Is Vladimir Putin the Richest Man on Earth?

Right now it’s all fiction, but it is a remarkable question to think about. Could President Putin feel immune from all criticism and attacks?
by Charlie Leck

It sounds like a Daniel Silva novel – or perhaps Alan Furst – or, better yet, John le Carre – this story about Vladimir Putin’s fortune. For years people have speculated about a vast fortune (forty to sixty billion dollars) that Putin had secretly stashed somewhere, but most people have taken the speculation with a grain of salt. Not Silva! On Facebook, this morning, with fire in his eyes, he pointed me toward the story. Oh my, what a novelist could do with this plot!

This morning, sometime, the Obama administration should announce new sanctions on Russia in an effort to get Putin and his nation to back off from the pressure they are putting on the Ukraine.

The NY Times is reporting that a secret assessment of Putin’s wealth was put together by the CIA in 2007. In the end, after working through a lot of the gossip and various responses to the report, a number of “people in the know” think that Putin has approximately 40 billion dollars involved in three different financial firms with some legal registration in the United States.

There seemed to be some hints about further pressure on Russia from President Obama last night. From Manilla, he indicated that more sanctions will be placed on both Russian “individuals and entities.” The European Union is also expected to announce sanctions sometime today or tomorrow.

President Obama iterated that the sanctions are not designed to go after President Putin.

“The goal is not go after Mr. Putin personally; the goal is to change his calculus…”

There is a Bloomberg story (BloombergView) from way back in last September that speculates that Putin may be the richest man on earth. In the story, BloombergView indicates there is no way to substantiate the estimates of Mr. Putin’s wealth. The publication concludes its account this way, however…

“His (Putin’s) third presidential term runs out in 2018, and he will be eligible for another one after that if he feels up to it at age 65. He has plenty of time to convert his vast power and the favors he has done his friends and family into actual cash and assets. At this point, it is simply unnecessary. The country's ‘capitalists’ are merely holding and exploiting property on behalf of the state -- meaning, ultimately, on behalf of Putin, the collector of votes and emotions.”

I go back to Daniel Silva. He could do wonders with this story.

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Columbus Day No More!

Columbus Day has been “set aside” in Minneapolis and the day (the second Monday in October) will now be known as Indigenous People’s Day.
by Charlie Leck

In-dig-e-nous [in-dij-uh-nuh s]
1. Originating in and characteristic of a particular region/country
2. native
3. innate, inherent; natural (usually followed by to)
“people indigenous to North America”

There have been plenty of unfavorable opinions expressed about Columbus Day in the last thirty years or so. When American history has been looked at through less sentimental and more retrospective eyes, it has become clear that someone “discovered” America long before Christopher Columbus. Columbus himself, in his logs, reported about the indigenous people he found here. The holiday was created through the eyes of a white government, white society and from a white/European perspective. October 12 has been shelved for many years in the back of an old and musty national storage closet.

This week, in Minneapolis, anyway, Columbus Day was official discharged from any more duties or responsibilities and the city proclaimed the day henceforth shall be known as Indigenous People’s Day

The vote [I’m going to call it “the historic vote”] took place yesterday (Friday, 26 April 2014) at Minneapolis City Hall. . A large number of indigenous people celebrated rather joyously and the sounds of drums rang out in the corridors of the big, cavernous building.

There is sentiment for such municipal action in other parts of the state as well. Such a vote will be taken in Red Wing next week, where the city will attempt to declare the day First Peoples Day. And there is talk about such action being taken at the state level as well. And, the native people of Minnesota keep hoping that federal recognition will follow.

Columbus Day is officially a federal holiday and has been since 1934.

Some feathers will be ruffled over this. Extreme conservatives can be heard howling already. Yet, it is difficult to look at history and not have great sympathy and supportive feelings for the Native Americans who wanted this holiday recognized for what it is – a sham. The actual story of the arrival of Columbus in the Americas is nothing like the story that I learned in grade school. The history books of the time were written by people of white, European backgrounds who saw themselves as part of the dominant race around which all the wheels of the national experience turned.

The real history of America does not begin with the arrival of Christopher Columbus; nor does it begin with the religious pilgrims at Plymouth. Indeed, it is older and ever so much more glorious than that.

