Dale Connelly Composted, in High Definition

It ain’t over until the Fat Lady sings. She sang yesterday. About Dale Connelly.

After 34 years, with Minnesota Public Radio. Dale Connelly will be leaving KNOW, 91.1 FM. The last day was June 4th. Friday. On Radio Heartland. On digital radio. Where ever that is. And re-broadcasted on “Radio Heartland” on Saturday evening. On KNOW, 91.1 FM.

And so it goes, MPR announced Wednesday. With the ax. In the conservatory.

It was on December 12, 2008. When “The Morning Show” on Minnesota Public Radio was first chopped up. The end had come to an institutions that I had loved, as part of the routine. Even then there there had been rioting in Greece. There seemed to be a question about how moral every day life would become. Without “The Morning Show.”

“The Morning Show” was not exactly canceled by MPR, upon Tom Keith’s retirement. Tom Keith was the sound-effects guy for “A Prairie Home Companion.” Connelly was to continue with an online version. To try to still affect the morning sound. With his soft quiet style. Or so the plan. Not quite put out to pasture. To the quiet pasture.

“The Morning Show” started 41 years and 6 months ago. This was where Garrison Keillor got his start, and moved on. That was the end, unless you had high definition radio. “Radio Heartland” was the morphing of “The Morning Show.” High definition radio. Some kind of recycling proposal. On the internet. Where the Prairie Home met the euphemistic pasture. Wherever that could be found. High definition radio had never had been picked up by sports bars.

The morning kindness. Dale Connelly and Tom Keith (with a stage name of Jim Ed Poole) had blended music and personality, before new fangled coffee companies ever thought of blending. When a good share of Minesotans only knew Mrs. Olson’s Folger’s coffee.

Dealing with change. Dale Connelly, “part of the fabric of what built MPR,” had not quite been put out to pasture. He was composted, with all the other coffee grounds. Minnesota Public Radio’s own private stash. Digitally removed, in less than 18 months. In the view of MPR, with the “cash for clunkers” program, it now was really over for Connelly’s 1976 gig. It was hard finding the old parts, on the internet highway.

It was now the end. The announcement touched on the aim for a sustainability which was not achieved. Though high definition radio would play on. With “Radio Heartland” producer, Mike Pengra, picking the music. Valerie Arganbright, senior director for MPR membership, wrote the announcement. “While we’ll be able to continue providing the wonderful music that you expect from Radio Heartland, we have cancelled Dale Connelly’s weekday morning show.”

So as the music heard on MPR’s Radio Heartland plays on, this would be the end Dale’s involvement with Radio Heartland. His own sustainability had not been achieved.

And so it goes. MPR announced Wednesday the end. The green movement in the new paradigm of public radio. The Current. With the ax. In the conservatory. After their most recently completed fund-drive. Perhaps a part of their own version of going green. While promoting composting and sustainability, in Minnesota. After acquiring that radio station in Northfield, but not being able to sustain the familiar on-air voices. More rioting was expected in Greece.

Where Are You When We Need You, Paul Revere?

Did you notice that Zygi Wilf was, after his purchase of the Minnesota Vikings, as lucky now as Prince Charles? Except for the issue of waiting, with so little hostility directed at the overall process of royalty. “If you got a bill in the mail every year for seven bucks — that’s the cost of a beer at new Target Field — would you consider that a worthwhile contribution for keeping your pro football team?” writes David DeLand in the St. Cloud Times.

Would they ever put the question to the voters in England. About the cost of Buckingham Palace? Or a new house every thirty years? Or about just continued public subsidies to The Royals? In a nation that never believed in royalty, would they ever put the question to Minnesotans?

Where, by the way, had the Kansas City Royals come up with the money to refurbish their stadium, Mr. DeLand of the sports department?

Did you have to be in the souvenir business to notice that licensing fees in the NFL went to the NFL. The NFL that never paid for new stadiums, like was required in Europe. MLB was late to the game over this concept of licensing fees, by about five or ten years. When, beginning in the 1970s and ever since, it was all about the cost of the official logos on your purchases.

