Buffalo Gal

 Returning to the chronological listing of incidents since 2009 in the Obama administration that have had overtones and undertones of racism even after Obama spoke in his campaign in 2008 about having the most "post racial" administration ever.  It has not turned out that way at all.

Continuing with the chronology of events displaying racism:

February 2010:  "After Obama had twice insulted Las Vegas and discouraged tourism there, Las Vegas Mayor, Oscar Goodman strongly criticized him which led to Obama supporters to accuse Goodwin of racism."

March 2010: "The Obama administration filed a brief supporting racial preferences in university admissions."

March 2010:  "Rep. John Lewis alleged that tea party protestors hurled racial slurs, but videos of the alleged incident did not corroborate it, making many believe the charges were fabricated."

March 2010:  The Reverend Jeremiah Wright said the Tea Party opposition to Obamacare was based on hatred for ‘people of color.’   The New York Times columnist Frank Rich made similar allegations."

April 2010:  WorldNetDaily reported that Gerry Hudson, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union said white American workers are ‘ so  f – - -ing racist’ their sentiments can be used to scare blacks into supporting comprehensive immigration reform."

April 2010:  The Washington Examiner reported that a reporter had asked a black protestor whether he was ‘uncomfortable’ as part of the Tea Party."

—"Then there’s the administration’s playing the race card against Arizona’s non-racial profiling law, Obama suggesting al-Quaida is racist, Obama saying that Israel is suspicious of him because of his middle name—-as opposed to his horrendous policies toward Israel…and the NCAAP’s calling the Tea Party Movement facist and then denying it."

"It turns out that others are noticing this above-described phenomenon, as well, as a recent Washington Post/ABC poll revealed that fewer and fewer people believe Obama’s presidency has advanced racial relations—-4 in 10 compared to 6 in 10 when he was inaugurated."

For our nation to see racism rising again after so many decades of sincere work by many Americans to defuse this terrible social scourge, it is turning into a very sad time for our country.

The words "racist" and "racial’ have been flying in recent days…with the firing of Shirley Sherrod from a post in the U.S.  Agriculture department after part of a tape of her speaking about a past incident when she said she did not give a white farmer in Georgia fair treatment  because he was a white man.  Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary in the Obama adminisration, hastily dismissed her after having it recommended as the "right move" because if he didn’t do so immediately, it would be "on Glenn Beck" that afternoon!!!  Now the administration has apologized profusely for the hasty firing after viewing the rest of the tape in which Sherrod describes the 20+ years – ago incident as a watershed in her views about racial relations (she went on to help the same farmer and has become a friend of his)  and now she has been offered another job in the agriculture department.  It will be interesting to see if Sherrod accepts the job.  (She might have a lawsuit in mind instead)

The national meeting of the NAACP also brought up the word "racist" in the past two weeks when the organization uncharacteristically got into the race card game with their formal declaration that the Tea Party movement is a racist one.  This surprised a lot of people including a lot of people in the Tea Party which has struck back at what they say is a totally false accusation.  I saw a news item on a national TV news outlet that featured a number of minority race people testifying to the non-racial bias in the Tea Party of which they are participants.  Another interesting denouement is developing.

In a July 18 op-ed in a national news source, David Limbaugh, a conservative writer who has authored 3 books ("Bankrupt: The Moral and Intellectual Bankruptcy of Today’s Democratic Party;  "Absolute Power" and "Persecution" ) and is also a practicing lawyer, went through a list of racial incidents that have occurred in what he calls the "Post—–  but the Most Racial Presidency" (op-ed title)     Limbaugh identifies, chronologically, the racial incidents since Barack Obama became the President of the U.S.

"February 18, 2009:  Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, accused the nation of being a nation of cowards on race."

"April 2009:  NewsBusters reported that at the behest of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, Democratic Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein demanded a government inquiry into how the electronic Portable People Meter (used to measure radio ratings which experts consider to be a far more reliable measure than the previous sytem)  collects data.  Obama’s FCC indeed ordered an inquiry in the name of ‘ diversity’ because under the modern system, hip-hop ratings had declined and conservative talk ratings had increased."

"May 2009:  White House press secretary Robert Gibbs warned critics of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor to measure their words carefully, implying they were race-based."

"May 2009:  The Obama-Holder Justice Department dismissed a case against the New Black Panther Party members for voter intimidation, even though it had already won the case.  Former Justice lawyer J. Christian Adams said that the NAACP had lobbied Obama to have the case dismissed and that the case was dismissed based on the Justice Department’s outrageous policy of not prosecuting such cases against blacks when they involve white victims."

"July 2009:  Not having heard all the facts, Obama accused Cambridge, Mass. police of ‘acting stupidly’ in arresting a friend of his, Harvard professor Henry Gates for disorderly conduct, dangling race as a motive for the arrest."

"August 2009: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights raised constitutional questions about the Obama administration giving preferential treatment to minority students for scholarships and favoring medical schools that have records of sending graduates to areas with inadequate health care services."

"September 2009: A video recording surfaced of Obama’s ‘green jobs czar’ Van Jones, saying ‘You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child.’    It’s ‘suburbanite white kids’ who do it. "  (Jones resigned rather quickly after his taped comments were made public).

