January 19, 2023

Pullman designated National Historical Park

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/pullman-national-monument/

Pullman is a site of railroad and labor and political history. You can google all the details...

My SO grew up in Pullman in the 50's and 60's in very very modest means. Her mother was widowed while the SO was in utero, and she never knew her dad. Her life was rescued by a loving family that secured a home for her in a Pullman brownstone that had been bought by her Slovakian immigrant grandfather from the savings made as a fruit and vegetable peddler. Her mother worked in the Sherwin Williams paint facility there, and she died at age 52.

Nonetheless, like many living in Pullman, the dream of a better life was strong in the family and in the SO. She struggled, earned scholarships, in the end graduating from University of North Carolina. MANY amazing stories of families struggling and kids finally making it have come out of Pullman. There are indeed dozens of MDs, dentists, lawyers, and PhDs from her generation, rising from deep poverty of the depression, and the collapse of the Pullman Railcar industry

Now, her grandpa's rowhouse, the nest place of her life and her 2 preceding generations on Langley Ave, as humble a tenament as ever existed in any immigrant community in America, is saved on the exterior as part of the National Historic Park maybe forever. No greedy Republican president can wipe out the National Park status with the stroke of a pen.

This has been one of her lifes greatest passions... passing on the legacy of the upward dream of Pullman's international and, yes, domestic immigrants from the Great Migration. Every year she helps score essays for "Pullman Scholars" seeking scholarships.

For an elderly white woman she's feeling the celebration pretty good tonite.

January 17, 2023

Now Russia is sabre-rattling about Finland

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-s-new-regiment-sounds-warning-to-finland/ar-AA16rmtZ?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d3a938124cfa422b8402e2fe65ef9d46

Russians are talking about raising tensions in Karelia, the region that borders most of Finland. It's long been a region where the Russians are uncomfortable. In 98 and 99 I spent summers on research in Karelia and no non-Russian was allowed within miles of the Russo-Finnish border.

It's a naturally beautiful place, if you like Birch and Boreal forest, tremendously reminiscent of northern MN

January 6, 2023

Living in the time when majorities are too small

a time when small majorities lead to blackmail hacks by radicals?

I remember a time when the US democracy was taught to students in Civics classes as a game of compromise. But that no longer holds.

We've seen Sinema and Manchin obstructing the Democratic Party's goals in the waning weeks of Democratic control of both houses and the presidency. In that special window we might have wished to have been spent on getting everything that could be done, done.

And now we see a similar problem with intra-party obstructionism in the R's trying to elect a speaker.

It's a time of peculiar math. More and more equal representation of the left and right produces smaller majorities... under the old paradigm we might have expected legislators to recognize that and invoke compromise and cooperation that seems to become -more- necessary.

But, at least as it is represented in the media, we don't see an increase in compromise or sharing between the parties. What we see is that smaller and smaller majorities mean radicals have greater and greater ability to successfully obstruct projects/agendas of their own parties. Rather than promoting broad consensus on less radical bills, this hacking/highjacking/blackmailing of compromise maintains the politics of radical minority agendas

This obstructionism also seems to be confused with true leadership power. It isn't. Obstructing radicals are no more leaders of the legislative bodies than a hostage taking blackmailer is a community leader.

But they ARE opportunists, of the worst type. They exploit small majorities for radical advantage where, for practical math reasons, compromise ought to be promoted.

Yes, this is what our Democracy looks like. We either tolerate/endorse this as a feature, or find paths to bigger majorities, or evolve/accept systems of voting which protect against radical minorities blackmailing the will of the majorities.

January 2, 2023

The foundation of WOKE relations existed in 1964

From the Youngbloods

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand, listen
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command
Come on, people now

Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now