Licenses and licensing fees. Driver’s licenses. Fishing licenses. The revenue always went to a government body. Except when it came to sports authorities. In these parts, the local NFL franchises never paid for new stadiums. The one that was demanded in the late 1970s, with a dome. The father of the mayor of Saint Paul spent a lot of time seeing that the bill was passed. Yeah, in a day before there seemed to be franchise rights sold for elected office, which too many politicians somehow had passed along. Since the days of the Kennedys. The Cuomos. The Bayhs in Indiana. All those bleeding hearts. And the Bushes. And the Clintons. Now with their organized ways to show up at every car crash. Or hurricane. Like they cared.

When public service was now something else. About only power. Too many thoughtless if not clueless sons and daughters of politicians. Jock sniffing for votes. Trying to run a show that a Prince Charles could only envy. With real power.

The NFL that never paid for new stadiums, like was required in Europe. Or out east. With too many politicians seeking autographs instead of tax revenue from these athletes. There should be a national tax on MLB and the NFL, for revenues raised to pay for the next sports stadium they felt they needed. And yes on the Player’s Association and the NFL Players’ Union, who got something like 55% or more of the revenue.

Prince Charles could envision himself in the picture, as the role model for local baseball people as they made trips to other fiefdoms in the kingdom of MLB, to view their new palaces. Though Prince Charles had been able once to send his wife, when he was married to a blonde, when he tired of it all.

There was a day when kings and queens gave everything away for free. For loyalty. Before the politicians and manufacture’s reps entered the picture, with blackout rights. Did you notice all the hostility directed at the Goldman Sachs who, like all the reptile oil salesmen at the reptile oil emporium, were making so much? And the ensuing jealousies there. Over money and good looking blondes.

Note all the ambivalence of the audience, the ones watching for free, about these thugs who had no investment in the game. Or the carpetbaggers, with only manufacture’s reps working for them as reptile oil salesmen at the reptile oil emporium, until they acquired the local NFL franchise, and entered the picture.

”There’s a critical mass of legislators, fans and business leaders,” said Lester Bagley, the Vikings’ Vice President of Public Affairs and Stadium Development. “Who believe this is the year.” Were they the ones on the bicycles at rush hour, tying up traffic? Mostly on Fridays?

“We know that this is a tough discussion, and the economy is tough,” Bagley said. “But we think we have a good story to tell: What we bring to the community.”

His current neighbor across the street is Hennepin County Medical Center, a hospital in the community that was really bleeding, where they seemed to think 2010 was the year for them. Or hope. Like a lot of Viking fans. With bleeding hearts, over politics and sport. This was finally the year? But at HCMC, those fans would die, actually die, unless something was done about the budget issues. This year.

Just as the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, yeah under Prince Charles, was being shut down for fraud, the Redcoats were coming. One if by land. Two if by sea. Or maybe by bike. Or ambulance. Camouflaged in purple.

Visual Web Search

Another Reason for Making Whoopi

Those love nests called home.

The Minnesota Vikings expected a state so deeply in debt to finance their stadium. When decade after decade one owner replaced the other, reaping unbelievable return on their investment. In baseball, the franchise was owned by people who have lived here since 1961. In the case of the NFL, that no longer was true. Now our NFL franchise owner was from out east. A real estate tycoon. And his lease was up after 2011. But he was not making threats. About the Minnesota part of his franchise name.

Professional sports franchises. Their lobbyists had become the media that covered them, because the networks sold commercial time. Because consumers bought their products. But the athletes, whether locally grown or not, will pay taxes on the income. And people will travel here to see them play. That is the argument, without discussion of a user tax.

But with tax payers money, we are learning that the Minnesota franchises can play the same game with the redistribution of the wealth as in other localities. Where even the Saint Paul Saints wanted me to build them a stadium. A franchise that was making more profits in the 1990s than the big league club across the river.