"Sept  2009:  Obama’s FCC ‘diversity czar’ Mark Lloyd, was seen on video saying ‘There are few things, I think, more frightening in the American mind than dark-skinned black men.’  He also said, by the way, that in the Fairness Doctrine there wasn’t enough to restore fairness to broadcasting.  In 2005, Lloyd had complained that white Americans owned and controlled 98 percent of all federal broadcast licenses. Lloyd suggsted at one point that white media executives should step aside in favor of minorities."

"September 2009: "Politico" reported that in a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus, Obama had ‘opened a fiery civil rights talk, ticking off racial disparities, calling for greater enforcement of civil rights laws and saying that the new White House Office of Urban Affairs is working to address ‘inequality’,  He also compared Obamacare to the Civil Rights struggle."

"October 2009:  The Obama-Holder Justice Department overruled a decision by the city of Kinston, N.C., to do away with party affiliation of candidates in local elections saying that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party."

There is another list of evidence for the year 2010 of the "most racial presidency" as described in the op- ed article but that will be for the next blog…this is long enough already with just the 2009 citations.

POSTCRIPT @ 10:50:   After leaving the Areavoices site, I went to RealClearPolitics and discovered an article that is similar to the one I used in my Thursday blog;  google "Racial Issues Beset Obama’s Post Racial Presidency"  by Patricia Zengerle. 

I think the month of July was named for Julius Caesar; if so, I can say you do not have to beware of the Ides of July (unless there is a tornado watch or warning!)  For the past days, at least since the Ides (15th day) of July, we have had temperatures going as high as in the mid-80s each day.  The nights stay warm also;  there has been a great deal of humidity combined with heat and that makes for discomfort for animals and humans ( I have seen the neighbor’s cows in the river up to their bellies on hot days)…however the heat and moisture make for ideal growing conditions for crops and gardens.

The grain fields have rapidly turned golden; the corn is truly "as high as an elephant’s eye" in some cornfields I have seen and the soybeans and sugar beets are rapidly growing also.  In the gardens tomatoes are ripening,  cucumbers are hanging by their vines and growing overnight it seems;  green and gold beans need to be picked and broccoli grows so fast the heads can turn into tough tops with yellow flowers in only a day.  I am so thrilled by watching my Sugar Baby watermelons develop rapidly also.  There must be over 20 little melons out of my container garden and the heat and humidty will bring sweet redness to the inside of the Sugar Babies which will not be babies much longer!  The same goes for the cantaloupes which are burgeoning in a container next to the sugar babies.   All the pots of flowers are in their greatest glory right now thanks to the heat and humidity and the watering I do each day.  One of my flower pots also has a sweet potato vine and it is going all over the place.  The lime green foliage of a sweet potato vine is beautiful.  A second crop of lettuce is coming up in another container garden and we look forward to having our own lettuce and tomatoes with which to make homemade BLTs….a summertime treat for sure.

Another piece of good news: our kitty is recovered from her illness.  She must have had a form of summertime cat-flu if there is such a thing.  Or she had a hidden bacterial infection because she has so positively reponded to her cat antibiotic pills that we have to force her mouth open twice a day to get into her.  She has gotten good at spitting the pills out and also at trying to hide when she sees her "people dad" sit down in a rocking chair holding two big towels (to wrap her in so only her cute little head is sticking out). I have just learned about a product that can make giving a pill to a pet a lot easier….they are called "pill pockets" and the have them for both dogs and cats and apparently the "pockets" have an irresitible flavor as the pets are said to gobble them up with their pills inside.      She is eating and drinking normally and wanting to go outside to be a part time outdoor kitty like she has been for the past 12 years.  She is not a spring chicken (or a spring kitty) anymore.  But she does well especially for being a three-legged kitty.   She is at the moment sitting on a pillow on my lap as I type….purring loudly and enjoying the attention and the petting.

July marches on and in less than two weeks we will see our first granddaughter march down the aisle at Charity Lutheran Church in Bismarck on the arm of her new husband!  AmI really the Grandmother of the bride?  Is this the little girl I carried?   Wasn’t I just the  mother of the groom at her Dad’s wedding to her Mother on another July day?   Oh yes, I forget,,that was 25 years ago but where has the time flown?  

That is the universal question that all people everywhere must ask….well , maybe not the ones sitting in a penitentiary somewhere.  Maybe the time goes slower in such a place.

I admire Charles Krauthammer.   I read his columns every week and like to hear him speak when he is almost always on the news panel on Bret Baier’s 5 p.m. national news broadcast. Krauthammer is a wise commentator .(Liberals probably do not share my view but other Conservatives would).

In his column last Friday in the "Washington Post" Krauthammer warns Conservative/Republican candidates for national office in November 2010:  "I have a warning for Republicans. Don’t underestimage Barack Obama."

Krauthammer goes on to cite what he calls the achievements of the Obama presidency so far.  In the less than two years Obama has been in the Oval Office, we have a total overhaul of healthcare, irrevocably changing one-sixth of the U.S. economy;  in the past week there has been major financial reform bill passed which will create at least 243 regulations which will affect, not only Wall Street, but will seriously affect "storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers, home buyers and credit bureaus."

Then Krauthammer identifies the biggest achievement of all….."Obama’s most far-reaching accomplishment is his structural alteration of the U.S. budget.  The stimulus, the vast expansion of domestic spending, the creation of ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see are not easily reversed."

Everyone from Obama on down admits that the real money is in entitlements, specifically Medicare and Medicaid.  Even with Obama’s $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $600 billion in tax increases are siphoned away for  a new entitlement—and no longer available for deficit reduction.