It is difficult for those of us who trace our ancestries back to those European lands, to understand the impact that Columbus Day has on the real natives of America. In 1992 Vernon Bellecourt visited the Science Museum of America. He was secretly carrying a pint of his own blood. He found a replica of the ship, the Niña, on which Columbus sailed to the Americas. The Native American threw his blood on to and against the ship. Yesterday, his brother, Clyde Bellecourt explained the action: “He did that for all the blood that was drained from our community and our nation across the western hemisphere.”

On Thursday of this week (the day before the City Council action), the freshman mayor of Minneapolis, Ms. Betsy Hodges, delivered her first “state of the city” address at the Minneapolis American Indian Center. When the City Council voted yesterday they were unanimous in their decision.

Minneapolis is not the first unit of government to take such action. Several states do not recognize Columbus Day and the city of Berkeley (CA) began recognizing the day as Indigenous People’s Day in 1992.

Several years ago I turned my gaze, for information about American history, to the extraordinary book by Howard Zinn (A People’s History of the United States*). We didn’t have history books like this when I went to school; that is, history books that told the truth and drew history for us as it was and not as we wanted it to me. Zinn opens his book with an account of the landing of Columbus in the new world. It makes for some of the most interesting, tantalizing and provocative reading one could ever encounter…

“Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

‘They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

The Arawak lived in village communes. They had agriculture talents and grew yams, cassava and corn. They spun and they weaved. They did not know of iron and they had no work animals.

There in the Bahamas and again on the mainland, Columbus found hospitable welcomes. The natives were generous and sharing. Columbus had come looking for gold and he was disappointed when they found virtually none. He took a few of the Arawak men and sailed on, hoping to find the mainland. He arrived instead in Cuba and then sailed on to what is known today as Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Finding no significant gold, Columbus needed to return to Spain with something, so he took slaves back to Europe. He would return to America on a second expedition of 17 ships and twelve hundred men. His mission was to gather slaves and gold. On one island after another in the Caribbean, Columbus took slaves but found no gold. Word magically began to spread ahead of Columbus, to the other islands of the Caribbean, and Columbus began finding no welcoming natives and, therefore, no slaves. He found out that his men, the ones he had left behind after his first arrival, had all been slaughtered. Word of his deeds had gone before him.

Other explorers would follow. Zinn writes of them….

“What Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortés did to to the Aztecs of Mexico, Pizarro to the Incas of Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts to the Powhatans and the Pequots.”

The historical sources used by Zinn are Columbus’ own log books and the early history of a Catholic missionary priest named Las Casas. The priest left behind gruesome accounts of the Spaniards’ treatment of the native Indians.

And this behavior by the explorers was not the exception, but it was definitely the rule. It did not take long before the natives of the Americas began understanding the cruel ways of the invaders who came out of the waters to the east.

*Zinn, Howard: A People’s History of the United States [Harper Perennial, 1979]

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NATO is a Toy Soldier

The NY Times tells us that NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) seems both unwilling and unable to do anything about Russia’s gambit [gam’bit: any maneuver by which one seeks to gain an advantage] in the Ukraine.
by Charlie Leck

“We need to train and exercise more together, for instance the NATO Response Force
and the EU Battlegroups, so that we stand ready for whatever the future may bring.”
[NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, 15 April 2014]

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [Organisation du traité de l’Atlantique Nord] was created on 4 April 1949 by a treaty agreement of 28 member states across Europe and North America. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70 percent of the worldwide total. NATO conducted its first military operations and intervention in Bosnia (1992-1995) and then again in Yugoslvia (1999). Most recently (2011), you’ll probably remember, NATO led the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya in response to a United Nations resolution.

If NATO has a rival, it would be the Warsaw Pact (formed in 1955); yet a few of the members of that pact have also joined NATO.

Article 5
The central article of the alliance calls for member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack.

If it had universal resolve, NATO would be a mighty powerful operation and would be able to shake a very big stick at Russia over its meddling with independent states in Crimea and the Ukraine.

It has generally been thought, and it is probably true, that NATO was created to counter the extraordinary military power that, at first, the Soviet Union had in the area and that the Russian nation now wields there.

Crimea and the Ukraine are not member states.