It was not just the big leaguers. It was now what was going on in the amateur draft. Jeff Samardzija got $10 million when he was drafted in 2006 by the Chicago Cubs, which was paid for by the fans. Who? A “former Notre Dame wide receiver” who is now 25-years-old. You really did not give young men of college age this kind of money until they proved themselves in a profession, like baseball. Or except in baseball? At this point in his life, Jeff Samardzija is 91 victories behind where Bert Blyleven was at the age of 25. But in the Scot Boras age, the public perception is played on by spin doctors, where the value of the player is tied to how much he is paid.

When you did not have to pay for your own stadiums, you could afford to shell out bonuses to an elite. Even the unproven. Paid for by teams in the league, not so unlike government money which built the 19 other stadiums since Camden Yards opened. In he new system of Bud Selig baseball, your mistakes overcompensating could be overlooked. A lot like the mistakes of Carlos Zambrano with his $91.5 million over 5 years. Or Alfonso Soriano and the team investment of $136 million, over 8 years. Or Kosuke Fukudome making $12 million per year. Didn’t we just leave that hellhole of a ballpark? Fukudome. Hey! A new stadium will last longer than these .258 hitters like Fukudome, whose name your mother wanted the eldest child’s mouth washed out with soap, if she ever came over. So the expenditure were worth it? For 30 year leases?

These had become public policy issues. And now there was the stadium issue with the Minnesota Vikings.

Another bride
Another groom
Another sunny
Honeymoon;
Another season,
Another reason
For makin’ whoopee.

A quiet service,
A lot of rice,
The groom is nervous
He answers twice.
It’s really killing
That he’s so willing
To make whoopee.

Picture a little lovenest
Down where the roses cling
Picture that same sweet lovenest
Think what a year can bring.

He’s washing dishes
And baby clothes
He’s so ambitious
He even sews;
But don’t forget, boys
That’s what you get, boys
For makin’ whoopee. -by Gus Kahn

Valuations and Devaluations

Nicholas Cage. Pak Nam-Ki. Citibank’s former CEO. Tom Petters. Theo Epstein.

U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle, the judge in the Tom Petters’ trial, on sentencing Tom Petters for orchestrating a $3.7-billion Ponzi scheme, said: “You had to know.” Petters apologized to his family, friends and former employees.

In North Korean, restricting the amount that could be exchanged, the redenomination of the won on November 30, 2009, forced people to swap old banknotes for new ones at a rate of one hundred to one. On March 19, 2010, it was reported that the finance minister in North Korea was executed over too much inflation. Pak Nam-Ki was charged “with ruining the national economy deliberately as the son of a big landlord who infiltrated the ranks of revolutionaries,” Yonhap News Agency said. Pak was 77 years old when he was shot dead in the last few weeks at a military range in Pyongyang, after earlier being sacked as chief of the ruling communist party’s planning and finance department. There had been public anger at the inflation following the currency revaluation. A lot of anger. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service’s Won Sei-Hoon said the revaluation aggravated hunger, wiped out savings, and sparked riots after prices soared.

That is what happens after tinkering with currency. Or with the manipulations of systems.

At the start of his testimony, Charles “Chuck” Prince, the former Citigroup Inc chief executive, told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission “I am sorry.” His sorrow was for the problems that led Citigroup to be rescued by the government, while absolving himself of any personal responsibility for the $30 billion which eventually had to be off in collateralized-debt obligations.

In a foreclosure action for auction yesterday, bidding opened at the county courthouse in Pomona, California at $10.4 million on the property with a total of $18 million in loans, far less than the asked for price of $35 million on a property lost to foreclosure by Nicholas Cage, and in less than a minute the auction closed with no takers in the courthouse sale. Cage, who had earnings of $40 million last year according to Forbes, could not be reached for comment. In October, Cage filed suit against his former business manager, Samuel J. Levin for allegedly having “lined his pockets with several million dollars in business management fees” leading Cage down a “path toward financial ruin,” per the complaint. Levin did file his own countersuit, describing a spending binge by Cage “of epic proportions,” where by July 2008 Cage owned an island in the Bahamas, 15 palatial homes around the world, 4 yachts, a private Gulfstream jet, and millions in art and jewelry.

