows this SINGLE person to have this much control of the legislative process. BUT in my opinion, this is WRONG. More than wrong, I think it is unconstitutional and not in keeping with the principal of the balance of powers which is woven throughout the Constitution. That document CLEARLY empowers the Congress to make laws. Those laws are automatically in place unless the President elects to not sign the bill and sends it back with his objections outlined. At that point the Congress can STILL pass the legislation by overriding the veto.

By refusing to even consider a bill that has already been passed by the House, the Majority Leader presumes to KNOW without error exactly how every member of the Senate would vote on a veto override. How presumptuous! And what a sad commentary on the state of politics in our Capital – one person who I did NOT elect, in effect controls the opportunity for MY SENATOR to cast their vote. The Senate is disempowering itself and OVER-empowering the chief executive. Or stated another way – they are being derelict in their duties and allowing our President to have much more power than the Constitution ever envisioned the office to hold. The founding fathers greatly feared this and crafted the constitution to avoid it. Stand up and do your duty for crying out loud! If you think a bill should be a law PASS IT!! We didn’t send you down there to be rubber stamps for the President. At LEAST have enough gumption to send a bill to the White House. If the President sees that you have at least this much initiative he may actually believe that you are an equal partner in this process in stead of being his sycophant.

And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Jesus in Matthew 7:3

Clean your finger before you point at my spots.

Benjamin Franklin

We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity.

G. K. Chesterton

Within the last weeks I heard from a guy  for whom I have the greatest respect. And his input leaves me a little perplexed. Let me explain. The input was a broadcast email that suggested that the Democratic Party and anyone in it should have no standing in criticizing what is going on in the current administration. The email pointed to various past accusations against the Clintons, former President Obama and other Democrats. The point was that since people in the Democratic Party are so very flawed and have committed so many wrongs that for them to accuse anyone of anything is hypocritical.

I am not sure that everything that was listed was fact-checked and proven. But I can certainly remember at least one occasion where President Clinton looked me in the eye and said with a straight face – “I did not have sex with that woman.” We all know how THAT turned out. So, there is at least some truth in the accusations that at least some of the Democrats are hypocrites. But are any Republicans ever hypocritical? I saw a posting today in which then-candidate Trump was talking about how President Obama should be dealing with Iran and criticizing the very things that he is presently doing – kind of hypocritical. I have whined before about the criticisms that then-candidate Trump had about the national debt, which contrary to what he said he could do, HE in turn has driven even higher, MUCH higher. I have noted before that neither political party seems to blanch at hypocrisy these days. There is so much mudslinging and subterfuge going back and forth that it is hard to know WHAT the truth is. The question arises, does the fact that an accuser is a hypocrite automatically make their accusation false?

It is so easy to dislike a hypocrite. Hypocrisy seems so patently dishonest and smug and it violates the sense of fairness that nearly all of us have. It seems like the worst form of dishonesty. But truthfully, I am certain that there have been times in my life that I, the perfect author of this posting, have been a hypocrite. But if I have been dishonest once, does that mean that everything I say is false? It might make things that I say SUSPECT, but in some cases my statements could still be true. So unfortunately, I have come to agree with Chesterton: I will listen to what anyone says, even if I believe that they are being hypocritical as they say it, BECAUSE there may be truth in what they say. And by the way this cuts both ways for me. So, for example if there is some implication that the President is enriching himself because of his position as president, especially from foreign dollars coming into the US – the emoluments cases, I say let’s check that out and act on what is found. And if there was an inappropriate enrichment of the Clintons because of foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation, I say let’s check THAT out and take it to them if there were violations of the law. You will note that my preface to all of this was the word UNFORTUNATELY. It IS unfortunate that our political discourse has descended to the level that it presently is on, but given the torrent of accusations and counter accusations, what else can we do?

“If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you’ll be going, ‘you know, we’re alright. We are dang near royalty’.”

Jeff Foxworthy

I haven’t fallen from the face of the earth. Yes, it has been a long while since my last posting. I have had some health issues this summer (nothing serious) which occupied some of our time. More impactful was our decision to remodel the kitchen. That is a far more serious and impactful factor. Did you ever see the movie “The Money Pit” starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long? If you have you know how our summer went. My wife thinks my postings are sometimes too serious. I think she is probably right. She asked if there wasn’t something up-beat I could write about. Something uplifting? Something encouraging and or fun? I am an engineer by training and a government bureaucrat. This is a tall order for me.

But then I thought about the later part of our summer. It is our tradition to dedicate a significant part of this time of the year to county fairs and to the phenomenon that is the Minnesota State Fair. We spend two days each year at the Douglas County Fair and this year we spent five days at the State Fair. Some of those days relate to our granddaughter’s 4-H and FFA competitions but in honesty we spend a lot of time just strolling around too. People ask me how we can spend FIVE days doing this. I guess we probably are a little over the top, but we do thoroughly enjoy it. Why is that?

Well, truthfully, some (OK most) of these days involve me sampling the wares of the beer vendors that are rarely more than fifty feet from you when you are on the grounds. Jan loves looking at the crafts, especially the quilts and other fine arts exhibits. I absolutely must have at least one Pronto-Pup per day. We take the grandkids on the carnival rides. We listen to the abundant, really good quality, free music. We are regaled by the sellers of the slicer-dicers in the grandstand. Jan absolutely must have a scone at the French Meadow stand and no Fair is complete without visiting the corn-roast. As you can see, we have our traditions that we need to honor and all of that takes time. Ohhh, and we also do a fair amount of “people-watching”.

