Bush gave Christmas present to lesbians and gays?

I noticed a Minnesota Independent post yesterday afternoon which said that on December 23 President Bush had signed legislation which makes it mandatory for businesses to roll over retirement benefits to a same-sex partner in the event of the employee’s death.

 

It seemed so basically fair, but also out of character for the 43^rd president, so aberrant that I looked for articles elsewhere to verify it.

 

A further search this morning revealed two more articles saying the same thing, but they [Colorado Independent and New Mexico Independent] are part of the same company.  I have not yet found anything from other sources to verify this story, but if it is true we can wonder about a few things.

 

Does W actually read what he signs?

Does he actually want to change his legacy as he vanishes from office.

Was it [to him] just such a small enough piece of the Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 that he didn’t think it important enough to get excited about?

If this language was in the bill, who got it in?  and was it snuck in or done up front?  And how many traditional gay bashers knew it was there when they voted for it?

Also

http://newmexicoindependent.com/13571/george-w-bush-gay-rights-champion

http://coloradoindependent.com/18531/bush-signs-law-requiring-same-sex-couples-to-enjoy-retirement-tax-break

Making life easier, one job at a time

The Pioneer Press has quit publishing two news sections on Monday and Tuesday for some time.  David Brauer of MinnPost reports that the Star Tribune will start doing the same on Mondays.

Well, I suppose the news that will remain will be that it is good news for the backs of those who deliver the rags.

What's up at Hillcrest?

I was recently by the HIllcrest Shopping Center.  It looks half empty.  Does anybody know what’s up?

We are starting to see higher than usual retail vacancies in other neighborhoods too, so this would look especially challenging for property managemers and neighbors.

Our growing religious stewpot

Last month I was at a Baptist funeral at which a rabbi sang “Eagle’s Wings.”  That seemed strange.

 

At an event I was at earlier today somebody mentioned that it was a sign of the times that we were having such a hard time deciding which Jewish man with a Catholic wife should be our senator, that a previous generation would never have given either much hope.

 

As one who remembers when back in the pre-Vatican II days when my Catholic neighbors were told by the sisters at their school that they shouldn’t even go into a nearby Protestant church for a non-Sunday, community event and heard similar cautions mentioned by Protestants about Catholic campuses, events like these do indeed make it seem like we are making progress in tolerance.

 

But I just noticed a post from a Muslim woman in the Washington Post’s and Newsweek’s On Faith which outdoes that all.  It describes a Muslim event at which Rick Warren, Obama’s invocator, spoke and Melissa Etheridge sang.

 

To quote Yakov Smirnov, “What a country!”

Pat Flahaven is retiring

It has been reported before but Doug Grow reminds us that Pat Flahaven is retiring as secretary to the Minnesota Senate.  He has done the job for 36 years and is certainly entitled to retire, but it will indeed mark a transition in the operations of our state. 

I wish him well. 

I first saw Pat Flahaven from the visitors’ gallery of the Minnesota Senate in 1971.  The first few days of that session were good theater and just the kind of thing that would interest a young person interested in public affairs.  Secretary to the Senate is a position which is generally invisible to the general public but very visible when one is in the chamber or the gallery and the young, clean-shaved man who seemed to be an up-and-comer headed for greater and higher things, looked very comfortable in the position.  In 1971, Pat Flahaven had just been chosen for the position, on a 34-33 vote.  He only held it for a few days before the Minnesota Supreme Court on a straight party-line vote removed the DFL majority. 

Two years later, after 114 years of statehood, the GOP finally relinquished control of the Senate, the DFL winning too many seats for even the most partisan of courts to take away and Pat Flahaven moved back to the post he has held since. 

I have not spoken to the man in many years and never knew him well, but have to note that comments made from many from both parties as he approaches this retirement are all favorable. 

And it is going to take two people to replace him.  Especially in this time of economic downturn in both public and private sectors, that is in itself an especially good commentary. 

Marty in 2010?

Joe Kimball suggests that John Marty wants to run for governor.

Question 1.  What do Warren Spannaus, John Marty, Mike Freeman, Don Moe, and Mike Hatch have in common? Answer: They were all chosen by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party to be its choice for governor.

Question 2.  How did Governors Spannaus, Marty, Freemsn, Moe, and Hatch do?  Answer:  It's a  trick question.  None were ever governor.

It is a cold and hard fact that in this alleged blue state that the last time the DFL was able to endorse and elect non-incumbent governor was in 1970 when they chose State Senator Wendell Anderson. To put this into perspective that was in the middle of Richard Nixon’s first term while Saint Paul had its Supermayor, Bill Rigney had brought the Twins to their second consecutive American League West championship [and the Designated Hitter rule was still two years away], just a few months after the Apollo 13 adventure, and twenty years before this year’s youngest voters were born. [For that matter, it was in that same 1970 election that Minnesota voters approved a constitutional amendment lowering the voting age to nineteen.]

Question 3.  Which of the men mentioned above lost the worst? Answer:  You could make a case that it was Freeman who managed to lose 2 to 1 to a Republican that the GOP had not supported, either in that election or the one previous.

Question 4. Can the DFL learn to pick better?  Answer:  I really do not know, but I guess Senator Marty thinks they won’t.