The Baltimore Orioles will pay just the $400,000 minimum of Julio Lugo’s $9 million salary this year, after a trade that sent him from St. Louis to Baltimore for a player to be named later. Or for cash. Lugo had come to St. Louis last summer in a trade between the Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox. It had been the Red Sox who agreed to pay $8.6 million of Lugo’s $9 million salary this year. That Red Sox general manager had set a price for all baseball in the system of arbitration by paying this salary. As the world begins to deal with the economic fallout of pretend banks, of propped up collapsed banks, of balloons in real estate, a view into the affects of bubbles on baseball salaries is worth a longer look.

There is so much sweet sorrow around today as Tiger Woods steps up to the tee in Augusta. Where is the punishment in all of this?

Now no one is all over Theo Epstein in all of this. Yet. But when the day arrives when the ticket buying public, in times more reflective of the 1960s, realizes that baseball can be watched in person only by the wealthy, maybe the spotlight might be focused on why no one in the front offices were fighting the system. No one had been watching out for the blue collar fan for some time. As the bubble in valuations in New York and Boston slowly affected the franchises throughout the nation.

The State of the Union

When credit card companies gave you zero percent rates….giving away product, charging nothing. Now the government is doing the same. For banks,getting zero percent rates so they could keep operating. As the banks were not extending anyone credit.

By Congressional Act, the Federal Reserve was founded in 1913 specifically to combat financial panics, including runs on banks. Since the Fed, when the economy was overheated during the subprime mortgage boom, did not regulate interest rates to dampen the ardor of member banks for mortgages as it could have, Ron Paul was calling for greater Congressional control of this private entity.

When would the banks get hit by the government by the over the limit fees, like those banks charged their customers on their credit cards?

The system….when the affluent paid the least, and the poor paid the most. For free checking accounts. Unless you had less than $800 in your account, and the bank charged you a monthly fee of $12. At banks, or at your dental clinic, it was all the same. The poor were charged the most. Unless you paid Delta Dental who got a special discount, and the rest were left to pick up the slack. At the banks, U S Bank in Minneapolis, the poor were paying for the rich.

And there were no more free toasters. Nor free checking. Ending TCF’s long-time “totally free” checking account, the regional bank TCF Financial Corporation plans to begin charging maintenance fees to customers with checking accounts, CEO Bill Cooper said in a conference call with investors on Thursday. The rationale was prompted by new federal regulations which likely will reduce revenue from overdraft fees.

Milton Friedman’s fundamental flaw was his fixation on the business cycle as expressed by the stock market, rather than looking at the whole economy with its wide range of meta-finance concerns such as agricultural economics, labor economics, population economics, and the economics of war, pollution, and development. The current administration did not seem to recognize the ongoing fundamental flaw. There was little real difference between the Republican and the Democratic leadership, under the influence of the lobbyists who paid both parties.

Those Numbers Concerning Sexting

An Associated Press-MTV poll has found more than a quarter of young people have been involved in some form of sexting — sharing by cell phone or online sexually explicit photos, videos and chat — despite the sometimes grim consequences involving conviction in some states for those who do it, with lifelong registration as a sex offender.

This news story comes this week as I heard Rick Steves do a travel show on public television. He said that the most compelling moment of his piece was when an Iranian woman crossed the street to tell him that she did not want her daughter to grow up to be like Britney Spears. That, Steeves said, was the universal human conflict in the secular world. It was the same conflict which defined American politics.

It was 12 months ago that I wrote this piece. Read it again in light of todays’ Associated Press-MTV poll about sexting.

In the age of abundance, with an abundance of ideas, in the ongoing age of ideology, comes a story about a survey by the Minneapolis-based Search Institute –an organization that foster in “all sectors of society a healthy development and thriving among children and adolescents” –of a group of young people who are “spiritual,” who are not at all religious. A newly released Search Institute survey of 6,853 young people ages 12 to 25 indicates that 55 percent of the respondents are spiritual, not at all religious. Miriam Cameron, a University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality & Healing professor, said the results confirm what she has observed in her classes. Nearly one-third of these young people said they don’t trust organized religion.