But one can get nearly all this stuff at other places without paying admission fees and fighting through the challenges of getting to fairgrounds. What’s up? Many of you know that I grew up on a farm. My farm days are arguably a small fraction of my life. But they were very influential years in my life and are a great part of shaping my character and values. Since those days I have been a city dweller, for almost the last forty years living in a metropolitan area. The State Fair brings all of this together for me. It reconciles it – it makes me see that there really aren’t multiple worlds – worlds apart. Farm animals, marching bands, historic artifacts, new technology, politics, country music, religion, hip-hop music, Ecuadorian flute players, inner-city youth choirs, jazz bands, lawn mowers, new cars, old farm equipment and a lot more. And people from everywhere in the state come to this place – like all kinds of people – people from farms, people from small towns, people from big towns – and for the most part get along and actually learn something about each other’s worlds. For a little while at least, we all tolerate each other.

I think it’s the last thing that draws me back year after year. This seems to be a place where it doesn’t seem weird to simply strike up a conversation with someone you have never met who happens to be next to you. It doesn’t seem intrusive or creepy to ask where they are from and how their day is going. And it is easy for me to share something about myself. This happens to us a lot, on the bus riding in from the park-and-ride, waiting in line to buy my Pronto-Pup, waiting for the show to start at the Leine’s Lodge, looking at apples in the Horticulture Building and yes, tipping a cold one at Coaster’s or O’Gara’s. Could we possibly replicate this kernel of good-will and tolerance for the rest of the year? I’m not sure about that, but I am pretty sure that the State is a better place because we have this respite at the end of the summer each year. I know that I am.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it….”

Joseph Goebbels – Reich Minister of Propaganda – Nazi Germany

“No matter how big the lie, repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth.”

John F. Kennedy – Criticizing the Republican Congress in 1948

I was a licensed civil engineer in the State of Minnesota from 1976 until 2018. One of the things that I did as a civil engineer was to design drainage systems. This involved the concepts of probability and agreed upon standards for what probability storms should be accommodated for individual elements of the overall systems. For instance, a storm sewer pipe in my local street is probably designed to handle the runoff that results from a storm that has a 10% probability of happening in a given year. Facilities that serve larger areas are usually designed to accommodate the runoff from 2% probability storms or 1% probability storms – the so called one-hundred-year storm. But what amounts of rainfall are in these design storms?

The Bible for drainage engineers for defining design storm events has for many years been a document published by the United States Weather Bureau – Technical Paper 40 (TP 40). TP 40 is a series of curves that reflect predicted rainfall intensity, duration and frequency. A part of my career was spent as a public works director. A public works director is someone who is probably an engineer but whose duties also involve OPERATING the stuff that engineers design. As a public works director my observations were that the storms that our system was experiencing were so much more intense and frequent than what TP 40 predicted. But was that really true? It is all probability and perhaps we just experienced a naturally occuring series of intense storms. Is it really raining more in Minnesota?

According to a report from Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), in 2018 the city of Harmony in Southeast Minnesota set a new total rainfall record for the state, coming in at 60.21 inches of total precipitation for the year. This would be like what one might normally see in something more tropical – like maybe New Orleans. This new record eclipsed a record that was set in 2016, just two years earlier, in Waseca – 56.24 inches. These levels are more than 20 inches above our normal precipitation in the state. So total rainfall is increasing dramatically but what about those “design events” that I talked about above?

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) climate office has assembled a list of so-called “mega-rain” events that have occurred since statehood. There have been fifteen. One can always question how accurate the records were in the old days although the DNR has worked very hard poring through rainfall reports, newspaper accounts and other historical documents. If we look at the period between the early 1970’s and 2016, there have been eleven of the mega-rains, with a sharp uptick since 2000. Of these 11 events, two were in the 1970s, one was in the 1980s, none were in the 1990s, but four occurred in both the 2000s, and the 2010s (which are still underway). Thus, the 18 years from 2000-2017 have seen nearly three times as many mega-rains as the 27 years spanning 1973-99. Now that data more coincides with what I observed as a public works director. But why is that happening?

So what’s my point? I am often asked if I “believe” in global warming or do I think as President Trump has stated on more than one occasion that it is a “hoax invented by the Chinese”. I certainly am not a global weather expert, but I know what I have seen with my own eyes. The pace of the changes we are seeing convinces me that this increase in temperature and rainfall intensities MUST be related to human activities and not a natural long-term trend. And I don’t think we fully understand how the impacts of this phenomenon will play out. I can tell you that local governments are spending lots of money trying to prepare for these new realities. FEMA is going broke trying to keep up with the seemingly endless series of unprecedented weather events. But am I really concerned? YOU BET I AM!!! Being an old-timer, I may not live to see how this hits us – then again, I just might. But I KNOW that my children and grandchildren will be encountering weather related challenges that our generation never has.

Is this an EXISTENTIAL THREAT? I don’t think that anyone can say that with certainty. But clearly it IS A THREAT and one that I believe will soon dwarf the other challenges that we have as a society. And I believe this so strongly that the environment has risen to number one on my evaluation criteria for possible holders of public office. And I think that this issue is moving toward the top of many other people’s list too.

