Craig Common Sense

“Freedom is not only a gift, but a summons to personal responsibility.”
— Pope Benedict XVI

It’s Friday afternoon. I’m usually in very good spirits on Fridays, because as many of you know it’s laundry day. And laundry day is a good thing at Craig’s house. But I’m having a hard time being buoyant today. Maybe part of it relates to the cancellation of the State Fair. That is really a bummer. But there is this other thing that has been percolating in my head that I’m having a little trouble getting past.

There’s a lot of talk these days about how we’re all in this together. I totally believe that is true. And there’s also the sense that we will get through this. I believe that too. But I’m a little discouraged about HOW we will get through this – what the cost will be. Those of you who have read my blog know that my thoughts oftentimes are formed when disparate events come together. Today I went to Home Depot to make a small purchase. This is not something that we do lightly because of the lecture that we received from our cardiologist. We are quite religious about wearing our masks. I also have been instructed to wear gloves which I do. The masks according to our cardiologist are not so much for us but rather for protecting others. It was quite discouraging to me to see that very few of the customers and NONE of the employees were wearing masks or bothering to stay apart.

I was ruminating over this while Janice received a text message from one of her former colleagues. Many of you know that Janice was a registered nurse. You may not be aware that she was something called a critical care registered nurse. I know that because I helped her through hundreds of hours of study and testing that it took for her to achieve that little CC in front of her RN. A Critical Care Registered Nurse is a nurse that is qualified to be in attendance in intensive care rooms. I don’t report this out of pride for my wife (although I am intensely proud of her), but instead to buttress some information presented later that shows that these folks who staff ICU’s are in short supply. This leads me to the text that I am forwarding from a nurse who is NOT an ICU nurse but is being forced into the role without proper training and proper equipment and facilities. I’m not going to name this person because I don’t have their permission. I will tell you that they are a Registered Nurse in one of the Trauma One hospitals in the state. The report is pretty discouraging. I think that we are heading for difficult days ahead and I’m not sure even yet, that we’re prepared.

You all cannot imagine what’s going on right now. The last 2 days have been, by far, the worst I’ve seen in my career. Monday, we tried desperately to keep Covid patients alive all day, only to go back Tuesday and find out several of them coded and died on evening shift. Only one, they were able to bring back. After struggling all day and doing our best, my coworkers still had to run BACK TO BACK codes and lose most of them.

Why? Because despite the reassurance from above, NO, we do not have ICU beds for everyone. And even if we have a couple open ICU beds, there is now no nurses for them, so they are useless. We do not have enough resources. In person, I watched the house supervisor try to pound it through the physicians’ heads, yes there was an open bed, but no one to staff it, they could NOT transfer the patient. That patient is one that later died, NOT in the ICU, but still with us.

ICU admits are reportedly down, here’s the truth why… If a Covid patient is a certain age group and has certain comorbidities, they are being ruled out for ICU potential. We are told they are not to be transferred to the ICU. Numbers are down because they never make it there. The doctors are having “Serious Illness,” conversations with their families, trying to obtain DNR/DNI orders.
I will say, sometimes these decisions ARE in the best interest of the patient, but right now, I’m starting to see this on a large scale and with patients we would not have done it with before. Many of these patients do not want to die. Their families do not want them to die. The MD notes in the chart are literally reading like, “During times of crisis, when resources are strained… This patient likely would not experience a positive outcome…” Basically, if they don’t think the patient would do as well as others, well, the others are more deserving of the few beds we have and this patient is prevented access. Yup, we’re 100% already doing this in Minnesota. Choosing who lives and dies.

So, we are being forced to care for patients who need an ICU level of care, in a lower care environment with lower levels of intervention. BiPap and Hi flow will work for some patients, but often we are desperately trying to maintain patients who are really too critically ill to remain on them, because ICU space is now at a premium. It is NOT WORKING AND PEOPLE ARE DYING.

I don’t know what to do or say anymore… It’s seeing horrible things already happening, feeling helpless to stop them, and knowing so much more is on the way. I’m seeing our government leaders claim “we have prepared,” but going to work and having no support. Nurse/patient ratios are the same, even though patients are 10 times sicker and staying on my unit, when they need ICU. We’re short on staff, because we are also getting sick. I would usually be able to call a flying squad nurse for assistance when I’m getting in over my head, now they’re all being pulled to the ICU to replace staff and there is no back up. We had no aide on one of the hallways, like so often lately, so we do the work of aide, on top of nurse, with those patients. We’re not getting breaks. We’re not drinking fluids adequately, too short on time and afraid to remove our N95s. There’s headaches, dizziness, crying and fatigue. We are under pressure to literally keep those patients alive, because there’s no alternative. And this is the tip of the iceberg…

Please wear your masks and maintain distance if we must open. Follow the rules. I am BEGGING you, please! Please, please have humility and compassion for others, please think about your family, neighbors and their families. Please think about us. Have enough heart to care for people you don’t know.