“Spirituality is bigger than religion,” said co-director of the institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, Peter Benson. “One of the things we have to focus now is disentangling spiritual development from religious development.” According to the website, Dr. Benson became Search Institute’s president in 1985. Prior to 1978, he was chair of the psychology department and chair of the program in human development and social relations at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. He hold a Masters in the psychology of religion from Yale University. In an age of ideology, I wonder the reason it is, the basis that Yale offers a Master’s program in the psychology of religion, so that years later we can get these survey results. It sounds like Dr. Benson’s focus is funding his own program, and creating a need along the way, with the help of corporate sponsors.

Most students pay tuition to listen, read, and study what the experts have to say. Except those on scholarship. “We’re not paying enough attention to what our kids are saying,” Gene Roehlkepartain, co-director of the institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence said. “We need to listen more and talk less.” Yeah, Gene Roehlkepartain. Buy you kid another Ipod. You were not supposed to worship your kids, Gene. Why are kids, ages 12 to 25, being asked this nonsense? Your kids might not like taking physics or calculus either. These are the years you are supposed to have passed on a tradition that they had to learn. My 30-month old niece does not like to eat vegetables. Or potatoes. She has to anyway. Yeah Gene! How can we disentangle God and His history, from religious development, from spiritual development? Can we hold class outside?

Nearly one-third of these young people said they don’t trust organized religion. Do they provide locks at their church? What did they lose? Was it another kid or organized religion that stole their cellphone? What else did they not trust? Were any other questions ever asked?

If you ever were looking for an arsonist, you started focusing on 3 factors: Motive. Opportunity. Accelerants. Search Institute mission statement is collaborating with partners (foundations, corporations, schools, communities, faith-based organizations, and other systems) to broaden and deepen commitments, capacity, and effectiveness in fostering healthy development and thriving among children and adolescents.
In this case the Search Institute, Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence who funded the study, hopes to profit from their own survey, based upon their website. This was not exactly the Gallup Poll, where surveyors had disinterest. Search Institute would seem to aim at a secular society, to add to the divison between religions, serving “all sectors of society, including K–12 and higher education, faith communities, youth-serving organizations, social-service organizations, families, businesses, and the public sector.”

According to the news article, “The disconnect between spirituality and religion” was clear in the comments from young people. Drawing a line between spirituality and religion, University of Minnesota senior David Horn said, spirituality ‘doesn’t make distinctions, and religion is all about making distinctions.’” It sounds like the issue once again is relativism. Religion was providing an absolute moral authority. Distinguishing right from wrong. And this did not seem fair.

Or maybe the young, educated in secular schools without any religious training, are ignorant about specific belief, and the history of a belief. Even by the time they get to college and are thought to be the best and the brightest. Serving “all sectors of society,” the survey either shows the need in society for more teaching of theology and philosophy, or the need to encourage ignorance. Most Doctors of Divinity spend time actually studying theology and philosophy before they are allowed to teach and preach.

Speaking as the daughter of a minister, Miriam Cameron said she doesn’t think religions needs to feel threatened by the growth of spirituality. “Not at all. Many of my students equate religion with dogma and spirituality with harmony. Spirituality works well with most religions. The only ones it doesn’t work with are the angry people who say that everyone else’s image of God is wrong. … The spiritual view of God is much more inclusive.” Dr. Cameron’s viewpoint seems to include an American culture bias and fails to see the dimension of spirituality that is fueling the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. From my reading, Islamic dogma was not responsible for the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran, as one example. Dr. Cameron seemingly does not believe there can be anger among those of the New Age “spiritual,” not religious. Dissecting her comment, she mixes apples with people and oranges, when she begins to discuss angry people in the midst of th discussion of spirituality and religions.

Few religious professionals would equate dogma with theology.

One of the things I came away with studying history, was that the human condition remains unchanged. Two hundred years ago there were slaves in this country. Actually in a lot of places. A lot of people never really asked the “why” question. My conclusion is that the basic human condition involves a degree of laziness. There were slaves because landowners were lazy. That laziness, to one degree or another, was still around.