It is this belief that makes the rhetoric of the last few weeks regarding the environment so disheartening to me. I try to be somewhat politically balanced in this little thing that I publish. The Lord knows that there is ample criticism that can be made of both parties and of individuals in both parties. And I believe that President Trump is sometimes unfairly criticized and doesn’t get credit for good things that he does. I think this is a bane of all presidents to some degree. BUT I wouldn’t be truthful if I didn’t stand up and say that President Trump’s characterization of his efforts to enhance the environment is GREATLY exaggerated. I might even say that it is subterfuge that rises to the level of the quotations at the beginning of this article. He and his administration have done nothing but to try to reverse the scant progress that has been made on global warming. And I am not just talking about pulling out of the Paris Accord. I am talking about the rampant relaxation of coal burning standards, the undoing of automobile mileage standards and many other actions. He has given the appearance of truly denying that there is any issue that even needs attention.

The President recently said that his administration has worked HARDER than prior administrations on the environment. He talked about major improvements that have been made in air quality and water quality since the 1970s. I don’t know if it is true that we really have made so many gains, but if it IS TRUE, he sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t care how many times he says it. It is BS. I can only assume he is following Goebbel’s playbook by telling us the most audacious lies he can think of and saying it over and over again on the assumption that we are stupid/gullible enough to believe it. Maybe he believes HIMSELF – because he has heard himself say this stuff so many times. But I don’t.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among Men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,…..”

Paragraph 2, Declaration of Independence – 1776

George Will is a well-known conservative, syndicated column writer and author of best-selling books. His work has been recognized with numerous awards including the Silurian Award for editorial writing and a Pulitzer Prize. He is also a famous baseball fan and has written two books on this subject. He is an unabashed and pure conservative oftentimes clashing not only with liberal Democrats but also Republicans who he doesn’t think are pure enough! He roundly criticized George W. Bush, John McCain and Donald Trump. I appreciate people who stick to their principals no matter what the “leaders” in any given party say and do. This is sorely lacking these days in both parties. So, I really enjoy reading Will’s work. I do have to say that he is a little too erudite for this old sewer engineer. I oftentimes need to read his stuff a couple of times before it sinks in.

Will wrote a syndicated column a couple of weeks ago about…. ummm, the title was “Is the Individual Obsolete?”. It was wide ranging. He began with a discussion on what he labels as a progressive principal – recognizing that our individual achievements could not be accomplished entirely on our own. That is, that we ALL need certain things provided by society to succeed – like education but also more basic elements of society like transportation, legal and law enforcement systems. This seems like a pretty basic truth to me but Will sees it as the first turn-off on the road to perdition. He foresees a slippery slope where government as the formal organization of society takes an ever-increasing part of the success that is realized by successful people. Individuals will be devalued in favor of an overreaching government. Will goes on to a discussion about all kinds of things in our society. I like Will but I found myself scribbling things in the margins questioning several of his assumptions as he laid out his arguments. I guess the biggest argument I have with his logic is the degree to which he believes prosperity has permeated our society. He thinks average people are a lot richer than I think they are. And I find it a bit ironic that he rails at the “political elites” when if there ever was one – it would be HIM!!!

Sometimes seemingly disparate inputs come to me and blend in ways that truthfully, many people find to be a bit strange!! Such was the case today as I was thinking about Will’s article, the recent posting I made about the Pledge of Allegiance and one of my traditional Independence Day observations. Each July 4th I listen to the 1970 recording of a medley by the Fifth Dimension entitled “The Declaration/A Change has Gotta Come/People Gotta be Free”. The first part of the medley is nothing more than the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence set to music. Its hard to believe, but I’m old enough to remember it – there was a backlash when this was published. Who can be against a song made up of the stirring words of the Declaration? Apparently, there were those who felt that it was “Anti-Nixon” and advocated for the overthrow of the government. Boy that wasn’t how I interpreted it. I still tear up when I hear it. Maybe it was the second part of the medley which was the old Sam Cooke song, “A Change Has Gotta Come” that offended them. The blending of these songs makes me feel so much pride in our beautiful country but reminds me that we have so much to do to achieve our full potential. Far too many people are struggling. There are ethnic and geographical groups that are struggling, but in the end this about real people, real individuals, who are trying to get ahead – trying to pay their bills and make a better life for their kids.

Will goes on to talk about the economic transitions that have occurred in our country. In the beginning the great source of wealth in the country was land. A century ago wealth was measured in capital. He contends that the source of wealth today is human capital – knowledge, information and cognitive skills. Will contends that “Although these are widely distributed by nature and augmented by universal free public education, there are limits to how much education – even if competently conducted which it not always is – can do to equalize the ability of individual to thrive in a competitive society.” My comment in the margin there was – Will, read what you just wrote. You are contending that people like me who WEREN’T born with the educational and other advantages of the privileged CAN’T COMPETE in today’s economy. How discouraging!! I would even say how un-American!! I don’t think he is being flippant; he is trying to be realistic about how he sees things. If that is the way it is, no wonder people sing the blues like Sam Cooke. I pray it is isn’t so for it will be our undoing.

God bless those who are successful in our country. I salute their risk-taking, their abilities and their hard work. And I think they are entitled to reap benefits from their success. But I am on a different page as Will on some of this. If any kid, who has the talent and the drive, can’t get ahead in this country, something is definitely wrong and we need to fix it. I think it is that realistic hope, that this is a place where ANYONE CAN SUCCEED that has propelled to us to where we are – the best country in the world and a place I that I love dearly and would never leave.