How widespread is this situation? Is the nurse overstating the situation? I suppose we can’t be sure, but my wife worked in critical care for twenty-five years and SHE believes it. There are issues that are going to come home to roost and be very problematic for us. And why do I believe this? I believe this because I hear this from epidemiologists and doctors. There is a great discounting these days of science and particularly medical science. I trust Dr. Anthony Fauci and I trust Dr. Michael Osterholm. Why? Because they are renowned experts and they know a lot more than I do! And by the way they know a lot more than anyone else who is not an epidemiologist. And that includes our president. When I wear my mask, it is because I want to protect others. I don’t think I have COVID-19, but I don’t know for sure. And to reduce risk for anybody that I’m close to I’m going to wear a mask When I see my fellow citizens going about their business AS USUAL I have to conclude that they are not ready to reciprocate that concern. They really do not care about me. Oh, I hear comments from the people who are protesting the partial closures that they will die when it is their time. Even if I accept that they really mean that, we all know that’s not the way it’s going to go when these people contract COVID -19. They’re going to go to the hospital. And they’re going to take up one of those hospital beds and perhaps an ICU unit. And this is an ICU unit that could be used by someone who has done everything they can to avoid COVID-19 and who DOESN’T think it’s their time to die.

My point is let’s not be cavalier about the situation we’re in. What is the downside to wearing a mask or staying six feet apart?! I think that there is a lot of evidence that shows that it lessens the probability of those around you getting COVID-19. Isn’t that something that we should do as Americans? We should worry about fellow Americans! Will we get through this? Of course we will. But what will be the cost for our cavalier attitude and for our casual disregard of science? It seems to be fashionable these days to disrespect everything we have gained through the advances of science because we want to be independent or because the economy is suffering. I realize the economy is suffering. I have a daughter that has been laid off since the beginning of this mess. She is financially hurting! She would dearly love to get back to work. Do I want that? Of course I do. Am I willing to sacrifice my life and her life to achieve it? NO. Let’s keep our eye on the ball. Wearing a mask is an exceedingly small price to pay for me as a citizen. Maintaining social distance is an exceedingly small price to pay. And following rules is an exceedingly small price to pay.

Phew, I feel so much better now. Put on your mask! Maintain social distancing!! Wash your hands!!

“So, on and on I go, the seconds tick the time out. So much left to know, and I’m on the road to find out.”

Cat Stevens from the Song “On the Road to Find Out”

“Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”

Isaac Newton

“That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is- a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.”

George Carlin

I hope this posting finds everyone well. These are very strange times. When I sit in my quiet time in the morning, I often find that I feel sort of “empty”, as in I really don’t know what to make of all of it. So, this might give you a sense of how much value there will be in this writing. I read the other day that bloggers “fail” because they don’t give anything of value to their readers. They went on to say that just spouting your opinion is not of value to your readers. But………… that was my whole goal with the blog – I WANT to spout off! Now in my own defense as I study the things I am spouting about I often learn things that I share with you that MIGHT be of value.

Isn’t it kind of strange how one event can start a chain of events that have an unexpected outcome? This happened to me this week. I heard from an old college friend and roommate. He had been doing some house-organizing and came across a couple of pictures of a camping trip to Rocky Mountain National Park long ago. Funny, I have been on that same mission lately – organizing, simplifying and discarding. I am really bummed that Goodwill and other “stuff-recycling” centers are not taking donations now. There is going to be a hell of a load waiting for them when they finally open again. What is it in these days that causes me and others to want to go simplify and downsize? Maybe its just that we are colossally bored and this is something to do. Or maybe there is this need in old age to “prepare” and to not leave a mess for our kids to go through. I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal whose title as I recall was “Your Kids Don’t Want Your Stuff”. Or at least if that wasn’t the title it should have been, because that was the gist of the article.

Anyway, searching through my memory about that trip it brought to mind that period in my life. I am sure that we all do this to some degree, we associate times in our life with certain music. So, this all brought Cat Stevens to mind (or Yusef Islam as he is now known). One of the neat things about today’s technology is that it provides ready access to old stuff. So, I went on my Amazon music and sought out Cat Stevens. Wow, I forgot how much I enjoyed his music and what he had to say. He was certainly wise beyond his years – artists are kind of that way aren’t they? And I came across the lyrics written above from one of his lesser known songs that is one of my favorites. Because even at my advanced age there is still so much left for me to know and I am on the road to learn it.

