Comments

• On the Blog Post The Gun Issue: It's time

  

  

  Dick Bernard

  3:51 pm on Wednesday, April 10, 2013

  I'm always intrigued by "Alex" responses, whoever Alex might happen to be. Same goes for "yomammy"....Here's what I said, in public, about gun ownership, on Feb. 8: "Weapons will never be eradicated in this society. The only reasonable solutions are to do everything possible to register all firearms, and insist on weapon security, especially in the home, so that someone can conceivably be held accountable if a weapon is used in a criminal (or improper) manner. "Improper" is a difficult question." I also said, at the same time, that I was once in a 'gang' of 10-year olds where one of us almost killed another with an "unloaded" .22. Gun stuff is not abstract to me. And, yes, I did qualify as expert with an M1 in military.

• On the Blog Post Listening and Learning from Governor Dayton on Government, People and Business

  

  

  Dick Bernard

  2:39 pm on Friday, March 8, 2013

  My only curiosity about "Alex" is who he/she might be, and what her/his non-partisan substantive piece would look like. But I'll probably never know the identity of him or her so life goes on. It's a bit like the stuff that I get all the time, that details outrages, but never provides the source of the outrage, and usually turns out to be false.

• On the Blog Post Thoughts Following School Shooting in Newtown, CT

  

  Dick Bernard

  11:15 am on Tuesday, December 18, 2012

  I'm always most intrigued by the people who comment with aliases - "yomammy", for instance. I give them as much credit as their anonymity deserves, which is no credit.

  Reply

• On the Blog Post Thoughts Following School Shooting in Newtown, CT

  

  Dick Bernard

  12:34 pm on Sunday, December 16, 2012

  On wonders how long a time of reflection there should be on this: three days? A week? A couple of years? I recall there was something of a rush to judgement after 9-11-01. Wasn't much time taken for reflection then, best I recall. A good friend sent me an e-mail this morning with the following "we need to ask ourselves what would our governments and our fellow citizens be doing now if the Newtown killer's name was Abu Abdallah?" The time for reflection on rational regulation of guns has long passed....

  Reply

• On the Blog Post Thoughts Following School Shooting in Newtown, CT

  

  Dick Bernard

  11:10 am on Saturday, December 15, 2012

  My response to Nigel: In the blog post linked to at the very end of my post is this pull quote from a writing by William Saletan: “This morning, a madman attacked more than 20 children at an elementary school in China. As of this writing, there are no reported fatalities.

  A few hours later, a madman attacked an elementary school in Connecticut. As of this writing, 20 of those kids are dead.

  The difference? The weapon. The madman in China had a knife. The madman in Connecticut had three semi-automatic guns.”

  Dick Bernard, Woodbury

  Reply

• On the Blog Post A Catholic's Opinion on the Marriage Amendment: Vote No

  

  

  Dick Bernard

  9:02 pm on Sunday, November 4, 2012

  My goodness, KS, you do take a giant leap. But that's your right. I don't know if you're Catholic or not, and if you are, where you stand on this issue, or others. This morning after Mass a lady was handing out a "vote no" flier from a group I'd heard of before but really never looked up: http://c4me.org/. I stand by the "mean-spirited" comment. And as I did this morning, I'll continue to participated in this Church, and working for positive change in it.

• On the Blog Post A Catholic's Opinion on the Marriage Amendment: Vote No

  

  Dick Bernard

  5:12 pm on Sunday, November 4, 2012

  The more opinions the better.
  We didn't ask the Priest for his opinion on 'yes' or 'no' on the Amendment. My colleague just asked a spur-of-the-moment question, which the Priest - long a Pastor at various places - answered, without any hesitation.
  But what we do know, from long active lives in the Church, is that Catholic clergy are by no means of one mind on the issue, and many are afraid to say anything contrary to the official line of the Archbishop. I doubt you could even do a valid opinion survey of clergy about the question. Succinctly, from the standpoint of people in the pews of the Catholic Church (I'm not even considering here the two-thirds of Catholics who no longer come to church on any particular Sunday), the church opinion is divided and mostly what we hear about the issue is from Archdiocesan news releases.

  Reply

• On the Blog Post The Voter ID Constitutional Amendment: Committing Personal Suicide With Your Right to Vote

  

  Dick Bernard

  4:28 pm on Friday, November 2, 2012

  Just a short while ago came a robocall from former Republican Governor Arne Carlson urging a No Vote on this ID Constitutional Amendment. Send it back to the legislature and get it done right is the essence of his message. We are mired forever in a post 9-11-01 world, and what has it gotten us? Fear and loathing. But it has nothing to do with voting, which is a neighborhood activity. A cousin in a neighboring suburb just gave up her drivers license (she's 92), and I'd bet she didn't get a photo id at the time. An uncle is in the hospital as we speak, and may or may not be out by the time of the election, and he told me last night he's never had a credit card - he's 88. We seem to judge this issue by our own standards, as they are at this moment. There are endless variations, and the variations are what will render ineligible especially students, elderly and military, and as I point out in my blog, most every one of us at a time we cannot respond. I'll always remember that quote from Norm Coleman's attorney at the time of the recount for U.S. Senate in 2008: "Maybe it's the law, maybe it's the people of Minnesota. We don't have election fraud."

  Reply

• On the Blog Post 4,000 Days at War in Afghanistan

  

  

  Dick Bernard

  6:22 pm on Tuesday, September 25, 2012

  Great to hear from you, Don. Those college days are ever more long ago and far away. In a couple of months it will be 51 years since I finished my last class at good old VCSTC. Time flies.

• On the Blog Post 4,000 Days at War in Afghanistan

  

  Dick Bernard

  6:21 pm on Tuesday, September 25, 2012

  To Eric John Coffman. Your comment caused me to look the info up. Up until post WWII it was the War Department, which basically meant the Army and its offshoots like Army Air Force, etc. I believe it was 1949 when the end of the War Department came - at least the name.

  Reply