Happy Independence Day – God Bless America

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The Pledge of Allegiance – USC Title 4 Chapter 1 Paragraph 4

The City Council of one of the suburbs in our metropolitan area recently determined that they would dispense with the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance before their regular meetings. There is no legal requirement for them to include it. Many public entities do NOT have this as a part of their regular agendas. I might add that this organization is one that I am very familiar with and have admired for a long time. This might not have raised much interest if it wasn’t for the explanations for the action that were given. According to the Mayor who was absent when the vote took place, he was “not a fan of the proposal”. But he goes on to say: “First, I think there are more substantive things we should be working on to make our city more open and welcoming and secondly, I’ve always used the last six words, ‘with liberty and justice for all,’ as a reminder to me that not everyone in our community enjoys the benefits of those words and it’s my job to do everything I can to fix that.” So, it appears that the Council’s reasoning here is that they want to make the City more welcoming to newcomers and they think reciting the Pledge hurts that effort. Perhaps they feel that immigrants may feel intimidated or coerced into saying something that they don’t believe. By the way, as of this writing, the Council is going to reconsider their action.

A part of the red side of me really can get my hackles up about this. I mean if our elected officials aren’t patriots, if THEY don’t affirmatively pledge allegiance to our country, how can we expect the rest of the population to?!?!?! Well, that sentiment makes several “jumps to conclusion”. I don’t believe that this Council is unpatriotic. I think they are genuinely trying to recognize that newcomers to their city, especially new immigrants, struggle to assimilate to our culture and may not FEEL that they have access to liberty and justice.

According to my go-to source for information (Wikipedia), a Pledge of Allegiance was composed by Captain George Thatcher Balch, a Union Army Officer during the Civil War although it didn’t get wide-spread use at that time. The pledge that we are most accustomed to is a variation on Balch’s work written by Francis Bellamy in 1892. Bellamy was a Baptist minister and a Socialist – interesting. It was formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942 as a part of the Flag Code – see above citation. In 1954, the words “under God” were added. This is also interesting; I think a lot of us think that the Pledge is iron-clad law that has been with us since the Founding Fathers. It’s always humorous to me that anything we are in favor of, we automatically assume the “Founding Fathers” were in favor of. But that is another subject.

Balch wrote his version of the pledge as a tool for teaching children, especially those of immigrants, loyalty to the United States. Bellamy’s version was first published in a popular children’s magazine, The Youth’s Companion. James B. Upham, a marketer for the magazine, thought the pledge would instill the idea of American nationalism in students and encourage children to raise flags above their schools. Historian Kevin M. Kruse asserts that this movement was an effort by corporate America to instill in the minds of the people that capitalism and free enterprise were heavenly blessed.

It is more than ironic that one of the writers of the Pledge felt that it was particularly valuable for immigrants. This is like a 180-reverse logic to that of the City Council. And it caused me to try to clarify in my own mind what it is we want for our new immigrants. As I have said before I believe that we absolutely need immigrants and while we can’t accommodate everyone who would like to come to our country, we can assimilate more than we are presently taking in. But when they come, what message do we want them to get from us? I think we should make it clear that it is fine with us that they are here, that we VALUE them and that we want them to become ONE OF US – American citizens who love this country and have staked their futures on the country’s success. We don’t expect them to forget where they come from. My ancestors didn’t, but they were fiercely patriotic. We don’t want to denigrate their country of origin as a “shit-hole” as one of our famous leaders has done. They know how things are in their homelands a lot better than we do. But we DO want them to commit to this country as we all must do. We don’t want them to think that they CAN’T belong here. We want them to totally be a part of the fabric of the country. They should complain about taxes and then PAY THEM like the rest of us. They should work hard every day and try to get ahead like the rest of us. They should want better for their kids like the rest of us. And if their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are being threatened, they should raise cane, like the rest of us.

If an immigrant feels that those rights are not being afforded to them, we must get into that and find out what’s up. And if something needs to change to give them the right to the PURSUIT of happiness, we need to do that. In other words, we want them to be part of the deal – just like the rest of us. We pledge allegiance because we want to be part of this country. We want what the country has to offer and we need to be willing to pay the price of being good, patriotic citizens. We don’t want them hanging around the fringes of our society. Get in the game. Now it is true that as already-here-Americans, we greatly underestimate how hard this is for new immigrants. They may need some help. It is in our best interest to give them that help. But they MUST assimilate as thoroughly as possible and as soon as possible. To me, when an immigrant recites the pledge the terms of the bargain are implied. You are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, BECAUSE you pledge allegiance to this country and all that this entails. THAT’S THE DEAL.

Maybe it’s the nearness of Independence Day. But I think that reciting the pledge of allegiance along with all the newcomers is totally one of the best things that we can do for them.

“When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.”
– David Brin – American Scientist and Award-Winning Author

“Privacy is not dead, just cumbersome and getting more and more expensive.”
– Christina Kubecka – Digital Security Expert – Led Recovery of the Biggest Hack in History

“Crime has always been a regrettably consistent element of the human experience.”
– Mark Frost – American Screenwriter and Crime Novelist

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
– Benjamin Franklin

A few years ago, a hacker broke into the network for the accounting firm that does our tax preparation. The firm (a very fine accounting firm I might add) learned of the hack when one of their customers found out that another person had filed a fraudulent tax return (claiming thousands in refunds) in their name. When we were informed by our accountant the full impact became very obvious to us. Not only had the miscreant obtained our Social Security numbers and all our personal financial information, they had also gained access to our bank account information. (We utilize direct automatic clearing house (ACH) transactions for paying taxes and receiving refunds.)