"The result?  There just isn’t enough to cut elsewhere to prevent national insolvency. That will require massive tax increases—most likely a European-style value-added tax.  Just as President Ronald Reagan cut taxes to starve the federal government and prevent massive growth in spending, Obama’s wild spending…and quarantining health-care costs from providing possible relief—will necessitate huge tax inceases."

Right now there is a lot of tension between Obama and the Democrats in both houses of Congress.  For the president 2010 elections mean very little.  If the Democrats lose one or both houses of congress in 2010, it could mean that Obama will have an easier time in 2012. Bill Clinton used Newt Gingrich and a Republican congress as his foil for the 1996 presidential election, which Clinton won easily.  Obama is way down in many polls measuring many things, but its a long way from the next presidential election (2012).

Krauthammer makes a concluding statement to his July 15 essay:   "The real prize 2012.  Obama sees far, father than even his own partisans.  Republicans underestimate him at their {own} peril."

We can already see some of the future strategy developing in the Obama White House.  The NAACP has been unleashed as a political arm of the administration with their suddend turn from civil rights and helping African Americans  overcome social and economic difficulties, to accusing the Tea Party of being a racist organization!  The courting of racial groups to get out and vote is another strategy that is developing. Obama has lost many of his own party, lost most of the Independents according to polls…but he is willing to play the race card to win another election and that raises a great unknown in American voting patterns.  It will not be seen til we have a presidential election again, and it may show up in the 2010 elections for Congress and Governor’s seats.

I am pleased with a new blog I have been reading for just a few days.   It is the crosswalk.com website with the blogmaster being Al Mohler.  Mohler combines a traditional Christian viewpoint with interesting articles backed up by scholarly journals and books written by scholarly writers.   It is the best of two worlds for my satisfaction.  In one entry titled "A New Religion" I found a lot of thoughts expressed that have been in my mind but not formulated into my own words.  Mohler’s essay helped me.  I  quote an opening paragraph:

"The human species is inherently and resolutely religious.  The Bible and Christian tradition affirm this truth, even as we know that the religious impulse can so easily transform itself into idolatry."    

I read this part of the blog after reading a FORUM article about "relics" of saints being either on display (or something similar) at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fargo.   My mind immediately jumped from the thought of religious zealotry to "idolatry".  I am stunned by the seeming worship of relics.

Continuing with the opening quotation:   "Even the most cursory look at the world’s cultures will indicate religious fervor that characterizes humanity.  The only observers who seem shocked by this universal phenomenon are the secularists and the prophets of secularization theory who were absolutely certain that religious faith and religious fervor would disappear in the modern world."

The modern world is definitely not as secularized as some would like it to be.  All one has to do is think of the world conflicts at this very moment in history and in the recent and far past that have been motivated by religious fervor.   The Islamic radicals who send followers out to die and kill others with bombs strapped on their bodies are definitley motivated by their own brand of "religious fervor".   The Sunni and Shiite sects in Iraq have been killing each other in the name of religion.   The Balkan wars of the 1980s and 1990s were motivated by conflict between Serbian Catholics and Muslim Croats, Bosnians and Albanians…European Muslims  who had been converted at the point of a sword(Turkish religious fervor) in earlier religious wars perpetrated by Turkish power which invaded the Balkan peninsula many decades past.  Think of the past conflict between Northern Ireland (Catholics) and the British (Protestant usurpers according to Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein militia).  At the time of India’s declaration of Independence, Hindus and Muslims in that country were killing each other at any opportunity. The ancient Crusades sent from Europe to recapture Jerusalem from the early Muslims were wars spawned by religious fervor.  The Armenian holocaust (early 1900s)was brought on by the Turkish goverment who were determined to kill the Armenian Christians…every last one of them.
 Religious fervor has fired more wars than fighting over territory.  Even WW 2 was brought on by Hitler’s Nazi party’s fervor for old "religious" German mythology, written into musical opera by Richard Wagner whom Hitler adored.  The Nazi rallies prior to the invasion of the rest of Europe were driven by a strange religious fervor.  But these are all Old Religions. Once agin quoting from Mohler’s blogsite:

"…the intellectual elites are not so secular as they believe themselves to be.  As it happens, their religion is not theistic,but it is a religion all the same.  This is confirmed in a recent article in "The Chronicles of Higher Education" by Stephen Asma titled "Green Guilt".  Asma writes the following in his article:   "Now the secular world has to make sense of its own invisible psychological drama —in particular its feelings of guilt and indignation.  Environmentalism as a substitute for religion has come to the rescue."

Asma also noted that Friedrich Nietzsche who declared that "God is Dead" understood that religion was NOT dead even if he thought God was.  Nietzsche noticed that religious emotions like guilt and indignation are still very much with us as a culture, even if we do not consider ourselves to be "religious".  A lot of people who are not religious are troubled by "religious emotions" that lead them to seek help in the form of psychotropic drugs (for mental and emotional problems)    Therapy replaces theology, the Analyst replaces the Pastor; drugs replace the Sacraments, confessions of sins occurs on the Oprah Winfrey show or other popular personality shows on TV that many people love to watch and are practically addicted to watching! The agony displayed by guests on such shows makes one feel like they are invading the traditional "confessional booth" so long held sacred and secret, an act between the Penitent and the Priest.  But it truly is a "secular religious practice".