Simplification is one of the things that I am still learning about. Our understanding of life’s meaning changes as we go through the various phases of life. When we leave our parents’ homes we feel the need to acquire things of our own – we can no longer use the things that are owned by our parents. So, we need cars, we need furniture and appliances, we need clothes, we need kitchen equipment, we need laundry equipment, we need sports and fitness equipment, we need yard equipment, we need a boat and a motorcycle and we need a house or maybe two houses and garages and storage places to put our stuff in. As George Carlin says, our house is just our stuff with a roof on it. We find a place near people just like us who are also accumulating stuff and living a certain lifestyle – this involves travel and recreation and kids. And we all know how much stuff KIDS require us to have!!!! But as we go along the road that Cat is talking about and we start to contemplate the end of the road, it becomes clear that we really don’t need all of that stuff and actually it is kind of a burden. We feel the need to divest ourselves of it. Sadly, unlike our generation, as noted above our children want no part of our stuff – its dated, its old, its out of style and if they really need stuff of this nature, they will acquire their OWN stuff – and that will be the stuff exactly as they want it. So, we try to bring our stuff to agencies who hopefully can get our stuff to people who are not so blessed, who actually can put our old stuff to some use. But sometimes our stuff really has no value to ANYONE and it is just a burden that can only be discharged – to the landfill. It probably says something about me, but I find that a lot of my stuff already has been or is in the process of being destined for THAT ultimate resting place.

But getting back to simplification – I want to leave you something of value in this blog; this is how I have been told to increase my readership. So, here are some helpful hints at decluttering:

• Wait for your significant other to be indisposed – they could be napping, out of the house on errands or just otherwise away. Go to one of those out-of-the-way places where stuff is and throw that stuff in a bag. Ideally you would get the stuff to Goodwill before they awake or come home, but if not, you could place the stuff out of view and dispose of it later. IF and WHEN they ever notice that the stuff is gone, you just feign ignorance.
• More difficult – your own stuff – I wait until laundry day. Many of you know that I do our laundry and that it involves a beer refrigerator in our laundry room. The laundry room is adjacent to TWO of our storage rooms where there is a lot of stuff. I sort the laundry and load the first load. I administer one Miller High Life. I sit down and reflect. I administer a second Miller High Life. I move the first load from the washer to the drier and administer a third Miller High Life. I load the second load into the washer and open the door to the storage room. At this point I am much less attached to all the stuff and I tear into it putting the stuff into bags destined for Goodwill or the landfill. I move the stuff into the garage hoping that this discourages me from bringing it back in. This usually works because to bring stuff back in would look really stupid.
• Go into the storage rooms and using an agreed-upon-in-advance marking system, designate stuff for disposal using We Got Junk or Junk Kings. Schedule the removal for a time when you and your significant other are going to be gone. When you get home, pretend that it was a break-in, fake outrage, and volunteer to handle all the reporting to the police.
• Make sure that the stuff that needs to be “addressed” is stored in the lowest level in your house, ideally close to the water heater. Open the drain port at the bottom of the water heater making certain that water damages the stuff that must go. When the “damage” is discovered, fake outrage and disappointment and volunteer to take care of the insurance claim. Take the stuff to the landfill. Later report that your policy does not cover such an event.

Now I realize that these helpful hints involve deception and half-truths – OK lying. This may lead to a future discussion on the age-old question: Do the ends ever justify the means? Still, I am hoping that you will find these practical, real-world solutions are of value and that you will continue to read my rantings.

“Remember us – if at all – not as lost violent souls, but only as the hollow men, the stuffed men.”
“This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper.”

T. S. Eliot” – From the Poem “The Hollow Men”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.”

Alexander Hamilton

My Big Brother Les and his wife often meet with Jan and me in Mankato for dinner to catch up on things. We planned to meet this week. Of course, that didn’t work out. We decided we should wait for a few weeks until things “settle down”. Things really AREN’T very “settled” right now are they? When I left for my run the other morning, I was struck by how quiet it was – after a minute or two it occurred to me that there wasn’t the customary freeway noise that I am accustomed to hearing. There just weren’t as many cars on the freeway. On Sunday, our church did not meet, opting instead for an “on-line” service (which incidentally we watched and it was good). We went to Panera Monday morning and noted that every-other table had a sign on it that prohibited anyone from sitting there – social distancing. Now the governor has ordered restaurants CLOSED. The school busses are notably NOT rumbling up and down the streets. The news channels are caught up in non-stop coverage of the tsunami of sickness that is overtaking us. Nancy Pelosi and Steve Mnuchin just agreed on a piece of legislation for crying out loud. What is the world coming to? So many unknowns – I must confess that I am a little frightened at what lies ahead.