We have had our credit card numbers stolen so many times that this process is becoming old hat to us. We report it as soon as we detect it or often the credit card companies detect it before we do. The old cards are disabled and new ones are issued with a different number. We have been very pleased with the speed with which the companies get on these situations and how they minimize the inconvenience to us. But this breach at our accountants was “a cat of a different stripe” as they say. We did the obvious – we rushed down to our bank to close our checking account. (Their service was EXCELLENT, again minimizing our disruption.) And then we went to work on the less obvious. We made filings with the Internal Revenue Service to prevent someone filing false tax returns with our numbers. We also then contacted the three major credit rating agencies in the country – Equifax, Experian and Transunion. We reviewed all the recent data to make certain that our credit rating was not being degraded by someone impersonating us. And we took the extra step of locking access to our records. This is advisable since one of the unpleasant outcomes of this scenario is that a criminal takes out a mortgage, car loan or personal loan in your name and then defaults. Nearly any lender these days accesses the national credit rating companies before extending credit. Of course, if WE want to take out a loan, we have to undo that so that our lender can check us out and then relock it again. We have had to do that a couple of times and I am getting adept at it. There are fees for the original “locking” but the real pain in the butt for all of this is the time and inconvenience that it involves. Without exaggeration I am sure that we spent fifteen to twenty hours trying to straighten things out.

We were just getting over this shock when we got a letter from Experian indicating that THEIR files had been hacked and our financial data, Social Security numbers and tons of other information had been stolen by an unknown criminal or criminals. Facebook is on the hot seat for their privacy policies along with other major tech companies. And along the way we now learn that our Russian friends have attempted to break into our voting records. My reaction was that this MUST stop. We must step up our efforts to insure privacy. I truly believe that our major companies and governments are working at this. Credit card companies go to great lengths to make sure that our transactions are secure. But that doesn’t necessarily make me feel better every time I see somebody in Florida spending $800 on a car rental using my credit card number. We need more stringent regulations. I WANT MORE PRIVACY.

But on the other hand, my recent experience in changing our internet provider makes me see another side to this. Let me tell you, that was an experience. The new company really seemed to want our business UNTIL it came time to sign up. I was advised that among other things they would be reviewing our credit scores from Experian, Equifax and Transunion. I said – “REALLY??!?.” They assured me that this was an iron clad requirement. Because of our experiences described above they could not access our credit history. I told them we had lived in this house for 26 years and that our FICO score was good. They were totally unimpressed and unmoved. So, I reluctantly went online, accessed our Transunion account and unlocked access for a period of two weeks. Problem solved right? Not so fast!

When I called our new provider back to tell them that the credit records were now accessible and we were ready to sign up, our account representative (a very nice lady) said, “Fine! What is your account number?” I said, “We are new customers and don’t have one yet or if we do, we haven’t been told what it is.” This was a problem. She asked if we had already ordered the installation and I said yes. She said that the account number would be on the order confirmation which fortunately I had saved. But when I gave her that number as it was written on the installation order she said, “That is not an account number – account numbers have three more digits than that.” So, I can’t be a customer??? After some hesitation she said the numbers that I gave her were PART of our account number but there were three more digits that she needed to verify. I said, “Well I don’t know what they are but YOU must, since you knew that the digits that I gave you were part of the number”. She said that she DID know but she couldn’t tell me. CATCH 22!!! So I said, “What can I do?” After a period of silence, she said that she really wasn’t supposed to tell me this but there is another number on the installation work order that has the last three digits in it. I said “Excellent, which other number is that?” She said, “I can’t tell you that”. By this time, I was ready to call our original provider back. The problem was that I had already cancelled that service! So, I just started guessing from some of the other identifying numbers on the order form.

There was a time in my life when I would have gone ballistic and demanded to talk with a supervisor and the company president. Instead although it took me three or four guesses, I finally hit on it and we are all set. I went down to the Laundry Room and had a Miller High Life! Did I run into an uncooperative, nasty company representative? Not at all, she was very polite and patient. She persevered though the problem and in the end between the two of us we were able to complete the transaction. I know that she was absolutely doing her job as she has been taught. And the company really DOES want my business. The representative’s training is based on governmental and industry standards that are totally well intended – intended to protect me and people like me. Now I can tell you that after twenty-five minutes on the phone it didn’t necessarily feel that way but I believe this is the truth. We are so protected these days that complying with these regulations is impeding business. I WANT SOME ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WHO IS REQUIRING THIS STUFF.

Most of my blog entries reach a point where everyone wants to ask, “What’s your point?” The IT director where I used to work assured me that I didn’t need to worry if our credit card numbers had been stolen, that was nearly a given. The crooks have so many stolen credit card numbers their challenge is in knowing which ones to use. If you haven’t been hacked yet, you will be. But as maddening and alarming as it is when this happens to us, we shouldn’t overreact. We can’t crawl in a hole and give up our liberties as Benjamin Franklin noted. We can’t let the bad guys win. Our federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are working on this stuff every day. This is a part of doing business for the credit card companies. They plan for it and they build their losses into their fees – which of course WE pay. I hope you never have your Social Security numbers compromised but you should still have a plan for what to do when that happens. In other words, this is life in 2019. We may not like it, but we need to remain calm and carry on as the Brits say.