Is the Soviet Union really kaput?
Russia has plenty of bordering neighbors who are wondering if they might be in line to follow Crimea and the Ukraine. Examined carefully, Putin’s efforts to date do not look dissimilar to the actions of Hitler prior to the Second World War. Mr. Putin defends his incursions into those two nations as part of his responsibility to defend and protect Russian citizens. Article 61 of the Russian constitution assures that the “the Russian Federation shall guarantee its citizens defense and patronage beyond its boundaries.” It is that clause to which Mr. Putin now points to defend his military actions.

Jaak Treiman, writing in the LA Times, makes this quite astonishing observation…

“Article 61 invites reduction in absurdity. But, in the real world, Russia’s attack on Georgia and its annexation of Crimea have, with an Alice in Wonderland logic, turned the absurdity of Article 61 in the reality of Russian tanks and soldiers invading a neighboring country.

“Emulating Hitler and Stalin, Putin justifies his aggression in Georgia and the Ukraine by asserting Article 61’s mandate…”

I think what we are currently finding out is that NATO is a toy soldier and I believe Vladimir Putin knows that.

The American people are slowly coming to that opinion as well. We worked hard (post World War II) to create an alliance that would prevent the U.S. from having to roll troops in greater Europe every time a territorial or political question was in dispute.

It is time for Americans of all stripes and rank to stand united in demanding that NATO act to protect the integrity of this important alliance (and this is in the full knowledge that we are, ourselves, a member nation of that great alliance).

If Russia will not bend to the logic of diplomacy, Canada, England, France, Germany, the United States, and all the other member nations of NATO must act to stop Russia from swallowing up territory because one leader (think Hitler here) believes he must grow his power and size while giants sleep.

God, I hate war; and I hate the threat of war! I hate shaking big sticks at one another because, today, those big sticks can have nuclear power and repercussions. It is, however, time for NATO authorities to stare Mr. Putin in the eye and demand that he stop his aggression.

The President and Mr. Kerry must make diplomacy work. If they cannot, NATO must act forcefully before Mr. Putin gains too much momentum.

  

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No Real Menu at Lunch – iPads Only

I took a fellow senior to lunch at the new Byerly’s Kitchen yesterday. His name is also Charlie. He’s actually more senior than I by about 12 years. We have lunch together nearly every Monday.
by Charlie Leck

Now imagine this… This new restaurant doesn’t have normal waiters and/or waitresses. They have iPads. I’m used to them. Charlie is not. He was flabbergasted, but we worked our way through the menu. I ordered a Chardonnay for Charlie and a hot-tea for me. We each ordered seared tenderloin tips with glazed vegetables. It was served with sautéed shitake mushrooms, mashed potatoes and some nice fresh vegetables – all covered in a delectable gravy sauce. Our lovely luncheon dish showed up, but not the wine or coffee. I had to get up and go to the bar to talk about the wine order. It hadn’t gone through. My tea, I was told, would be brought over by a coffee shop in another part of the building. We complained that we didn’t get a roll or piece of bread with our lovely stew. That, we were told, would have to come from the bakery in another part of the establishment. The restaurant was not allowed to compete with them. Hot, black coffee showed up instead of my tea. I was worn down by this time and didn’t complain. The elder Charlie shook his head sadly at where the world had arrived and proclaimed that we shouldn’t eat here again.

“I like a menu,” he said, “One for you and one for me! And I like a real person to wait on us, so he can ask if we’d like a roll or a piece of bread with that. And butter?”

I mentioned that one day we’d probably fly to Europe on planes with no pilots. We’ll fly in drones that would be piloted from a central airline headquarters and drinks and snacks would be brought to us by electronic tables that slid up and down the aisles; and we’d each have our own individual iPads with a selection of dozens of movies or games to keep us occupied as we flew. He looked at me quizzically.

“What happens in emergencies?”

“Won’t be any!”

Charlie shook his head and mumbled something about being glad he was as old as he was.

He called to a young lady who was clearing tables nearby.

“Can’t I get a waitress over here?”

She shrugged and shook her head at him, embarrassed.

Charlie was agitated. He shook his head.

“Right across the street, at The Muni, they’ve got waitresses and menus for God’s sake!” He was talking about the Wayzata municipal bar and restaurant just across the way.

I was okay with this fancy place, but I was irritated that I couldn’t even order a piece of bread or a roll to sop up that wonderful gravy left-over in my bowl. I looked at it longingly. Honest to God! They told me I’d have to get up and walk over to the little grocery section on the same level and buy the bread I wanted from the bakery. Now that was a little too much for me.