Mohler makes this obseration:  "Some of the most religious individuals on earth are those who genuinely insist they are free from any religious beliefs at all."

Asma’s article in the "Chronicles of Higher Education" also made note of further observations regarding religious fervor in the New  Religion:   "Instead of religious sins plaguing our consciences, we now have transgressions of leaving the water running, leaving the lights on, failing to recycle, and using plastic bags instead of paper.  In addition the righteous pleasures of being more orthodox than your neighbor(in this case, more green) can still be had.  The new heresies include failure to compost, or refusal to go organic.  Vitriol that used to be reserved for Satan can now be discharged against evil corporate chief executives and bad  drivers of gas-guzzling vehicles.  Apocalyptic fear-mongering previously took the shape of repent or burn in hell, but now it’s recycle or burn in the ozone hole.  In fact, it is interesting the way environmentalism takes on the apocalyptic aspects of the traditional religious narrative.  The idea that the end is nigh is quite central to traditional Christianity—it is a jolting wake up call to get on the righteous path.  And we find many environmentalists in similarly earnest paths{the end is nigh} about climate change and global warming." (Stephen Asma in "Green Guilt")

Asma’s essay catches the  religious character of environmentalism…it is complete with religious-like doctrines and practices.  The author understands the pretensions of secularists who claim not to be religious in any way but they have adopted forms of worship in things like fitness, nutrition, health concerns and a whole set of expanding secular and environmental "sins".

It might be instructive for those who consider themselves to be secularists and also to be totally non-religious, to evaluate their "religious fervor" if they are caught up in the new religion called Environmentalism/Ecology.   Even the Bible, in Genesis… the very first of the law books of Moses…. warms against abusing the earth… but environmentalists have taken it to to a new level of passion in their New Religion of Being Green.

Mankind is incurably "religious" either via secularism or via traditonal faith practices in whatever religions one is a part of….Christianity, Judiasm, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and all world "religions" thus far identified and having a long history of being "faiths" in all cultures and all times.

There will never be a time when Mankind is free of religion;  we were created to be that way and it continues throughout all the generations past and those future.

We did something last night that is an extreme rarity in our lives…..we went to a Red Hawks game.  It is not because we don’t like going to Red Hawks games, it is just because we do not think of going, due to having busy retirement lives at all times.  It seems that my DB has endless projects going in his pole building; I have endless projects too, but mine are kind of mundane…keeping up the household chores, tending the summer gardens which has become a daily thing with gardening in containers..you have to water them almost every day in order to keep them thriving.  Now I have to pick green and yellow beans, ripe tomatoes, ripe green peppers and soon carrots and beets.  Will this delerious, mad rush never end???

But we got to a Red Hawks game courtesy of the "Young  At Heart" group of senior citizens at our church fellowship.  We all went together in a planned excursion and we went on "dollar dog" night at Newman Field.  All of us waited to eat supper at the ball park and took advantage of the dollar apiece Cloverdale hotdogs.   Why can’t I find Cloverdale hot dogs in the stores?  It is a mystery and a maddening one.  Even thhough we eat hot dogs very seldom, Cloverdale ones are the tastiest and the best I have eaten.  They are sold at Newman field and at the Fargodome during Bison sports seasons.  Why, oh why, can’t they be bought in stores?  If anyone has seen Cloverdale hotdogs in a grocery store, please let me know via the comments part of the blog. 

Our Young At Heart-ers showed great appetites; I think we all at at least two hot dogs along with a drink of pop or water last night…..I know that Roger ate 3 because I heard him say he did.  Bill ate a deluxe footlong with amazing things on it..I nearly drooled when I saw it.  If I go another time, dollar or not, I am having one of those!!!!   It looked like an UFF-DAH taco almost.  Most of us had said we were going to pull out all the stops on this rare occasion where we went to a Red Hawks game and we did!   I saw popcorn, peanuts, crackerjack, ice cream, snow cones, and other ball park concession goodies being eaten.  I had to have an ice cream cone (hard ice cream, the only kind that tastes good in a cone) and I had a chocolate one..my favorite.  Then Barb passed out some oatmeal cookies she had in a big bag and then I wished for a cup of coffee (which I did not have) and Mary went and got some mini- donuts that all of us had been scenting since we sat down.  The food aromas at the ball park are damaging to sensible eating patterns!   The smell of mini- donuts, fresh popcorn, pizza, hotdogs and all the other tasty but not so healthy stuff makes you want to eat it all.  Then just as I was feeling a bit miserable in my digestive system, a lady came around with fresh carameled apples.  Finding out that the plain ones were 4 bucks each and the ones with crushed nuts on them were 4.50 dampened my desire for a favorite treat from childhood visits to fairs etc.  I had enough by then and only wanted to drink water to quash my thirst from the hot dogs and the cookie and the donut I shared from Mary and Barb.  The aromas at the ballpark were similar to the ones at the Street Fair’s food court!!!  Irresistible!

Roger and Mary kept us laughing with their incessant calls of "Good Eye" which they bellowed each time they saw the green light on the scoreboard light up to indicate a call of "ball" one two or three etc.   It became a group joke through most of the innings. We all found out that Mary can whistle through her teeth too, with that holding- your- fingers- in your- mouth- loud whistle.  My DB just about jumped 4 inches into the air from a sitting position the first time Mary let out her loud whistle!!!