The discouraging thing in all of this is the amount of expense and disruption these folks introduce into the system. Hacking is NOT a victimless crime. We are ALL victims even if our individual accounts are never breached. If these technical-whiz hackers are so smart why don’t they take one of the jobs that we are so desperately trying to fill these days?!?!? Sadly, there are criminals in our world today, there always has been and there always will be. The victims of their crimes will have to bear the costs as we always have. Today’s criminals are just adjusting to new business systems. The effect to us is that just like shoplifting or bank robbing, the costs are reflected in what we pay for what we buy AND the bureaucratic hoops we need to go through to buy it!!

“I live in that solitude, which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.”
– Albert Einstein

“As my late mother famously observed, the one thing to be said for growing old is that every year there are a few more things I don’t have to give a rat’s ass about.”
– Lawrence Block

“By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be growing old.”
– Benjamin Franklin

It occurred to me the other day that I am probably not going to be elected President of the United States. Heck I probably won’t even be Governor of the State of Minnesota. Well that is kind of silly – did I really THINK I was going to be the POTUS or the GOTSMN?!?! (I just made that second acronym up.) Well not really on any rational level of thinking. As I have said before we were taught from birth that we were nothing special – all that we had to distinguish us was our adherence to our family values of hard work, honesty and godliness. So, what in the world would make me think that I was something special – that I would DO something special in this world? Well, I guess nothing…………… except if I look deep into my soul, something inside there DID think that I was bound for great things or at least note-worthy things. Ohhh, I think for the most part I have been modest and often even self-deprecating. (Given my track record those weren’t all THAT hard to do.) But I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that at some level, I thought that I would somehow be different than my peers.

I thought I would be healthier than others – after all, following some self-abuse with overeating, over-working and otherwise overindulging in my 20’s and 30’s, I started to take care of myself a little more. I started running and watching my weight and eating a little better. (Janice would dispute that last one.) And for a while there I DID seem frightfully healthy. Sure, I had some high blood pressure, but losing some weight and getting some exercise took care of that. And I did have that V-Block or V-Notch or something weird like that with my heart rhythm, but that never stopped me from running. And I guess I did have some kidney stones – umm I guess I still do make some of those. Oh, and there was that thing with my gall bladder, but I got that sucker removed and that was the end of that. Yeah, and I guess there was that thing with the diverticulitis, but that colon surgery really took care of that. And with the thousands of miles of running there was the traditional knee surgery, but I wear some braces and that is no problem whatsoever. Geez this is starting to not sound so good.

But my heart was SOUND – I could still run a 5K or 10K race without even huffing and puffing. Well actually that started to get a little more difficult over the last couple of years. I had always prided myself on a low heart rate – a product of being in great condition. It turned out, not-so-much. It was actually bradycardia – a condition characterized by a heart rate that is too slow. And when they were checking on that they found that I had atrial fibrillation. There were a few other things along the way but I am getting depressed and you get the picture. Still, I count myself lucky because there are many others with lots bigger problems than me. But I am not that much healthier than most people my age.

OK, but I thought I would be RICHER and more successful than others. In some of my past confessions I talked about my business failures. I found my self at age 40 with NOTHING other than some lingering debt – a net worth of less than zero. But again, I have been blessed so richly. I found great jobs and married Janice, a SECOND wonderful woman who has stood beside me through difficult times as Pam did before. And little by little we were able to raise our kids, get them though college, put food on the table, clothing on their backs and get them on their ways. We buckled down and got our house paid for and have been able to retire. I don’t take this for granted, we are more secure than so many people our age. We are blessed to be able to live a modest retirement. But clearly our riches are NOT particularly noteworthy.

So, what is this all about? Maybe it is some of those rambling digressions Franklin was talking about. In my younger days growing old was kind of academic. You know, you understand and accept it as a physical reality that will happen SOMEDAY. But that someday was always out there on the horizon and really didn’t concern me. I was still bound for greater things. It is clear now that this is no longer the case if it ever was. I was living life forward but now can look backward and understand more.

Clearly, I am not rich or famous or wise. As I have grown older, I have disabused myself of the illusions of grandeur more and more. And I am thinking that this is the beginning of a piece of wisdom. A part of this wisdom as Block notes, is that it is easier for me to accept things now than it was in the past. Some of that may just be fatigue, but I think there is wisdom in it too. There is something “delicious” in this “maturity” I am learning about. As Oscar Wilde said I no longer SUSPECT everything, and neither do I feel that I KNOW everything. But amazingly I am OK with not knowing. I am OK with saying that there are answers I don’t have and things that I can’t explain. It is quite liberating.

Oh, and there is so much joy even in this world of suffering. We saw it when we worked in Haiti – such poverty and such happiness. We have food to eat, clothing to wear and a roof that doesn’t leak over our heads. But more than that we have our families to delight in, to revel in, to laugh with and to love. We are so rich. And I AM famous – to our kids and their spouses and to my nine grandchildren. They don’t know about my checkered past and they don’t even care. And to be honest about it, part of the wisdom I have gained is to know that THEY are really the only ones whose opinions of me matter. Maybe that brings me full circle to what my parents taught us – if we really adhere to our family values we ARE of worth. I feel better. I guess I am plenty rich and famous enough!!