“Yup,” I said, “and they’ve got bread at The Muni, too. Suppose, if you order a hamburger here, you have to walk over to the bakery to order the bun?”

“Let’s not come here again,” Charlie said, shaking his head.

“Like us on Facebook,” it said on our receipt. I decided I wouldn’t. The place was busy. The bar was well occupied. People seemed to be having a good time. The big, wood-fired pizza oven was roaring. Diners wouldn’t need to tip a server. The prices were good. Yet, you couldn’t get a damned single piece of bread.

“I’m sorry,” the manager told me.

“Healthier, I guess,” I replied to the nervous young lady, “if I don’t eat bread and butter.”

“We’re not coming here again,” Charlie said to her.

“I’m sorry,” she shrugged and her expression indicated that it might be best!

  

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What Are You Reading?

Alexa King, a Facebook friend and a very good artist (we have the work by her (Hackney Horse), pictured above, in our home) has asked me to post, on my wall profile, the books I’ve read.
by Charlie Leck

Wow! I certainly can’t list all the books I’ve read. My goodness, I’m 73 years old now! Maybe if I just hit the highlights.

I have a hard time figuring out which are the best books I’ve ever read, but I don’t mind reporting on “the most important books” I’ve read – in so much as they’ve had a major impact on my life and who I am, and they sort of took me in various directions. This might sound strange, but books do that.

And I don’t mind talking about the books that just brought me enormous satisfaction and enjoyment.

That way I don’t get drawn into literary arguments about “the best books” and questions about how I can list this one ahead of that one. It’s not what I do! I’ll tell you about books that moved me and books that pleased me and books that impacted me and the way I live.

For example, when I read Hemingway’s book, A Moveable Feast, it really stuck with me and I had to see Paris and understand that city the way Hemingway did. I got to see and understand Paris when I stayed there for a few months (though not the way Hemingway did). Hemingway’s novel and short stories intrigued me and I enjoyed his very direct writing style: The Sun Also Rises; For Whom the Bell Tolls; and Old Man and the Sea are three of the best books I’ve ever read.

After reading Vonnegut’s remarkable novel, Slaughterhouse Five, I began rethinking patriotism, war and human justice. I could say that The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, impacted me the same way!

King’s Letters from a Birmingham Jail, published eventually as a book, made me more alert to racism and racial injustice and set me on a path I might not have otherwise taken. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, from his time of incarceration by the Nazis, Letters & Papers from Prison, were remarkable and deeply impactful on me and my life. There was something about the moral necessity and vital importance about peaceful protest that became central in my life. His earlier work, The Cost of Discipleship, burned its way into my mind and soul. How could one not protest an evil war – an unjust war?

So then, in that vein also, I have at hand right now a first edition of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. I’ve read it a half-dozen times. I cannot tell you how important the book was when it first came out. The nation had still not healed from the wounds of the Viet Nam War and the protests that surrounded it. The book helped me heal.

Thomas Hardy is one of my favorite writers. I hope everyone has read Tess of the d’Urbervilles. I returned to it a few times, to reread it and make sure it was really as good as I imagined. It’s even better each new time I read it. And the same is true for The Mayor of Casterbridge. Oh, my! What wonderful books! They both taught me something remarkable about the English language: It could be beautiful.

Love in the Time of Cholera, a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is a brilliant work and I count it among the greatest books I’ve ever read (even in translation).

Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano introduced me to tintinnabulation and to Popocatepétel. The book burrowed itself inside me and compelled me to read it again and again until I figured I understood it as well as I ever would.

Below, in this list of special books I’ve read, I’ll list the authors only where I think it might be necessary…

Moby Dick
The Brothers Karamazov
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Even Cowgirls get the Blues (Tom Robbins)
Home (Marilynne Robinson)
Humboldt’s Gift
The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Persig)
The Catcher in the Rye
Deliverance (James Dickey)
My Antonia (Willa Cather)
Goodbye Columbus (Philip Roth)
The Great Gatsby
Reverence for Life (Albert Schweitzer)
Lord Jim
Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)
The Sound and the Fury (William Falkner)
The Diary of Ann Frank
Far from the Madding Crowd
A Separate Peace (John Knowles)
The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
Rabbit Run
Les Miserables
Five Years Before the Mast (Richard Henry Dana)
Fathers and Sons (Turgenev)
Red Badge of Courage (Steven Crane)
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Breakfast of Champions
The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
Ragtime (E.L. Doctorow)
The Art of Fielding (Chad Harbach)
Doctor Zhivago (BorisPasternak)
God With Us (Joseph Harotunian)