Coming to a UHF channel near you

Joe Kimball of MinnPost notes a forthcoming KTCI documentary. His opening may seem a little smug, but it seems right.

A television documentary on Minnesota's progressive Republican tradition will air Dec. 20 on TPT-Channel 17.

It's obviously a history project.

Link to the full article

Brother, can you spare a few billion?

The song, “Brother, can you spare a dime?” is a relic from a previous economic down time when a man who used to run a railroad is now looking for a handout.

We have changed our transportation from railroads to automobiles and a dime just doesn’t go as far as it used to, so now we are being asked spare a few billion.

I admit that I don’t understand all the bail out or not to bail out discussion that we have had the last few months. The subject matter is deep and somehow there is an air of extortion hanging over the whole topic.

But we need to remember that, while banks and insurance companies may sometimes provide useful or necessary services, that they don’t actually make a blasted thing. But we bailed them out.

So maybe it is not all my fault that I am a bit confused when I note that bailing out somebody who actually makes something, like automobile manufacturers, is suddenly so controversial.

Could it be that the money classes of our society do not respect sweat-of-the-brow laborers who might be union members and tilt a bit toward the Democrats , preferring instead to help out the people who sit in air conditioning and tilt toward the GOP?

Thune recall

Apparently, Dave Thune has become so scared of a possible recall effort that he is fundraising to fight it.

I am not in a position to evaluate the credibility of the fear, but do have to wonder how one could justify recalling the man.

David Thune did enough evil in his last term to justify recalling him then and to justify nobody ever voting for him again ever, but it seems that recall was intended as a way for voters to address things which have happened since the voters cast their most recent judgment.

Admittedly, he has not been the most conciliatory to those who were so anxious to have the GOP convention here that they could not realize that there would be public safety vs. free speech concerns, but that hardly seems grounds for recall.

Of course, there will always be reasons not to vote for the man. As Shakespeare’s Marc Antony reminded us, “The evil that man does lives . . .”

Let George do it

George Johnson was to be honored Wednesday night at District 2 Community Council’s December Board meeting/ Holiday Party. I was unable to be there, but assume that it all went well. I do know that our city council voted that day to honor him and I am assuming that Councilmember Bostrom was on hand at D2’s festivities to relay that commendation.

I first met George Johnson during the summer of 1988. District cleanups were new then, having been city funded in 1987 for the first time and still being funded as one-time-only events. I was the president of Payne/Phalen District Five Planning Council then and the late Paul Gilliland, who held the similar position for District 2 suggested to me that perhaps we hold a joint cleanup at the now-gone Phalen Shopping Center. In the course of planning the joint cleanup he introduced me to a hydrologist named George Johnson who was the chairperson of his board’s committee which was planning the cleanup and who had the idea of working with Ramsey County and combing the joint cleanup with a hazardous waste cleanup. I immediately sensed by what seemed to be his true-believer approach to the matter.

That cleanup went well, too well really. The cleanup drew traffic lined up on Johnson Parkway back onto Seventh Street almost to White Bear Avenue. The Police Department had to do significant reassignments to handle the thing. Fortunately, both districts managed to get enough volunteers to work the event. For some of the volunteers finishing up did not come until dusk. I don’t remember the exact numbers of how many came or how much was collected, but I doubt if the numbers have ever been really topped. And I remember George Johnson, moving about confidently and unflustered as crisis after crisis [or what we thought were crises at the time] came about.

[There were others whose deep involvement in this effort merit commendation, including Mr. Gilliland and District Five’s counterpart to Mr. Johnson, Roger Hallman, but this is a post about George Johnson.]

That was twenty years ago. Cleanups have gone on since and District Councils have started to think of them as entitlements and city staff to think of them as a comparably inexpensive technique for removal of junk. George Johnson has been organizing his district’s cleanup every year and sometimes even advising and/or helping out at others. Several years ago when District Five was undergoing a staff change and temporary shorthandedness, he helped us do ours.

George’s cleanup work was specifically cited in the City Council action Wednesday. But a full accounting of his contributions should include mention of his other contributions. I don’t know them all, but I feel that I should mention some of what I know.

He has served on the Board of Directors for District 2 for [as far as I aware] the entire time since shortly before that 1988 cleanup, serving as its president for a few months in 1990. [Full disclosure statement: I was a D2 employee at that time so he was my supervisor then.] He also has served for many years on the Saint Paul Planning Commission, including a spell [2004-2006?] as its Chairperson. He succeeded his wife on that commission.

And somehow as he has done all this he has raised a couple of sons and maintained a house and kept employment and all the other things that other people do.

The City Council praises several people each year this way. There are many people who deserve such commendation and they get some of them. There is a certain “hit-or-miss” factor involved in this, but this commendation seems well in order and I wish to add my own praise also.

FYI: 1006 Summit

The last time I was in the Governor’s mansion was in 1974 when Wendell Anderson was governor where with about 100 other people. I had a light supper and talked with a lot of other people who were [or thought they were] some of the movers and shakers of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party and/or the state of Minnesota.

I don’t know when or if I will ever get back to that building, but I will pass on that the mansion will be open for public tours [with no apparent political connection required] on the first three December Thursdays, from 1 to 3 in the afternoons.