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

Confucius

Men are respectable only as they respect.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s amazing what I don’t know!! I mentioned before that I am in a MOOC (massive open online course) from Yale. Our study concerns the American Revolution. One of our assigned readings (of which there are many – of significant length) related to the capture of British Major John Andre’ by three patriots – John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart and David Williams on September 23, 1780. By all accounts, the three were “yeomen” in the parlance of the day. I think today we would say that they were just common ordinary folks, “Joe-Six-Packs” – you know, guys like me!! Some of the various sources that I read report that the captors were members of the militia for their area – the Hudson Valley area of New York state. Virtually all parts of the country had local companies of militiamen which were called up from time to time to fight with the Continental Army. This whole story was news to me – my ignorance again on display. But as I read, the story had some eerily familiar threads with what is going on in today’s political climate. Let me explain.

Major Andre’ was a close associate of someone I was a lot more familiar with – Benedict Arnold. As you will probably recall Arnold was at one time in the Continental Army – a rising star – and then became America’s most famous traitor. One version of the story is that upon his capture by the three New Yorkers, Andre’ attempted to bribe them for his release to which the men replied that they would never betray their country for ANY amount of money. They directly brought him to the Continental Army which upon further searching found documents detailing British plans to take the American fort at West Point. That plan was thwarted and the three men were hailed as patriots and received the country’s first cash reward for heroism. Andre’ was jailed, ultimately tried and hanged before a crowd of thousands. What a feel-good story!! I think I feel a movie coming on.

But alas, things are never simple. And they weren’t always simple in the 1780’s either. By all accounts Major Andre’ was a “gentleman”, a world apart from our yeomen heroes. Many officers in the Continental Army were also “gentlemen”. Most of these gentlemen Continental Army officers had very little time for the militias and utilized them only when absolutely necessary. They viewed them as unkempt, untrained, undisciplined men who really consumed more of the Army’s resources than their value justified. Historians have built careers exploring this dynamic but it appears as is usually the case, the truth is in the middle – the militias DID play a major role in winning the war but the brunt of the real dirty work was done by the Continental Army. Again, amazing what I don’t know.

During his incarceration, Andre’ became acquainted with some of the Continental officers and a different narrative emerged. Andre’ alleged that the three men were actually “Cowboys”, a term applied to British Loyalist “free-booters” who ravaged and plundered all parties in areas where control was fluid – sometimes controlled by the colonists and sometimes by the British. Andre’s story was that the three yeomen tried to “shake him down”, seeking a bribe, and only decided to bring him to the Continental Army when they feared that Andre’s couldn’t or wouldn’t ultimately deliver the agreed-upon bribe. Some of the “gentlemen” in the Continental Army believed Andre’s side of the story more than the version told by the yeomen. But as noted above the yeoman were hailed as heroes, received their rewards and Andre’ was hanged.

Appreciation of our veteran heroes has unfortunately risen and fallen over the years. (Think about the heightened awareness we have now versus the disgraceful way our Vietnam vets were treated.) Surprisingly in the decades that followed the Revolutionary War, appreciation was a bit lacking. This improved somewhat during the period after the War of 1812. And it was during this period (1817) that John Paulding, one of our three heroes, asked Congress to increase the pension granted to him as part of his reward. Controversy ensued. One of the Continental Army gentlemen who had heard the alternate version of the story (then-Representative Benjamin Talmadge) came forward with the alternate story. Others questioned why these three fellows should be treated so much more generously than the many other Revolutionary War veterans that had received very little in the way of pensions. The Paulding request was denied. Revolutionary War vets finally got their modest pensions in 1818.

The yeomen of the day were incensed. They felt that the “elites” in Congress and in positions of authority throughout the country were out of touch with real people. They railed that these people who had never shouldered the real burden of the war would take the word of an enemy spy over the word of American heroes. And the old resentments between militias and the Continental Army came out as well. Common folks believed in their hearts that it was the MILITIAS that had won the war and now these rich and educated people were bringing that core belief into question.
Enter Andrew Jackson. Jackson was a war hero from the famous 1815 Battle of New Orleans. And they didn’t call him “Old Hickory” for nothing. He was built of sturdy stock. He was convinced that the wealthy elites were fostering corruption in the government. The common folk saw him as a man of the people who would stand up to the elites and wealthy industrialists. In his run for president in 1824 he received a plurality of votes but Congress, following the Constitutionally defined process, ultimately elected John Quincy Adams. This fueled resentment even more. Jackson felt that Henry Clay had struck a “deal with the devil” with several southern congressmen that cost him the office. But in election of 1828 there was no need for Congressional action, Jackson won handily.

Semi-interesting – but what is my point? I hear President Trump being compared to Andrew Jackson these days. I’m not sure that I can go there but I never really got it until I read this story. I’m not certain ANY of us really understand what happened in our last election, or for that matter really understand how Americans think. But I clearly believe that for many Trump supporters, the feelings of the yeomen in the early 1800’s were very present in a 2016 version. They felt devalued, disrespected and disenfranchised. There are probably lots of reasons for this, some of them economic. I doubt that many of them were totally comfortable with what Candidate Trump was saying and they may not be totally comfortable with everything that President Trump is doing. But they felt that the opinions of others – the elites – the educated – the rich, were being counted as more important than theirs. And some of  them were incensed. The focus of that anger was Hillary Clinton, right or wrong. All of us need to be careful as we define and explain our positions. It is so easy for me to feel that I have the only real valid view point. But this is a big country – and people see things from a lot of different perspectives. We always need to RESPECT others’ opinions even if we vigorously disagree. Respect is in pretty short supply these days on both sides of the aisle. Politicians in 2019 and in any year need to look at these two periods in our history and to learn.

