HEALTH CARE PROGRESS AND NATIONAL ELECTIONS

As a child in a previous century, I sometimes got to go with my dad on his visits to farmers in central Minnesota. I learned to drive a stick-shift car on those country roads. We often had supper with small gatherings of local farmers' families. I recall on one trip the local people were commiserating over the loss of a neighbor farmer to an apparent heart attack. When he collapsed in his field there were no EMTs or an ambulance service to rush him to a clinic or hospital, and possibly save his life.

Today, more than seventy-five years later, we read about new hospitals, services, health insurance and clinics and enormous executive salaries. And there is still no ambulance or EMT service within 100 miles of that farmstead. Why is that? Ask your federal, state and local candidates that question in this election time. Isn't that just as important as who goes to the White House?

MORE DEAD BY GUNFIRE

It is my considered belief that those who resist strengthening our gun laws, those who favor allowing anybody 18 and over in age carrying loaded weapons in public, and anybody ever convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanor, owning and possessing a rifle, shotgun, pistol and ammunition, is responsible for the deaths today, September 4, 2024, in a Georgia high school. It is very clear from the language of the Constitution and the language of the debate over the Second Amendment, that possession of weapons is related to being part of an organized militia, such as the National Guard and is Not designed to offer pesonal protection. Moreover, it is very clear that the possession of pistols and rifles by the civilian population contributes greatly to the random and criminal loss of life in this country. Everyone who supports the Second amendment as it is now stated IS RESPONSIBLE for every death by gun in this nation.

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! YES, IT IS PRIMARY VOTING DAY.

Even if there are no contests in your precinct, go and vote. It is our right and our obligation. We are privileged  to have the opportunity to vote in a peaceful legal setting. To retain the right we are obligated as citizens to invest in our election system. So please, exercise your right and VOTE!

DOWNSIZING, SAVING, SHREDDING AND HISTORY

I read an interesting piece in The Star Tribune Monday. Freelance writer Tod Nelson writes about how to manage your records as you move into smaller facilities and possibly a simpler life.. The idea apply to young adults moving into full independence and to people making mid-life alterations. Nelson also applies his recommendations to oldsters, like me, who may be able to glimpse the terminal at the end of the line.

The one missing element in the story that I found quite disturbing, and, I suspect, is disturbing to many historians, is to at least thoughtfully consider history. It's true, most of us will live and pass out of this life without making newsworthy contributions to the fabric or the perseverance of humankind. However, the lack of documented life is a constant source of frustration to researchers, especially those who lie to include context in their work.

Perhaps its my close and long association with an assistant director of publications and research at the Minnesota Historical Society that has influenced my position here. I recall learning of a political leader who's family and staff deposited twenty linear feet of documents with the MHS! Of course, most of us won't have that kind of record, but we should all recognize that ordinary daily life provides vital context for almost all historical research, writing and presentations.

I've been present many times, listening to the the intense frustrations of historical researchers who seek well-identified photographs of local folks and local events to give depth and understanding of daily life in ordinary towns and villages. And it isn't just the big archives like the National Archives or the MHS that are interested. Local, city town and county societies  employ trained historians who may be excited to consider and evaluate what you consider ordinary and useless documents and photographs.

So, before you turn on that shredder, contact your local historical society and find out what they are interested in preserving. Do it before you find yourself traveling that path through a dim landscape into the next possible obscurity.

WHITHER THE WEATHER

I often have more than one news souce running early mornings while I scan late news and early disasters. In this morning's darkness, listening to the steady downpour that used to signal an all day rain, I realized that it's already August and I haven't been to the lake.  Normally by this late in the season I've had an early morning swim in Lake Johanna a dozen times.

Not this year. Only once so far this summer. What happened to summer and heat? I keep hearing from the fast-talking weather people on local media about climate getting warmer, about hot spells and storms. Mother Nature, in this part of Minnesota, apparently missed that memo.

It's been cool to warm most days and there's been a lot of rain. Good for the flowers, but the kind of stalled heat waves?--Not in my neighborhood. Right now, it's raining really hard. The only persistent heat is of the political kind and while that seems to radically change every week, it stays hot and volatile. Hope you, dear reader, are having a happy summer, filled with hope and warm positive beliefs.

RUMINATION ON POLITICS OF THE TIMES

 

When I was a child courses in American History included several units on the history and construction of the Constitution and on the governance structure of the nation. Politics and political structure were barely mentioned. Today I looked at a textbook in which political structure and opweration overshadowed the organization and operation of our government.

Political organizations rule the roost. Candidates are chosen mostly as a result of technical evaluations from paid consultants, not by what they stand for. They get a political label. Media reports focus as often on their political affiliations as they do on the stated positions of the elected officials.

And we voters have largely bowed to those patterns. We have stopped choosing candidates on the basis of what they stand for (or say they do) and instead we look at their endorsement labels from a political party. In many place you can’t have your name as a candidate on an official ballot without meeting certain political party status. Party status has become more important than position on issues.

For a majority of voters, it appears to be more important what political labels you wear, than what you say you stand for. And will work for.

The real question that becomes so very important in the coming presidential election is not which political party will win the White House, but whether democracy will suffer another possibly seminal blow to its future. Presidents do not have the power of CEOs, but the Congress of these United States do carry that power and that responsibility.

A SATURDAY AFTERNOON

It's almost three on a sunny afternoon. Feeding time. The green rustling canopy overhead has nearly reached its maturity. above it, on silent still wings, hawk and eagle soar silently on the gentle updrafts.They peer down, seeking prey. One, my friendly striped and long-tailed critter, pauses, hearing or smelling the danger signs I cannot dcipher. Then she continues cautiously from spilled seeds to spilled seeds, filling her pouches for unseen children in her den. The predator birds soar away and as always happens in our green yard at about the same time every day, the songbirds appear for afternoon tea. One can almost see the downward departure of the feed from the hanging feeders. A lone hummer comes by to check out the new sugar water tube. Crowded on the branches of the oak black walnut trees are four or five varieties of sparrow, six kinds of woodpecker in line at the suet cage and orioles, cardinals, and a host of  other small birds in for afternoon tea. In the background, the purring sound of a distant mower, and a lone black bird with shining head dive bombs the big wind chime, providing musical interlude against squacking jays and goldfinches. Peace abounds in the neighborhood. All is well in the valley.