“If that’s the way they really feel,” said the director of youth ministry for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Terry Dittmer, said, “it means that we have some serious questions that we need to ask ourselves.” It is the Missouri synod’s fault? Or maybe Mr. Ditmer is looking for a new response in the growing secular world.

Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill for or die for, and no religion too. Mr. Lennon, I don’t have to imagine much any more.

The Center for Spiritual Development concluded its report with a suggestion that the place to start is with conversations, asking young people open-ended questions such as, “What is most important in your life?” and “What does being spiritual mean to you?” I actually would start with the basics. Like asking about God before asking what spiritual meant. Like asking about the Greatest Commandment. Do you know God? Do you want to know God? Do you want to make an academic commitment to study God? You might have to buy a book and actually spend some time.

In other news, according to Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics institute, which surveyed 29,760 students over the past year at 100 random high schools nationwide, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test. That is a lot of stealing. I wonder if this was by the same nearly one-third of the young people who said they don’t trust organized religion.

These surveys give me pause to quote a high school biology teacher: “If ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”

Perhaps those grim consequences involving conviction in some states for those do sexting, with lifelong registration as a sex offender, will call the question as to public policy that keeps some sins subject to public notice to neighbors. Where there is no registration kept on those convicted of homocide.

Remembrance Day

On Remembrance Day, there is still a poignant remembering overseas of the cost to Europe. War had a way to bring home the present day cost of risk appetites.

Social mood. Political campaigns. Financial fate. Markets go up and they go down, even in the age of austerity, as in the age of conspicuous consumption. By understanding history, humanity has the power to change history. War, and the way we live our lives.

We live in a world that has perverted the concept of remembering people. The media had a cheap story to fill the airwaves now on each September 11th and November 11th. In Europe they still called it Remembrance Day, where the people remembered the war dead and not the military. I was in London on this day in 2000. “Flanders Field.” Armistice Day was not a promotion for the armed services or to be used by the National Guard to recruit the mostly local youth, a lot like those pro football players and their fans in town who “root for laundry,” as Jerry Seinfeld reminds his audience. The living athletes of combat. Cannon fodder. The human cannon fodder, used too often in the name of nationalism. The “National Guard” that had been perverted by public policy to become an invading army in Iraq, and maybe one day in Afghanistan? Today was supposed to be a day about the individual people lost to war, not about the uniform worn. At the end of the Great War, in 1919, because of the missing bodies to bury, the November 11th observance was introduced, with a two minute silence. Unbearable mourning continued long after a war was over. Today was supposed to be a day about peace. About real people gone.

Reusse & Company this morning. How does an interview of Major General Larry Shellito of the Minnesota National Guard relate to November 11th and Armistice Day? A day about peace!. Armistice Day was about turning swords into plowshares. November 11th in Europe was Memorial Day, not for the military industrial complex, as Dwight Eisenhower called it, but about individuals compelled to go to war in the name of government and nationalism who died in service. And the people who went, that the world would one day be a better place.

The“National Guard” that had been perverted by public policy to become an invading army in Iraq and in Afghanistan? How had it happened? The “National Guard” that had replaced the all volunteer army. And why? Since September 11, 2001, the U .S. has deployed troops in 33 countries, according to Major General Larry Shellito. Why? And about the expense of all this? Was the Department of Defense any different than that vote on health care. Which was not at all about health care but health care insurance, and paying for all of this. Without much discussion at all about the real issue of health care. How many MRI machines were needed in a community. Without a discussion of preventative medicine. Why did local kids need to be dispatched to 33 countries in the last 8 years? And where was the discussion on all of this? About the use of “The National Guard?”

No one asked why. Elections have been spun to be one long drone of an argument between two sides. The two sides that had long ago quit communicating, in a world that was unable to find much in the way of meaning. If you thought that television and radio were sounding boards on the issues of the day, then your moderators had become nothing more than game show hosts.

In a current world without conscription, in a world of voluntary service, somehow the message was getting across about the glamor of swords. And now a word from the sponsors.