Baseball at the level the Red Hawks play is a lot more entertaining and fun than big league baseball….there are silly contests throughout between-innings times; there was a chicken race between two adults who donned chicken costumes and ran as fast as they could along the front of the field area near the batter’s box; there was a child’s race in  a cow race contest where the kids wore cow outfits and ran for a shorter distance (all of them were declared winners and got free icecream cones).  There was the "Pretzel Whistle Contest" in which two contestants had to eat a lot of pretzels and then try to whistle with the first one being able to get a whistle out declared the winner with some sort of prize!   I remember doing that one with soda crackers at long – ago teen age house parties that were so innocent a cracker-whistle contest was a big highlight of the party…that and playing "Pass The Grapefruit" relay race (old house parties)   We had to hold a grapefruit under our chins and pass it to the next person under his or her chin and we always lined up boy/ girl/ boy/ girl so we got to pass it to boys if you were a girl!!!   It involved some close contact that we thought was pretty neat for our day!!!!  It got especially interesting if the grapefruit dropped to a girls’s chest zone and you suddenly had a teen age boy (sometimes a real "hunky one" groping your chest with his peach fuzzy chin!!!)

But back to the ball game last night.  I am an incurable "people watcher" and there are always interesting people around you in such a venue. I became fascinated with a young mother who had her newborn baby in her arms the whole night.  The mother was from a South American nation and the tiny baby had the thickest, dark hair I have ever seen on an infant.  The tiny delicacy of a Newborn is so marvelous that I kept looking at the baby often to see how he/she was doing.  The baby never cried once and the Mother was such a good mother to her tiny infant.  The baby, tiny as it was, was dressed up in tiny plaid shorts and a matching shirt..I think it was boy clothing , come to think of it but the tininess of everything brought me back to the days of all my totally white haired, bald- looking babies and grandbabies…nobody in our clan had thick hair like that baby did!!!!  I wish I  could have cradled him for awhile!!!!  He was the most darling little guy…so tiny and so helpless and so dependent on his Mother for every thing, he was too young to even lift his tiny head by himself.  I watched that baby more than the Red Hawks!

The Hawks did not play well and were beaten by the Gary team.  We still had our money’s worth and enjoyed the seventh inning stretch when all of us Seniors stood up and bellowed out "Take Me Out To the Ball game, Take me out to the crowd, buy me some peanuts and cracker jack, I don’t care if I ever get back, for its root, root , root for the Hometeam, if they don’t win it’ a shame….for its one, two , three strikes your’e out, at the old ball game"!!!!!

That has to be one of the songs Americans all know best…maybe more than the National Anthem, sadly.

The blog title is an exact quote of an article I read by Benjamin Wiker on a news site I read each day.   His essay is about a book by another writer, Nicholas Carr and Carr’s work is titled "The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains."

I have to directly quote from the Wiker piece:  " Carr argues the the medium of the Internet, by its very nature, is destructive of the capacity for deep reading and deep thinking.  As a result, even a slim article (let alone a thick book) lies beyond our technologically enfeebled powers of concentration.  Sufing the Internet is an apt metaphor.  Habitual users are masters of skimming along the surface of the web, climbing and dropping from page to page, weaving and ducking from hyperlink to hyperlink.  The unfortunate downside is that all this frenetic cyber-darting causes their minds literally to reconfigure themselves accordingly.   They become creatures whose brains are what they do…..Neither out too far or in too deep. they have lost the power, the distinctly human power, to go beyond the surface."

As I read and studied those words (on the Internet, by the way! …a place I do a lot of reading on a daily basis.)…..I thought about what I used to say to students who came into the school library when we would have "serious talks" about reading.   I noticed over the years (nearly 25 of them) that there was a distinct difference in the students in elementary grades from  when I first began in 1980 and when I was in the midst of my time as the school’s elementary librarian/media person.  The difference that was constantly developing was the loss of the young student’s power to concentrate on things….reading to themselves, listening to me read aloud. listening to me when I instructed them about library skills that would help them find things they wanted.   I had so many students over the years that would ask for my advice about finding a good book to read and I was always willing to seek it out with them; sometimes we talked about what they were really interested in reading about; we talked about whether they liked fiction or nonfiction reading…sometimes we went to the card catalog to look for titles that might interest them after I found out what those interests were.  But so often after doing all this "work" between the two of us, we would locate a book or books on the shelves and the students would look at it and say "But that is too long" which meant that they saw that it was a pretty thick book, size-wise.  So many students…the majority of them…were not willing to read a "long" book and I knew it was because they had lost the ability or power to concentrate even on something they were interested in.  It was very discouraging.   It also developed that many students did not even want to check books out; they would spend their time in the library looking at magazines and I do mean "looking"; the were unwilling to read articles in the magazines even though the reading was fascinating.  They only wanted to skim through the pictures and hurry on to skim another magazine’s pictures.  I can remember students asking me what this picture was about and I would say, "why don’t you read the words that are underneath the picture?" and they were amazed; it had not occurred to them to read them on their own!

At times in "our serious talks" I would ask the students what they thought the effects of watching a lot of television had on their desire to read books.  We also talked about the electronic game playing that developed so rapidly in the 1990′s and beyond.  The students admitted that they were often far more interested in watching TV or playing the electronic games or online games rather than take the time to enjoy a really good book.  As it turned out there became more and more "electonic distractions" to pull interest away from some real reading that might involve some deep thinking .