Clearly this “tsunami” that we are contending with is uncharted waters for us. What do we do? The above quote from T. S. Eliot is probably his most quoted line. It conjures up visions of man’s impotence, his own self-destructiveness, his helplessness. I hear it a lot when people consider nuclear war. We may be so foolish with our exercise of power that we destroy our civilization and everyone in it. After the roar of the bomb, civilization will whimper its way to extinction.

I am a lot more familiar with that quote than I am with the poem from which it comes. That poem is entitled “The Hollow Men”. I have read it several times but its meaning was always obscure to me. (Engineers just can’t grasp the beauty of poetry. Where are the dang formulas?) The commentaries I have read suggest various interpretations of Eliot’s cryptic language. But there is some agreement at least that the poem reflects Eliot’s state of mind immediately after World War I. Interestingly the poem’s most quoted lines were written long before nuclear bombs were ever envisioned.

But as I think about the ominous last lines of the poem, I choose to take hope from it. Say what??!?!? As I read the entire poem over again MY interpretation is that Eliot is lamenting the INACTIONS of man in the face of challenges. If we don’t fight against the torrents of adversity, we are nothing more than “Hollow Men” (actually scarecrows in the poem). There is a lot of language in the poem about death and how we address it and how those who have already “crossed over” will view us. Those who have crossed over will “remember us – if at all – not as lost violent souls, but only as the hollow men, the stuffed men” if we fail to struggle against adversity. But if all we do is to fight with the other customers at Costco and then cower and hide away in our bunkers with our eight hundred rolls of toilet paper and seventy-eight gallons of Purell, we truly we will end it all not with a bang, but with a whimper.

So how can we be courageous? How can we not be hollow? How can we rise above in acts of heroism and bravery? We aren’t being invaded by the Mongrel Hoard or the Commies. We are being invaded with something a lot more insidious but perhaps even more deadly. How do we fight it? Some ideas – I bet that you may have other, better ideas:

• Give Blood
• Wash your hands
• Stay at home if you are ill
• Help those who are temporarily unemployed or underemployed – financially if they need it and if you are able
• Tip any hourly employees who are still working
• Wash your hands
• Pick up groceries for your elderly neighbors
• Pick up prescriptions for those who are unable to do so
• Wash your hands
• Maintain your civility as you interact with others
• Patronize businesses in their efforts to conduct their operations in whatever limited ways they can figure out
• Maintain social distancing
• Wash your hands

Whatever you come up with, remember we are truly in this together. If we can’t get through without massive loss of life and a decimated economy NONE of us will win. I can’t really tell you why you should be optimistic. There isn’t a lot of optimism going around the news shows. But some of those are the same shows that six weeks ago told us there was no problem. My point is, they don’t always know what they are talking about.

We have a lot of entitled, selfish people who have never been tested and I fully expect some to hoard toilet paper, push ahead of us in the lines to by hand sanitizer or pasta. Some of our kids are juggling day care while trying to watch their kids from home. One of them was laid off and found out about it by reading Facebook. They will struggle along with many others. But I just came from the pharmacy. The pharmacist said you can’t believe how many people are picking up meds for their neighbors who can’t get out or picking up groceries for people who are shut in. People are donating towards research; people are donating to food shelves; people are donating blood. I can’t tell you why, but I totally believe that we are going to come through this, certainly not undented, but unbowed. And it is going to take a while, I don’t know how long, I pray not a long time, but we will be stronger because of the testing. God Bless You – GO WASH YOUR HANDS.

“I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”

Warren Buffett – Founder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

“Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.”

Paul Samuelson – Nobel Prize Winner, Chair of the Presidents Council of Economic Advisors, World Renowned Economist

“If you have trouble imagining a 20% loss in the stock market, you shouldn’t be in stocks.”

John Bogle – founder and former CEO of The Vanguard Group

“Rule #1: Never lose money; Rule #2: Don’t forget rule #1.”

Warren Buffett

“Don’t gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.”