I am not sure why Major General Larry Shellito of the Minnesota National Guard was invited on Armistice Day of all days to be a guest. On morning radio, on Reusse and Company. I did not listen long to the remainder of the show. I don’t think there was a discussion of what happened when you take the young and place their lives in peril, in places where they are seen as the enemy. In some of the 33 places. Thirty-three places. Invading armies? An invitation to the major general as a guest by the same guy who wrote today on his blog:

“Pro football players were merely mercenaries moving through a city for the purpose of collecting a large paycheck. There would be replaced by a different group of mercenaries in a few years, and the foolish fans would cheer for them for no reason other than the appearance of their jerseys.” So wrote Pat Reusse today.

In the civilian world, leadership has to be re-earned in each generation. By sons who followed fathers and grandfathers. In attempts to try to see the future through the past. My grandfather won a purple heart in World War I. He paid a price for his medal every day for the rest of his life. It was more than what combat had done to his hearing. The life expectancy of those Woodrow Wilsons was always so much shorter than the soldier.

“Be careful when you break horses that you don’t break their spirit too.”

If sons and daughters took the time to try to understand history, humanity had the power to change history. In Minnesota, people spent more time contemplating the NFL than they did the deployment since September 11, 2001 of U .S. troops in 33 countries. We thought more about the people there than we about the dollars it had also cost for them to be there. And not many folks were asking why. Or why this was done under the auspices of “The National Guard.”

There was a cost to all of this. In a world of voluntary and involuntary thrift, with personal savings and public policy focused on taxing. In a world where voluntary service could fast become involuntary, as government officials induced borrowing rather than pay now these out of pocket expense. The single greatest risk as the equilibrium between asset classes remains a seismic shift in currency markets. What was this defense policy doing to the U.S. dollar? When a currency holds a nation together, and “the economy — perhaps society at large — assumes more, not less, risk as a function of the path of our attempted fix,” writes Todd Harrison. A Congressman from Tennessee cited Albert Einstein’s belief, in a joint hearing chaired by Senator Kent Konrad from North Dakota, that the greatest power on earth was not atomic energy but compound interest, in this case as a threat to the future of America.

Counting the cost. On Remembrance Day, there is a perversion to discuss the engines of financing as much as there is to discuss the success of recruitment as Major General Larry Shellito of the Minnesota National Guard was asked. In a nation that just no longer discussed war.

On Remembrance Day, there is still a poignant remembering overseas of the cost of war. It is seen in the streets of London. In America, Armistice Day was politicized, used as a photo opportunity by politicians hoping to remain an elected official for an entire career, and calling it Veterans’ Day. It was not longer remembered to commemorate the War To End All Wars. About the real people gone. Except in a Europe, which continues to manifest the loss of one generation, of its best and brightest. Watching the scenes this week at the Brandenburg Gate, and seeing the difference in the caliber of leaders 4 generations later, wondering if Europe had ever recovered from void of the War to End All War. Counting the cost.

It must have seemed really heroic to fight in The War To End All Wars.

Blog Networking in Real-time

Visual Web Search

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

In January 2009, UnitedHealth based in Minnetonka, Minnesota agreed to shut down their Ingenix database and settled a lawsuit with the New York Attorney General by paying $50 million, it was reported in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal. According to an item in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, the investigation by the New York Attorney’s General office uncovered a fraudulent and conflict-of-interest-ridden reimbursement system, which the state of New York then proceeded to replace with a not-for-profit company, FAIR Health Inc., to be headquartered at Syracuse University.

That $50 million was used to form a new, independent database at Syracuse University. After settlements with other similar companies, the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday
a new independent database for consumer reimbursement as part of this Upstate research network in what sounds to be a reformed plan for Ingenix’s health care reimbursement database. Only this time allegedly with “transparency, accountability and fairness.” Funded by the litigation of Mr. Cuomo. Offering no defense of the operations at UnitedHealth here, public policy in New York apparently involves using the courts to transfer jobs to their state under the umbrella of the health care debate?