Teachers said that getting students to read a chapter book was like pulling out their teeth in many cases.  In the classrooms they had required reading assignments which invoved reading books other than text books…and students did not want to do it.  They were unwilling to invest the time it took to read a longer book even though the story was fascinating and sure-fire interest- producing in the 4-5-6 grade elementary levels.

Now as I read the piece by Benjamin Wiker, I thought of all the adults who are becoming unable to concentrate on longer, deeper materials because, just like my old students, they have lost that capacity to concentrate from surfing the Internet so much.  "So what?" said the writer (Wiker)  "This is the Information Age.  Deep and slow are out.  Wide and fast are in."

But wide and fast are what make us human.   "The loss of our ability to concentrate, to patiently unearth what lies below the surface, means a withering away of sapiens from homo.  The influence of the Internet, argues Carr. is the molding of our brain to habitual agitation.  We have become  intellectual nibblers, flitting from hyperlink to hyperlink, incapable of deep and quiet rumination.  Alas, homo stupidus, senseless man, man in an electronically induced stupor."

Wisdom is a hallmark of the human species;  we are uniquely equiped to excercise wisdom in thinking, in acting, and in all the activities of our lives.  The shallow surface of skimming over things we run across on the Internet are probably not going to contribute to the deep thinking and deep reading that will help us toward beoming wise human beings.  Another quote from the Wiker article about the Carr publication:

"G.K.Chesterton once defined madness as  ’using mental activity so as to reach mental helplessness.’    This seems to be the real effect of the medium of the Internet on the mind. As Carr makes clear, the effect is caused by  the medium itself, by way the Internet delivers information.  It may very well make available any number of literary and philosophical gems, every classical text worth conserving, but it delivers forms the brain in the click and skim image of the medium.  We become mentally helpless, incapable of the kind of sustained attention necessary for deep reading and deep thinking that follows upon it."

I found that reading this book review and article by Wiker alarmed me, personally.  Since I have learned to use the Internet, I read a lot of things but….a lot of things often mean I read rather shallowly and I have found that at times, when I start on an internet article, I will stop and jump to something else.  This is particularly alarming for one who grew up in the time of NO technology other than radio or telephones.  My brain has suffered "damage" from the shallowness of the kind of reading that allows you to jump from link to link and subject to subject.  I remember having to read and concentrate deeply on reading assignments in my college years and it was not that hard to do then.  

  I wonder if I could do it now?

With a suggestion from a new and well-read friend, I have found a new blog I know I will read regularly.  I will also probably comment on the blog on the Buffalogal one.  This person makes realistic connections between living the Christian faith and facing situations in the real world we have to live in each day of our lives.  Sometimes reality makes a believer hit the wall and wonder what is going to be the outcome of such a messed up world?

This morning while attending an adult Sunday School class, we had the priviledge and distinct experience of having a teacher who is a native of the English speaking part of the Cameroon in central Africa.  He made a statement that affected me….he said when dealing with daily news which is almost always negative and disturbing, it is very good to remember the opening line of a familiar hymn:  "This is my Father’s World"   Slapping yourself on the cheek and reminding oneself of Who is really "in charge" of everything gives a new perspective for a Christian believer who takes the faith seriously.

The childrens’ song "He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands" speaks truth to adults as well as children also.

It has been a good morning and early afternoon today.

**crosswalk.com  by Albert Mohler    (the new blog I have just discovered this afternoon.)

One of my good friends has two grandkids, both still in the toddler stages of life..a girl and a boy.  The girl’s name has the sound of "lay-nuh" in her name but her little brother has shortened what he calls his sister to "Lena" and he pronounces it just like Ole says his wife’s (Lena) name!    Any adults present who hear the little brother say, "UH-OH, Lena" knows that the sister is doing something she shouldn’t be doing and it is time to check on the kids.

A terse editorial in INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY  opines about the Obama administration having many "UH-OH Lena" moments recently.   The late response to the Gulf oil spill, the controversial financial reform bill….going on too many vacations and playing more rounds of golf in 18 months of his presidency than Tiger Woods,  has resulted in Barack Obama being told  "UH OH Lena" by the IBD editorial. (July 15, 2010)

"Once the darling of everyone, this administration now seems to be at odds with everyone, feuding, fussing, and defending itself.  Not since Carter have we had a White House so divorced from public opinion.  You expect the opposition to disagree with a president who has moved the country farther to the left than any chief executive since FDR.  And indeed the charges have been epic, whether it is the nationalization of health care, the $700 billion in bail outs, the $862 billion in failed stimulus, the takeover of the car industry or attempts to control Wall Street."

The editorial goes on to point out some uncomfortable recent facts about the faltering Obama administration which include the following:

**a White House visit by Democratic congressional leaders for a joint strategy session dissolved into an angry confrontational shouting match with Congress members blaming the administration for  their plunging polls.

**With average Americans angry about the economy, illegal immigration, and the incompetence of handling the BP oil spill, the Tea Party Movement is surging even more than it was before.

**Certain business groups that started out friendly to Obama have taken a turn:  The Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs of major companies in the U.S. worth more than $6 billion dollars,  have all warned that current administration policies…all the new taxes, regulations, bailouts….are killing economic growth and job creation.

**Even among the states, Obama is facing a major revolt.   39 states are fighting against Obamacare.  After the Obama DOJ filed suit against Arizona for its new immigration law, nine states immediately stepped up to support Arizona.