Will Rogers – Early 20th Century Humorist and Wise Sage

Have you been paying any attention to what has been happening on Wall Street the last few days? Whew!!!!! We are not rich people with a lot of investments but we have SOME but after the last few days we have quite a bit less. The main factor that seems to be scaring investors is what the World Health Organization calls COVID-19 or what most of us the “Corona Virus”. Whatever you call it, it certainly is causing an uproar. It all started in China but it categorically is going to cause disruption to the world economy and to our national economy. It is another demonstration of how interwoven the world economy is these days – for better or for worse. I have read other commentaries that say that COVID-19 is not the only reason for the downturn. They cite the recent surge in stock prices as perhaps overvaluing many of the shares being traded and uncertainty over the upcoming election. These commentator/economists would say that we are due for a market correction at some point anyway. As always one can find a commentator that says exactly what we want to hear and one that says exactly what we DON’T want to hear.

I think it is fair to say that I know nothing or next to nothing about investing. Of course, you can always Google it and find out all kinds of stuff – like all the helpful quotes that start this column. Seriously though, if you are interested you may want to check out a blog written by one of our very best friends, Jeff Johnson, called Cornerstone Investments – https://cornerstoneinvestmentsllc.com . Jeff has been involved in investments for his whole career and he is one of the smartest guys I know. But even more than that he is somebody with the highest integrity and principals. I would trust him with my life. If you wanted some real, informed, meaningful commentary instead of this silly story you might want to check that out.

So, what SHOULD somebody like us who has just a few dollars to invest, do in these times? How do you decide? Many years ago, Janice and I owned some stock in the small company that I worked for. I should add that this was a WONDERFUL company that was very successful. Because I left their employment, I could no longer be a shareholder and we sold our shares which had experienced a significant gain in value. We consulted with our advisor as to what to do with this little windfall. He reminded us that at our young age it made no sense to do anything but to invest this in the same manner that we were investing ALL our retirement savings – in the stock market. If memory serves me correctly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was about 11000 at the time. AND as fate would have it, this was the beginning of the stock market crash of 2002.

In those days we relied on printed monthly statements to tell us how things were going with our little nest egg. It seemed that every month was worse than the one we just went through. Janice began hiding the monthly reports from me. The DJIA went down to under 7000. I remember sitting down with her late one night after the kids went to bed and talking about what to do. We so feared that our little savings would be gone and that we would never be able to get our kids through college and or to retire. We considered selling all the stock and putting the money in a FDIC guaranteed bank account. At least we would be able to keep a little of what we had saved.

Well, we both needed to get to bed, because we both had to be at work early the next morning. And after the busy workday that followed and getting the kids to the umpteen places they needed to go, we really didn’t have a chance to talk about that anymore. And so the days went on. Thus, we made a non-decision by default to stay the course. I wish I could say that we were that smart or confident, we weren’t – we were just busy. The rest is history, until the recent debacle, the DJIA was over 28000.

In the early 1990’s Janice’s workplace went through an ownership change. As part of the transition the employees were given the options to keep their saved retirement dollars in a defined benefits pension fund or to move them out to a 401K or a personal individual retirement account (IRA). Janice didn’t feel that she really understood all the ramifications of the options. If we had been married, I would have strongly advocated that she move those funds into a stock-oriented IRA. This was the 90’s, people were making money hand-over-fist. Why limp along with some staid-old-duffer-managed pension fund when you could get out and REALLY make money?!?! Fortunately, I wasn’t there to influence her and she made the default non-decision to stay in the pension fund. Janice has been retired for several years while her peers who withdrew their savings are still working. NOBODY has access to a defined benefits retirement plan anymore but she does.

This is usual point in my little ramblings when my readers ask the obvious – so what is your point? I think it is something like this: We tried to be careful in our financial dealings. We tried to save and not live beyond our means. We tried to do the right things. But in the end, its better to be lucky than trying to be smart!! Our good fortune was not a product of our wisdom. We had a discussion the other night – maybe we need to sell anything that we have in the stock market. But we were so busy again today………………….

“It does not take much to make us realize what fools we are, but the little it takes is long in coming.”
– Flannery O’Connor

“My life didn’t turn out like I expected.”
– Roy Hobbs in the movie “The Natural”

We have lived in our house for about twenty-seven years. We have an island in the kitchen. It had no electrical outlets, which is now a code requirement but apparently wasn’t when our house was built many years ago. Janice has always wanted two of those. Well, I thought after twenty-seven years shouldn’t she be entitled to a couple of electrical outlets? I mean, how much could this cost? But then a funny thing happened to us – to Janice and to me. It was the slippery slope of “scope creep”. Scope creep is the phenomenon that allows projects to grow and grow because the extra work would be good and makes sense. I have battled scope creep in public works construction projects and other undertakings my whole life and I hope that I am not being too immodest if I say that I think I did a pretty good job in doing so. You may or may not have heard the “scope creep” term, but here is a real-world example of how it how it goes.