“America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can’t be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products.”

“The historical debate is over. The answer is free-market capitalism.”

– Thomas Friedman – Syndicated Columnist and Best-Selling Author

“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”

– John Maynard Keynes – Economist – Considered to be the Father of Macro-Economics

“I’m a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But capitalism only works if you have safety nets to deal with people who are naturally left behind and brutalized by it.”

– Thomas Friedman – The Same Thomas Friedman Quoted Above

There was an article in our local newspaper this week that talked about a Facebook post from a young man in Southeast Minnesota. He is twenty-six years old and works with his parents on their family-farm dairy. The video is not for the easily-offended. There are some F-Bombs and a showing of raw emotion. The video was occasioned by an argument  between the young man and his father regarding the discouraging outlook for the future of their farm and what they need to do about it. This farm family works very hard, every day, seven days per week – the bane of all dairy farmers – and has for many years. But they are now at a point where it appears that their dream of a future working together on their family-owned dairy farm is about to be destroyed. As someone who was born and raised on a family farm, I find this video hard to watch. It is hard to watch because I have seen the destruction of dreams like his up close and personal. I saw the dreams of many in my family destroyed. The number of family farms has been plummeting for decades. I want to reach out and comfort this guy and somehow to make things better for him. He is so exhausted (physically and emotionally) and so discouraged.

Who is the despicable ogre that has done this to him and his loved ones? Who should we be angry with and what law needs to be changed to correct this injustice? The young farmer struggles with those issues himself. He notes that consumers blithely go to the supermarket and purchase milk for an affordable price without ever thinking about what needs to happen to make that possible. That is true. I buy milk and I never ask to pay more because I think the price is too low. Maybe I am the problem.

I have talked in previous posts about our failed business venture. In our exhaustion and discouragement, we asked the same questions. Who is to blame? We worked really hard; we should have succeeded. At least that is what we thought. Except that is not how things really work in our system, this for-the-most-part capitalistic system that we live in. I think we need to be balanced here. As Friedman notes, we live in a country of huge riches, arguably mostly the result of our capitalistic system. I certainly don’t want to substitute ANY other system in the world for ours. Of course, there is the issue of WHO is reaping the wealth being produced by our system and who is being cut out of those riches. But that is another debate.

In America we admire success and we aspire to it. We admire “self-made” men. (Probably a lot of those that we admire weren’t really TOTALLY self-made men. They may have had some advantages that we are unaware of.) But in any event, we want to be like them. So, we analyze things, we work hard and we invest our resources trying to succeed. Why isn’t our young farmer succeeding? Certainly, they are in an industry that we all depend on – we all like to eat. And by all accounts they are working very hard and have invested everything they have in their business. The cold hard truth is that someone else is doing it “better”. Someone else can deliver that milk to our supermarkets for less money per gallon. That could very well be some huge enterprise that milks 10,000 cows instead of the 200 cows that they do. THAT is capitalism and competition. We all benefit from it because we buy the cheapest milk that is possible.

Well maybe not ALL of us. What do we tell this young guy? He probably identifies with John Maynard Keynes more than Thomas Freidman right now. I think we all need to remember that while capitalism is the greatest wealth making system in the world, that rings a little hollow to a guy like this who may well need to end the way of life that is all he knows. He will NOT be able to do the work that he loves. He will see what little wealth he has lost to bankers and other creditors. He may well need to move from the family farm and start an entirely new life that is NOT the one that he wants. He may not have warm feelings about our wonderful system of capitalism.

Capitalism doesn’t care about his Mom who gets up at 5:00 AM and works until 10:00 PM or his Dad who has been doing the same for forty years. Capitalism doesn’t care that they couldn’t access enough capital to expand their operations to gain some of the efficiencies associated with bigger operations. Capitalism didn’t care that despite our best efforts, the technology of our family business needed more investment to make it work than we could access. And let’s be truthful here, capitalism doesn’t really care WHERE products get made. If we can buy a component that we need for our product in China cheaper than we can get it here, that is what we do. Capitalism may be the greatest wealth-producing system in the world but we should never pretend that there aren’t casualties. Capitalism is efficient – ruthlessly efficient. When there are winners, there are losers. I have been both.

I have read several of Friedman’s books over the years. I found it interesting that his view of capitalism seems to have become a bit more nuanced over time. Now he talks about “safety nets” for those who are brutalized by the efficiency of capitalism. I’m there. We need to make sure that we get the best from capitalism and humanely deal with the destruction that is sometimes left in the wake of its success. In the case of our distraught young farmer, perhaps he can find a way to refinance and make it work. More likely he may find work somewhere else in the dairy industry. He made need some training – I think that is part of our capitalistic society’s responsibility. We can’t make coal burning power plants more efficient and cleaner than natural gas or renewable energy plants. We can’t MAKE coal mining jobs when coal is not going to be mined. But we CAN work with coal miners or displaced farmers or others displaced by off-shoring. We CAN retrain and capture the value in these human resources. There will need to be a time of grieving for them. Coal miners are coal miners because that is what they WANT to do. Our young farmer from Southeast Minnesota LOVES cows. But we can’t totally pick and choose what we want from capitalism. If we try to do that and to REQUIRE capitalism to do inefficient, non-market things, in the end we will all lose. Wealth will not be generated to the extent that it could be. But we need to recognize and attend to the destruction and disruption that this efficiency engenders.