**Foreign nations who welcomed Barack Obama as a savior and deliverer and messiah in the first months of his presidency, are now turning against him, with  EU president, Jose Manuel  Barrosa giving a warning:  "The transatlantic relationship is not living up to its potential". That sounds like a diplomatic way to say that EU countries are disgusted with the Obama policies that they see affecting their nations.  Even Britain,once the staunchest of allies, now talks about an end to the special relationship Britain had with American in the past.(I think the shoddy gifts given the Queen and the Prime Minister by Obama might have been the beginning of the unraveling of the "special relationship"…..a box of American videos and tapes of Obama’s own speeches on I-Pod???  Give us a break!)

The editorial in the IBD concludes this way: "This is what happens when a president is elected  with little scrutiny, and lots of uncritical fawning media coverage.  It is now dawning not just on political foes, but friends as well."

Woe is us!

I drove "over to" Barnesville today to go to the County Fair and help out a friend who asked if I would spend 2 hours as the hostess at the preserved country schoolhouse on the Fair Grounds.  "Over to" Barnesville: my family’s way of describing a trip to Barnesville and we made plenty of them; it was my Dad’s birthplace and mine also.  His brother and his 3 uncles lived there all their lives and his sister and her family lived on the Homestead Farm begun my Dad’s grandparents in about 1866…that farm is just a bit east of Barnesville.  We had plenty of connections and we went "over to" Barnesville for a lot of family things in the days when I  was growing up.    We also described driving to other towns these ways:   UP to Hitterdal, Ulen, Twin Valley and Fargo-Moorhead.     DOWN to Detroit Lakes, Fergus Falls and Minneapolis/St Paul, and Chicago.  OVER to  Perham, Frazee, Lake Park and Audubon..and of course, Barnesville.  It is funny how we describe geography in words because if we paid attention to the real geography we would drive DOWN to Fargo,  and UP to Fergus Falls. Oh well, I can’t get over saying those things about driving places…so I DID drIve over to Barnesville this morning.

I met my friend Rose at the little schoolhouse which sits right beside the 4-H building where they serve meals and snacks and other food and drink.    The school was a small one compared to a few other one room country schools I have seen in my day.  My mother taught in 3 districts from 1929 to 1933 when she married my Dad and getting married almost always ended one’s career as a teacher.  Married women were expected to stay home and take care of household things, husbands and children when they came along.  It was just the way it was back then.

While I spent two hours in the little school, I looked at the many pictures the Clay County Historical Society has put up..pictures tracing the history and the students and teachers of many Clay County rural schools which exist no longer….only this little school and the Woodland District 3 east of Rollag which is also preserved survive.  The others were hauled away to use as granaries or other farm buildings or were converted into homes.  The rural school in Cormorant Village has been made into a lovely community center.  I found so many familar friends in those pictures; in the late 1940′s and the beginning of the 1950′s the rural schools began consolidating with town schools and bus service into the country began to grow.  It was always exciting for us "townies" to get new kids in our class as the rural schools came to town.

Today I read through the meticulously kept records of country school districts which have been preserved by the County Historical Society.  I found my Mother’s name listed as a teacher in the various districts she taught in til she settled in her home district of Woodland 3 in 1931 where she taught til her marriage.  I found other teacher’s names I have known over the years and where they taught.   There were once 115 rural schools in Clay County! They were spaced every few miles thoughout the county and there were jobs for 115 teachers too.  There was a County Superintendent….most of the years it was filled by Ellen Anderson who was a native of Rollag like my Mother.  I recall going to a big festival each spring in our Community Building where all the rural schools gathered for a whole day of singing, performing special solo acts from individual school districts.  I can still see my cousin Curt, who went to a rural Tansem Township school, as he danced with others in a lively square dance that their school soloed in for the County Music Festival.  I can still see him dancing..he was wearing a nice blue suit with a red shirt and as he danced his tongue stuck out one corner of his mouth the whole time, so engrossed was he in getting it right in every step, allemande, dosie- doh and swing your partner!!!  Those country school festivals were wonderful and the crowd at the festival was always huge!  It was a day in town for the kids from the country and they enjoyed it as much as their audiences did.

One thing I read today really stood my hair on end.  There was a newspaper account of an incident…a crime..that occurred at a country school in Spring Prairie Township northeast of Glyndon MN.  There was also a handwritten letter by "Louise" a lady I remember so well who lived in my town when I was growing up.  Louise had been a school girl that fateful day in March 1913 when a disgruntled "boyfriend" of the teacher in that school showed up with a gun, determined to shoot the young woman who had rejected him as her beau.  He entered the school almost as soon as the children were begining the school day but he did not brandish his weapon then.  Towards the middle of the day, after noon recess, he and the teacher walked into the cloakroom entry to talk it out.  It did not work; she ran into the schoolroom shouting "Boys, help me!" as her rejected boyfriend began firing his gun at her.  She was hit several times as the children watched in horror and the man shouted at them to get out and "go to that place!" as he pointed toward a neighboring farm.    (I left this unfinished…sorry..here is the rest of it)     The children were so frightened that they ran out of the schoolhouse without getting their warm jackets, boots, etc.  March of 1913 was one of the coldest on record so many of the students sustained frostbite in their frantic escape from the crazed man in their schoolhouse.  Toes and ears were frostbitten and painful but the time they reached shelter in the neighboring farmhouse.