If we were going to be working with the center island wouldn’t now be the time to put in a granite or quartz countertop? That makes sense. And you know one would never have a different countertop on the island than what is adjacent to the rest of the cupboards. So, we better include those too. And really there are some things that really should be changed on the cabinets and they are SO dark. We really should modernize them or replace them with more-modern lighter colors. That makes sense. Oh, we would never want to keep that old backsplash. And you know the ceramic tile floor that we have in the kitchen has some cracked tiles. They would look tacky with new cabinets. And isn’t that new vinyl plank that we saw at Home Depot nice? We have the same ceramic tile in the hall, the powder room and the “mud room”. You wouldn’t want different flooring in those areas, would you? That makes sense. And with these improvements, are we going to keep those old appliances? (They really weren’t ALL that old but…..) And if we are replacing the floor in the powder room wouldn’t now be the time to replace the vanity top and the mirror in there? That makes sense. And on and on it went – the electrical outlet project ended up involving seven rooms and costing somewhere around $44,000. But it all made sense!!

Given the self-pride that I had in my ability to contain scope creep, how in the heck did all of this happen? Setting the humorous parts of the project aside, which many times resembled the movie “Money Pit”, this episode reinforced something I am learning about myself. I don’t know as much as I used to. Or maybe a better way to say it is that I am not as confident about things as I used to be. Or maybe what I thought I knew, I didn’t really know. Or maybe I was wrong before. Or I am not so sure that things are the way that I thought they were when I was younger and smarter. What the heck?!?!?!

Is this just a part of growing old? I certainly see things in a different way these days. I find myself being a lot more tolerant and a lot less judgmental. Does that mean I am becoming WISER or WEAKER? This question dogs me a lot in trying to understand our present political climate. But it goes beyond that for me, to virtually all areas of my life. And while it is now easier for me to own up to the fact that a lot of times I just don’t know what is best, I sometimes feel guilty about that and feel that I should be of more value to those who look to me for guidance. Shouldn’t I know what to do and how things are? What good is a supposed wise elder if all he tells you is that there are two (or more) ways of looking at every situation and that he is not so sure what the right path is?

I often ask myself how I came to be this way. I think part of what has happened is that when you are young, you are at the beginning of everything and you are certain of how the end will turn out even though you haven’t been there yet. At this age we are confident we know how things work. A wise elder once told me I was too dumb to be scared!! But now that I am old, I have seen a lot of those things that were beginning, come to their end. And as Roy Hobbs said, “My life didn’t turn out like I expected”. Maybe I didn’t REALLY know how things work and maybe I don’t know now. I HAVE learned that few things ever turn out to be as good as we hope or as bad as we fear. When we are young, most of us think we are bullet-proof and we are confident of our abilities. At this age I have taken quite a few of those bullets – and they HURT!! I also found that I wasn’t quite as capable as I thought.

Well, what can I say? I certainly don’t want to dampen the enthusiasm of youth. A lot of times that enthusiasm and courage overcomes what is lacking in knowledge. I am NOT criticizing young people. We NEED their drive and their willingness to ignore the potential problems, or at least to forge ahead without knowing what those challenges will be. On the other hand, I am finding that it is easier for me these days to live with what I have done and what I have failed to do, and to live with what I know and what I don’t. Weak or wise, I am kind of OK with where I am.

“We’ve given up on so much. Now, people are talking about a standard that is ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.’ Think about it. Is that the standard we’re willing to live under?”

Rand Paul – US Senator from Kentucky

I didn’t fall off the face of the earth – yes. I know it has been long since my last pearls of wisdom. A couple of things intervened – the holidays, but mostly home remodeling. This is another subject that I will cover in the next few weeks – it was quite the experience! I feel compelled to talk today about an event coming up on March 3 – the Minnesota Presidential Primary. I will confess in advance I feel a little ashamed that the parameters of this event caught me completely off guard. How could I not have known how this was going to go?

For many years I was a staunch Republican. I was a member of a group within the party called the Century Club. You needed to contribute a certain amount to the party to be included in that and I happily met that criteria. I worked booths; I served as a finance chairman for a state senate election; I served as a caucus delegate, a county delegate and a district delegate to the state convention. These were the heady days of Al Quie, Dave Durenberger, Vin Weber, Rudy Boschwicz and others. We were on a roll. I was even approached to run for the state house. But then I returned to public service and felt compelled to not show any partisanship, so I cut back on my party involvement. When that period of my life ended, a funny thing had happened. Somebody stole my party!!!! The Republican Party of today bears little resemblance to the organization that I was a part of. Even though it took me more than fifteen years to no longer be solicited for contributions, I am NO LONGER a Republican. Don’t get me wrong that doesn’t in any way mean that I am a Democrat. I vote for Republicans and Democrats and in the last presidential election I voted for Gary Johnson from the Libertarian Party. My objections to the positions and actions of both major parties are the subject of another rant, which will probably bubble up someday soon but that is not really what I am talking about now.