You know, I’m leaving a lot of books out. I’m sitting here in my library, just trying to look around and see what’s here and what was important to me. I haven’t mentioned a single one of Richard Russo’s books and I consider him the best of the contemporary novelists. His book of short stories is also wonderful. John Grisham is a current phenomenon and rock star in the mystery writing world. He’s also done a couple of non-mysteries that I found extraordinary. His book, Painted House, was remarkable and held me spell-bound through the entire reading. Another small novel, Skipping Christmas (made into a movie, “The Kranks”) was well done. He also wrote another non-fiction work called The Innocent Man that was captivating and incredibly well researched. Grisham, without question, is a wonder – not of literature but of story-telling. I’ve read all his major mysteries – more than a dozen works.

I shouldn’t leave out a lot of books that captured me; and some called me back to them over and over again… like…

1968: The Year that Rocked the World by Mark Kurlansky
Amazing Grace by Eric Metaxas
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Poems of Dylan Thomas
e.e. cummings Collected Poems
Hard Times by Studs Terkel
Godfather by Mario Puzo
Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
North and South by John Jakes
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (talk about a book you can’t put down)
All Politics is Local by Tip O’Neill
The Super of the Lamb by Father Robert Farrar Capon
Burr by Gore Vidal

I can’t tell you all the books I’ve read, Alexa, because I just can’t remember them all. The first full book I remember was one about Abe Lincoln and the Log Cabin he built. When I was a teenager, my mother was very ill and she loved it when I sat by her bed and read novels to her – her books that had come in from the book of the month club. I particularly remember one of them called By Love Possessed.

I think I’ve read all the mysteries of the British women, Anne Perry and M.C. Beaton. I’ve read all of Vonnegut and all of John Updike (though it got tedious at times). I’ve also read all of Garrison Keillor’s novels and some of his non-fiction work as well. I’ve read all of Pat Conroy’s work, all of Daniel Silva and all of Saul Bellow. I didn’t care for Clancy after The Hunt for Red October, which was a spectacular novel. I never developed a liking for Vince Flynn (though most of my friends think I’m crazy). I loved Mark Twain. I couldn’t get through any James Joyce. I read all of Hemingway (including his short stories) and all of F. Scott F’s novels. I’ve read a few novels by Evelyn Waugh and all of Eudora Welty’s short stories. I didn’t like Oscar Wilde and gave up on him before finishing any one of his books. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron is sensational. I have a very rare piece of fiction that Styron wrote when he was a student at Princeton. He turned it in as a paper and got an A+. He later published it in a very small number as Christmas gifts to family and friends. I’ve got one and it is signed by the author. I’m very proud of it.

Right now I’m going through an Alice Munro craving and I’m reading all her short stories, though I’ve a long way yet to go. She’s wonderful. There are a lot of good women writing fiction these days. (They are writing wonderful stuff.)

I just finished a mystery by a girl I dated once as a teenager (K.T. Roberts). It’s called The Last Witness. I reviewed it on Amazon and gave it 4-stars (though maybe a half-star came because she let me kiss her sweetly at the end of that date). She has a new work coming out any day called Deadly Obsession. I’ll read it. A couple of New York City detectives are the central figures in this novel and they also were in the one I just read – and they are in love (of course)!

Oh, Lord, here on my right is a copy of The Outpost by Jake Tapper. It’s a must and important read. And what about Steve Coll’s work on the bin Laden family? Or Carol Bly’s stories in My Lord Bag of Rice?

What can I say, Alexa? I can’t go on and on!

The current LBJ biographies by Robert Caro are extraordinary!
I liked Bill Clinton’s autobiography, My Life.
All of David McCullough’s biographies are wonderful (as is Americans in Paris).
Orhan Pamuk’s novel, My Name is Red, is both mysterious and marvelous.
Cheryl Stayed’s novel, Torch, is exceptional!