Meanwhile back at the school, the rejected boyfriend (both the teacher and the boyfriend were Ulen natives with "Ulen names" I recognized)  began to chase the fleeing teacher, shooting at her as she ran out of the school through a back door and over to a church that was nearby—-but unfortunately the church was locked up.  The teacher ran around the outside of the church with the boyfriend in pursuit still shooting at her, hitting her seven times but none was a fatal shot.  Finally he caught up to her after shooting her in the neck, after which she fell down.  He thought he had killed her (he had not) and went close enough to her so she heard him say, "I guess you have had about enough" and then he turned his gun on himself and succeeded in killing himself.

When neighboring men came to the school quickly (after hearing from the children what was happening at the schoolhouse) they found the "boyfriend" dead on the ground and the teacher at her desk inside, crying helplessly.  She had managed to crawl into the school house and sit at her desk, hoping the help would arrive shortly.  They men brought the teacher to a neighboring farm where she was taken care of for about 3 days til they could get her to the nearest hospital of the time….Northwest Hospital which later became the old St. Ansgar…not the building that still stands now but a much older smaller hospital nearer to the river at about the same area in North Moorhead where the present, non-hospital St. Ansgar’s building still stands. She recovered from her gunshot wounds over a period of months and was released from the hospital to return to her parents’ home.  She never went back to teaching again (not surprising).  She became a nurse and worked in that capacity as a supervisor of nursing at a Grand Forks hospital for many years.  She never married.  She did live to a reasonably old age, but lived with one of the bullets lodged in her neck, as the doctors at that time could not remove it without killing her in the process.  People who knew her through her lifetime said she was a remarkable woman who survived the most awful day of her life in March 1913 but went on to be a true servant to others as a nurse.

A letter written in handwriting is also kept in a folder in the schoolhouse.  It was written by "Louise" who was present the day of the shooting as a school girl.  Many years later she wrote the letter to her friend "Ruth" explaining how things went down that day.  It was a dramatic description, well written by Louise when she was an older woman.  Her memories of that day were still so vivid…just like the day it happened and she described the whole thing from the time the man walked into their schoolhouse til the students fled from the shooting.  Several students were treated in the old fashioned way at Louise’s home, for frostbite when her older sister rubbed snow on the frostbitten toes and fingers.  The teacher was also kept and taken care of at Louise’s home til they could get her to the hospital.  I imagined what it was like in those days….no telephones, probably very difficult snow-blocked roads….it took days for the people who lived in that school district to get the teacher to the hospital in Moorhead where Dr. Hagen, a name from Moorhead’s history that was familiar to me, took care of the teacher until she was completely recovered.

We react in horror to present day acts of violence…..many gun incidents..way too many…and we think this is only a current phenomena.  But I found out in that little old school house on the Fairgrounds, that violence, anger and its tragic results existed long ago at the beginning of the 20th century when the children in District 54 were so horrified at seeing their teacher shot and wounded by a crazed, rejected boyfriend.

Before I left the Fair yesterday, I ate lunch at the Barnesville FFA food booth.  It was for "old time’s sake", remembering the days when 2 of my boys were FFA members and their chapter also had a food booth…the local FFA still has a food stand but they specialize in making "malts".  I was going to have a malt before I left, but eating lunch….the "special" at the Barnesville FFA stand, I did not have room for a malt.  When my boys were FFA-ers, I served my time in the hot small "kitchen" for the food stand, making batches of barbecued hamburger, frying regular burgers, mixing up baked beans and potato salad.  I could see the Moms and FFA members cooking in their little hot kitchen off the B’ville FFA booth on Friday and I breathed a silent "thank you" that is was not me, in there!!!!

I also took the street in Barnesville where 4 significant old homes still stand.   Close to the north edge of the town is the small house where my Dad was born when his family lived "in town" before they moved to "the Homestead Farm" when my great-grandparents needed the oldest son to take over the farming.  Right across the street from that small home is the large and beautiful home of my great Uncle Syver who , I think, was a banker in Barnesville, for many years.  The big 4-square home has a stone-masonry porch.    I wish I could see inside the place.  I have a feeling that is beautiful and sturdily built as old homes from the early 1900′s are most of the time.    Then I drove south on the same street and passed my Uncle Carl’s first home that I recall visiting as a very young child. There is a black and white snapshot taken at that home….there is still a bit of snow on the ground and some of my cousins are wearing winter jackets…we who were the smallest and youngest must have been brought outside in our dress up Sunday best for the picture taken with our Grandpa Hans.  Two oldest cousins are missing; I think they might have gone "downtown" to Lakies’ restaurant where teenagers of the time gathered, or maybe they were at a Sunday matinee at the theater in Barnesville.   Then I drove further south and saw the stone masonry church where I was baptized as a baby and also the second home my Uncle Carl who moved about half a block south on the same street.  That was the house I remember best….the place of so many wonderful times especially the week of Christmas when all of us gathered for a family Christmas "gathering". (we did not call it a "party"..our family was too staid and proper and opposed to parties which indicated card playing and alcohol consumption…NOT for us!)

My drive and stay "over in" Barnesville, my birthplace, was completely satisfying and a half day well spent, pleasant and happy as I revisited many places I identify with my childhood. Now I wish I had driven by the house where my parents and I, as a baby, lived.  It is almost kitty – corner from the Barnesville school buildings.  Next time I will go by that house too, when I drive "over to" Barnesville.