In our presidential primary on March 3, I will need to affirm that “I am in general agreement with the principles of the party for whose candidate I intend to vote” according to a statute adopted in 2018. It appears that this provision applies only in the presidential primary. Because of the way things are these days in politics with our major parties, I don’t know if I can say that for EITHER major party. But beyond that, I object to this being a requirement to participate in this PUBLICLY funded election. And even more, I object to my decision on which ticket to consider being a matter of public information. My Pop used to tell me that when you went behind the curtain of the voting booth, NOBODY could or should know who you voted for. I especially object to the fact that the information will be made available to the chairmen of the state’s political parties. This is not a personal shot at Ken Martin, the state DFL party chair or Jennifer Carnahan the state GOP party chair. I simply don’t have any trust in the integrity of either party organization. And the idea that they will “control” the usage of this information gives me ZERO reassurance.

It is true that the US Constitution does NOT address a citizen’s right for privacy with their vote. Still, this feels SO WRONG. In my paranoia I can see my name on a list that will be somehow disfavored or disenfranchised by a party that is in power. Or that I will be intimidated in some way by a party in power. Or in the alternate I can see me being badgered for the next umpteen years for contributions (as I have been before) and other participation that I simply don’t want to be a part of. Am I overreacting here? This seems so contrary to the direction that we should be going. And it feels that I am unwillingly being drawn into these sectarian turf battles that now masquerade as the political process in our country. LEAVE ME OUT OF IT!! Just let me cast my vote in private.

So, as I write this missive, I am giving serious consideration to doing something that I have never done before – refusing to participate in an election in which I am lawfully able to vote. I have roundly criticized people for doing this very thing in the past. But I really refuse to give up my right to be independent – and this feels like I am being required to be red or blue, when I am purple.

“Come gather ’round, people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’”

Bob Dylan – From the song “The Times, They are A-Changin’”

“Well, then can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the smog
And I feel myself a cog
In somethin’ turning
And maybe it’s the time of year
Yes, and maybe it’s the time of man
And I don’t know who I am
But life is for learning
We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we got to get ourselves
Back to the garden”

Joni Mitchell – from the song Woodstock

You may have seen previous postings from me about climate change. If you have you know that while I don’t hold myself out to be a climate scientist, my own observations are that man is impacting the climate, everywhere, including here. I plan to prepare an update to that posting when the data is in for another record setting year of precipitation in our state. It is hard to believe but there are people in the world who don’t accept that I have a corner on the truth and actually hold beliefs that are different than mine!! There is a school of thought that says that while climate is changing that these changes are nothing more than variations that take place over the eons of time in our world.

The divergence of opinions about climate change is an example of something that I wrestle with a lot in my old age. The struggle is described in the line from the 1970’s song by Joni Mitchell – “maybe it’s the time of year, or maybe it’s the time of man”. One of the good things about growing old is that you get a better sense of time. By that I mean that I have lived more years than my children and grandchildren, (although not as many as my wife’s mother who is still living). We have seen things come and go. When I was younger, I didn’t have the perspective that I have now. It was hard for me to escape the present. It was hard to imagine that things could or would ever be different. I was impatient. Things were not changing fast enough – those old people just weren’t getting out of the way fast enough. That is the way Bob Dylan felt, but then again that song was written in the early 1960’s!!

But sometimes all this supposed wisdom of the years just makes me more confused. If you believe what many of the pundits say, things today are more extreme than they have ever been. With what is happening in Washington and in California it does make me wonder. Wildfires have never been this wild. Income disparity has never been this great. The moral fiber of our country is weaker than ever before. Political parties are more radical than they have ever been. We have less unity than we have ever had in our country. There is more corruption in business and government than ever before. There is more unrest in our country and in the world than there has ever been. At least this is what some would have us believe. But is that all true? Is it just “the time of year”? You know, maybe all of this is just a phase in the course of human events not unlike phases that have come and gone in the past. Or maybe it’s “the time on man”, things are fundamentally different now, and we are headed for some cataclysm unlike what we have seen – this is THE time in the course of human history.