And then there’s Alan Furst. Daniel Silva wrote brilliantly about him somewhere and that introduced me to him. I think he and le Carré are the best of the spy novelists, though I have not read Eric Ambler or Graham Greene. Furst has six marvelous novels that I know of and they were each wonderful – Kingdom of Shadows, Dark Star, The Polish Officer, Dark Voyage, The World at Night and Red Gold.

You see what I mean? It never ends and I haven’t even begun to look at the classics section of my library, or my golf section (P. G. Wodehouse wrote amazing short stories about golf) and I’ve read Golf in the Kingdom (Michael Murphy) a half dozen times.

STOP! And that is a command! STOP ALREADY

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Dealing with Russia Harshly

Growth in the Russian economy in the first quarter of the year has taken a major hit and experts blame it on international pressure over Croatia and the Ukraine.
by Charlie Leck

There are ways besides war or military confrontation.
Senator McCain, take note!

The Russian Economic Minister, Alexei Ulyukayev, addressed the Russian parliament with the news that growth in the economy of the nation fell below one percent, which is less than a third of his earlier predictions of growth. He made it clear what caused the shortage – “the acute international situation of the past two months.”

Ulyukayev told the ministers that the situation had caused a “serious capital flight.” The ruble has lost 9 percent of its value against the dollar in the first three months of 2014.

There is growing fear in Russia that America and the European Union might escalate sanctions against President Vladimir Putin and the Russian nation and that might instigate an even more serious economic downturn.

Let’s hope all the major columnists in America and Europe keep calling for the screws to be tightened against the Russian bear until it removes the military units it has put on the Ukrainian border.

UPDATE 17 April 2014
Talks are due to open in Geneva today (Thursday, 17 April 2014) between European and American interests about further actions against Russia. Secretary of State, John Kerry, will be involved in the talks, as will Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and the top foreign ministers from the European Union. One EU official predicted what would happen if Russia doesn't begin to relent in Ukraine: "The costs are going to go up for Russia!"

Update: 18 April 2014 (Geneva)
It appears that conversations and negotiations yesterday, yielded some results. Russia claims it will cooperate in getting pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine to return government sites to their “rightful owners.” A signed agreement actually came out of the day’s negotiating work and, as a result, if there is compliance, further planned sanctions against Russia will be postponed. Frankly, those of you who read this will be skeptical, but so are the U.S. and European negotiators. Secretary of State John Kerry indicated that no one left the Geneva sessions “with a sense that the job is done because of words on a paper.” We need now to see if Russia will comply. The last several days have actually produced some incidents of gunfire between Russian military forces and Ukrainian troops.

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Representative Steve Smith’s Lonely, Unnecessary Death

He couldn’t confront the monster called Alcoholism and most of his family and friends exhausted every effort to get him to face it. He died alone and lonely; and I weep for him and the family he couldn’t hold close.
by Charlie Leck

Former MN Representative (our former representative in the State House of Representatives) died recently, losing a fierce and ugly battle with alcoholism. The story in MinnPost is brilliantly written and very sad. If you knew Steve, an old fashioned Republican and proud of it, you should read it. He died, probably a month ago in a small apartment he had in the community of Mound. Once brilliant and bright and handsome, he had shriveled into an old and weak man, beaten down by one of the worst diseases known to man. He was on a bed in his simple apartment, wrapped in blankets. The heat to the unit had been turned off and the scene conjures up terrible feelings of lonely hopelessness. He had been dead for some time when he was found.

I never voted for him, but I admired him for the hard earned victories he won in every election cycle up to his defeat in a party primary in 2012. In that campaign he was beaten by a tough, rough Tea Party opponent and by the habit he couldn’t kick. There wasn’t much fight left in him.

He was certainly a moderate Republican and we (the Democrats in the district) were able to live with him; and we were also able to negotiate with him and, sometimes, arrive at compromise positions. I always thought of him as a good man. He was clearly well spoken and well read.

The story of his death is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read. I won’t write more. The story is there for those with the courage to read it.

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Homeless Jesus

I just ordered a miniature of this bronze sculpture because I was so surprised and pleased by the story I read about it. The full size sculpture is about 9 feet wide and about 3 feet high. It was done by Timothy Schmalz, a Canadian sculptor and a devout Christian.
by Charlie Leck

One of these sculptures was placed on the grounds of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina. It draws lots of attention and quite a few police calls about the homeless person asleep on the park bench near the church. Oh, my!