This new research network, reportedly funded with nearly $100 million in settlement money recovered during an investigation by Cuomo’s office into how the health-insurance industry reimburses consumers for out-of-network health care charges, “will develop a new Web site where for the first time consumers can compare prices before they choose their doctors.”

This is an innovative way for state government to create new jobs in their own state.

Corrections

The National Association for Business Economics released a report Wednesday that more than 90 percent of economists predict the recession will end this year, although the recovery is likely to be bumpy.

That assessment is in line generally with the Federal Reserve Chairman outlook of Ben Bernanke. About seventy-four percent of the forecasters expect the recession — which started in December 2007— to end in the third quarter. Nineteen percent predict the turning point will come in the final three months of this year. The remaining seven percent believe the recession will end in the first quarter of 2010.

This National Association for Business Economics report followed a report on October 6, 2008 that 31% of economists did not think there was a recession. So 10% of the economists did not see an end to the recessions, with 31% of economists proven to be out of touch with the current world.

Has anyone checked the market in commercial real estate? When there was too much credit in the system, something had to give.

I wrote on October 6, 2008 that there was going to be another at least 25% to 30% correction in the valuations of homes. Real estate prices had fallen 23.3% in Minneapolis-St. Paul in the last 12 months. So there were signs that an honest correction had occurred at least in single family homes.

Register of Deeds

<span"It's always been there, but like any fad, it takes awhile to catch on," she said. "In the last three months, I have gotten more phone calls from parents. Great parents from wonderful communities. This crosses all borders. I think parents are just freaked out." This was some expert talking. Apparently she spoke to parents about it in her school district. About sexting.

<span"It's always been there?” The New World Order. Oh those “Once upon a time” stories. Back in the 1990s. Those kids had grown up.

<spanThe 1990s. It was about 10,000 points of light. Those 10,000 points of light. Now with cell phones and genitalia.

<spanAs their parents have fumbled and stumbled along with them, the new young generation has grown up. This was the New World Order. Those 10,000 points of light in cell phones. With cameras. Who were the supplies of phones for these 13 year-old?

<spanAbout that sexting. State legislatures were getting into the act. In the New World Order, these state legislatures stayed in sessions too long composing new laws in a world that they themselves don’t understand. In a misguided attempt at protecting the public health, unable or unwilling to address the fiscal matters of budgets, they were trying to establish laws about sexting. Soon everyone would be a registered sex offender, for acts committed at the age of 14.

<spanIf you had not heard, sexting is the art of sending graphic images and videos text. Yeah, it was an art form. During the days still of the declared War on Terror, when you were not looking, a New World Order had cropped up.

<spanThis state had entered a new era for registered sex offenders. And these sex offenders. were our kids. The registers would be filled with young kids. It was a new generation that did not trade baseball cards. Like sexting, without the bubblegum. There had to be a song in all of this. This public register of sex offenders was growing too big. It was politicians fumbling and stumbling, generally coming to grips with fear, trying to balance an office for the public register of deeds, without surveys and Platt maps, and without a Torrens system of registration of title to land.

<spanUnder the current law in Vermont, teens who text message explicit photos could be prosecuted as sex offenders. So the Vermont legislature currently had a proposed bill which would make sexting legal in Vermont for 18-years old and younger. It was a bit of a reversal of the logic used regarding the requirements for drinking. But composing new laws? This state had entered a new era for registered sex offenders. And these were our kids.

<spanAll this while take your daughter-to-work day quietly bit the dust. Out of some new fear? It used to be in April. I think the nation was afraid what would happen with sexting. It used to be legislatures passed some kind of budgets, before going home for the year. Legislation and legislators never quite worked the way it all was intended. In the Too Big To Fail era.

<spanFather-daughter dance, mother- son breakfast, had been replaced by cell phones. For safety. For peace of mind.

<spanIn the Too Big To Fail generation, fumbling and stumbling in Vermont, parent turned legislator, not really knowing what to do. With sexting. State legislatures wanting more control over the world, but not knowing how.

<span"So what are you in for?"

<span"I was found guilty of possessing child porn. I will be registered as a sex offender for life, when I get out. When I get out, I will be 17."