What is the answer? My wisdom is lacking. But maybe the truth is that there IS no single answer. There sometimes IS hard objective data to help us. For instance, economic data indicates that income disparity IS higher than it has been since the mid 1900’s. But what kind of data is there about how much “unrest” there is? What kind of data is there about how moral we are now compared to the past? I believe that there ARE many things that we need to be concerned about. But I don’t subscribe to the feeling that everything is going to hell in a hand basket. I am old enough to remember that the “good old days” weren’t always that good. Many things are much better than they used to be.

Maybe Joni had it right – it will always be a struggle to understand. We may feel like we are just a “cog in something turning” and we don’t know who we are but “life is for learning”. I wish I could say that this “experiential learning” was always fun and an adventure. Sometimes for me it is just plain scary. And I must tell you that sometimes I just want to withdraw – to stay in my little corner of the world and to not engage in the concerns. That is a trap! We can’t allow ourselves to do that. We DO need to stay engaged, and to evaluate everything that comes along and to ACT on our beliefs. That is what Dylan and Mitchell would want us to do.

“On November 9, 2016, a sleepless night was ahead of us. And when around 8 a.m. the most important result of our work arrived, we uncorked a tiny bottle of champagne … took one gulp each and looked into each other’s eyes …. We uttered almost in unison: ‘We made America great’.”

An intercepted message from an employee of the Internet Research Agency (IRA) – the Russian agency working with the Kremlin to interfere with and influence the 2016 Election

Sometimes it is amazing to me what is on the front page of our newspapers and what is found on the “inside”. Last night after plowing through the headline stories I came across a story about the “Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence in the US Senate on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 Election – Volume 2”. This story was on page 3 although I actually read an on-line version of the newspaper. The story really got my attention. It got my attention because I gave it credibility. With the amount of propaganda and disinformation flying around these days I hardly give ANYTHING credibility anymore. As the saying goes, I believe 1% of what I hear, 5% of what I read and only 50% of what I see!! Why do I find this article credible? Because it is BI-PARTISAN. Yes, it’s true that the Committee chair is a Republican and yes, the Republicans control the Senate. But the findings and recommendations of this report are being validated by Republican AND Democratic senators. I took the time to download the report. It’s eighty-three pages long and is heavily redacted in some parts but if you are interested visit https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf .

The first finding of the Committee is that the IRA and the Kremlin categorically DID seek to influence the election by harming Hillary Clinton’s chances of success and supporting Donald Trump. This assertion is denied by some. Now, before my Trump supporting friends go ballistic let me add that I did NOT find anything in this report that said that President Trump was involved with the IRA although at their request his campaign committee did provide some information about his candidacy. Clinton would probably have done the same. The Kremlin apparently felt that Mr. Trump would be easy to work with and worked towards getting him into office. I should add that in furtherance of that they also worked against his Republican primary election opponents, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush.

But the goals of the IRA and the Kremlin are much more comprehensive than just one election. The Report says that the real goal of the effort is to undermine public faith in our election processes and to sow discord among the American people – to disrupt our society. So they focused (and focus) on divisive issues such as race, immigration and Second Amendment rights, attempting to pit Americans against one another and against their government, or to quote the Report – “…to stoke anger, provoke outrage and protest, push Americans further away from one another, and foment distrust in government institutions.”

Once the IRA obtained their desired result in the 2016 election, they didn’t waste a lot of time celebrating (as noted above it was just a TINY bottle of champagne). The IRA INCREASED their activities after the election by huge amounts. The Report says they “… stepped on the gas.” But it might surprise you how they ramped up their efforts. They began to promote anti-Trump messages – like #Impeach45 and #GunReformNow, while at the same time promoting anti-FBI messages via #ReleaseTheMemo. One of the IRA Facebook sites that has since been taken down REALLY got me. It was called the “Army of Jesus” Facebook page. In the months leading up to the election it contained wholesome Christian messages. And then right before the election it delivered what they call the “payload”. In this case the payload was an article that stated as a fact that Hillary Clinton approved the removal of the word “God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, with no chance for rebuttal.

So, are the Russians winning? I think they certainly have been winning the battles lately – our country is arguably more divided than ever before. I write this while protests and counter-protests are raging in Minneapolis. What should we do?
• Unfortunately, I think we must be very careful about what we hear and what we read. We must consider the source and not make automatically assume something is true or false.
• We need to advocate for the recommendations of the Senate Committee.
• We need to maintain our cool and keep our discussions civil, wherever they occur – whether that be in the op-ed section of the newspaper, in Congress, on the Sunday morning talk shows, on MSNBC, on FOX, in the state legislature, the barber shop or over Thanksgiving dinner with our family – and I might add in the pages of this blog.

And we need to become a little more tolerant of each other. The more divided and polarized we become, the more at risk our society becomes.

“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?