Some people have been curious enough to approach the work of art. Only the feet, with puncture wounds, gives away the sculptor’s intent and the reason he calls it Homeless Jesus.

David Buck, the priest at the church, explained that the work was placed there as a memorial for Kate McIntyre, one of his parishioners with a special love for public art. He said, “It gives authenticity to our church… and we need to be reminded ourselves that our faith expresses itself in active concern for the marginalized in society.”

Most people seem to appreciate the statue, but some are unnerved by it.

It captures exactly my feelings about Jesus and I’ve written here a number of times about this attitude – as I did in a blog I called Meeting a Really Big Celebrity. Here’s a portion of that 10 November  2007 blog…

“I was in Toronto, staying at the lovely, old York Hotel (now part of the Fairmont chain of international hotels). The blimeys wanted $14 per day for a hookup to the Internet. Well, blast them. That’s un-American! My trusty laptop and I took ourselves just around the corner to one of the Tim Horton express coffee shops. They provide free wireless connections. I found myself a nice comfortable spot, right up in the front of the shop, where I could look out at York Street and I turned on my computer and got connected to the miraculous wireless service. What a world!

“Just then, I saw him. There he was, directly across from me – not twenty feet away. He sat on a little plastic box that he had wedged in between a couple of newspaper vending machines, giving himself some protection from the wind. He was pretty haggard looking and his clothes were extremely untidy. The soles of his heavy shoes were worn very thin. He had several days of stubble on his face.

“It was Jesus all right. Those were his eyes. They were dark and set deep in his face. They sparkled with a remarkable radiance and they were filled with love and compassion. It was Jesus. There was no question about that.

“Jesus sat there with his feet crossed. On his lap he held a large, old paper coffee cup. As each person walked by on the street he greeted them kindly, with a proper hello or a wish for a good day. Occasionally some person, who had also clearly recognized who this remarkable man was, would slip a coin into his paper cup. Jesus would thank them kindly.

“It seemed to me that Jesus was settled in for the long haul. I went about reading my email and sending back replies. I then took a quick peek at the New York Times and ran my eyes along the headlines. Suddenly I saw that Jesus was moving away. I panicked. I hadn’t had a chance to greet him, to touch him, nor to ask him for his autograph. I pushed back from my workspace so quickly and loudly that I startled some of the folks taking coffee behind me. I rushed to the door and out to the street. Jesus was down the block, looking into the small hole in the center of a manhole cover. Steam was rising from it.

“‘Hey, you,’ I called to him. I ‘got closer to him and had to repeat myself loudly. He was in the street and in danger of being struck by the Friday morning traffic. He looked away from the manhole cover and locked on to my eyes. He looked so filled with joy and peace. He made me feel so quieted and untroubled. I had a two dollar Canadian coin in my hand and I held it out, luring him out of the street. When he stepped on to the curb, I reached out and slipped it into his cup.

“‘Thank you,” he said so very softly. “I thought there was a fire. The smoke was rising from beneath the street and I smelled something burning. I was sure it was a fire and it frightened me. I thought perhaps the earth was on fire.’

“Jesus tilted his head to one side and looked at me, wondering why I was so generous and had chased him down the street. Didn’t I realize that he could not have been harmed? I wanted to ask for his autograph, but the bit about the earth being on fire unnerved me.

“‘I’m going back to my station,’ he said. ‘Excuse me.’

“Back inside the warm, cozy sandwich shop, I slid back in front of my computer and looked outside at the fellow. He was again between the newspaper boxes. His collar was turned up and he was observing the Friday rush, streaming by him with little or no concern about who he was or his particular needs.

“A Sunday School teacher had once warned me, long, long ago, that this day would come. I had encountered Jesus in the flesh.

“‘You will meet him,’ Mrs. Beiser had said, ‘and he will be in the least and most unexpected of people. He will be cold and hungry and in need. Give generously to him.’”

I’ve never thought of owning any kind of art work around the house that depicted Jesus, but I was intrigued with owning a miniature of this one by Schmalz, so I could put it here in my library. So, I tracked down his web site and looked into it. He offered a version that was only 10 inches wide (the original is 7 feet wide). It seemed perfect for me, so I had him ship me one. I really look forward to its arrival.

If Evelyn Beiser was still alive, I would have had one shipped to her as well.

You can listen to a National Public Radio (14 April 2014) account about the statue on Weekend Edition Sunday. It’s pretty interesting.
http://www.sculpturebytps.com/miniature-sculptures/christian-collection/small-religious-statues-homeless-jesus-2/

The Pope himself owns a miniature of the statue (Schmalz flew to Rome to give him one) and the Holy Father is seeking to have a full sized one installed on the Via della Conciliazione. It only awaits City Council approval.

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The One Percent and SCOTUS

I’m depressed and mad as hell over the recent decision by the Supreme Court. I didn’t think they could deliver a bigger blow than the Citizen United decision, but they sure did. POW – right in the kisser!

by Charlie Leck

As Evan Mackinder, of the Sunlight Foundation, said [recently]…

“Don’t look now, but the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) just delivered another major blow to our campaign finance system. The court’s ruling this morning in McCutcheon v. FEC strikes down strict limits on the amount of campaign cash wealthy donors can contribute to federal campaigns each election. Their ruling effectively ties a big bow around Congress and delivers it to the one percent.”

 This is really desperately unfair. Think about it. It allows the minority greater strength in elections than the majority. Everything in America right now seems to be moving toward the construction of plutocracy.  Somehow we need to get this message to the ordinary American citizen and mobilize him to make things equal again. It will require an enormous effort.

I'm in!

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Obama’s Rating as President

Will his current battle with Vladimir Putin be the measuring stick of Obama’s presidency?
by Charlie Leck

Barack Obama has been a reasonably good president. He was a better president while Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State. In the arena of foreign affairs, Obama made very good decisions in Libya and Syria. That was, you will remember, while he had Mrs. Clinton blocking for him on every play. The situation with Russia in the Ukraine has been much more difficult for him and he gives the appearance of wandering and waffling – though, perhaps, that is only appearance.

Vladimir Putin, of Russia, appears to be out to prove something – and that is that the United States, under its current leadership, is chicken-shit. Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are, of course, not at all frightened off by Putin, but they are aware of instability in his background. If not for his deceptions, Putin would not even be the current President of Russia. Obama and Kerry are aware that they are dealing with an imbalanced international power. Behind every Putin decision there lurks danger.

I don’t think George W. Bush would have dealt with Putin much differently than President Obama is. With Ronald Reagan things may have gone differently and we may have been put out on a narrow ledge with no room to turn around.

Putin is acting as if he knows he has the United States in a particularly bad place. This is a nation that spent so much on a series of wars in the Middle East – nearly to the point of bankruptcy and economic depression – that it wants a rest from “all that stuff.”

Obama is counting on international diplomacy. The problem is that Vladimir Putin is not very diplomatic and is not charmed by discretion.

It very much appears that Putin wants to move against the Ukraine and make it, again, a part of the Russian sphere – but this time removing its national independence and rolling it into the bigger piece of pie that is Russia.

Russian military action is imminent.
Obama remains patient. His detractors are furious. Yet, Obama must continue to remember that we elected him in the belief that he would be a leader who would look toward peace and peaceful measures in dangerous situations just as long as peaceful reactions and measures remained at all possible.

This may be Obama’s Waterloo and this may forever be the measure of his presidency; yet, he must remain true to who he is and to the people who elected him because of who he is. Military action must be – must be – the very last reaction to the idiocy of Vladimir Putin.

Putin deserves a spanking – this is true – but it does not have to be one dispensed by the American military. We need to join with international allies who will, together, punish Putin economically and make his nation suffer so much that they will say goodbye forever to their current President. It begins with cutting off the importation of any Russian products into the United States and Canada (and, hopefully, Mexico). The next step might be to ban all travel to Russia during this period of disagreement.

If our allies are not willing to join us in acting against Russia, there is no way we should take up the battle alone.

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Solid Democrat Turnout is the Impossible Dream

No one is surprised by stories today in my local newspaper and others that the Democrats can keep control in Washington if they can get a good turnout on Election Day.
by Charlie Leck

No one is surprised that the political analysts are saying the Democrats can hold on to the U.S. Senate next year if they can turn out their voters this November. This isn’t anything new for Democrats. The party has a solid hold on the majority of voters and does in a huge percentage of the states – even states that traditionally vote for Republicans.

Here’s the danged truth about this matter: Democrats just traditionally have trouble getting all their supporters into the election booth. They’ve struggled with this question (why?) for many, many years

Some of the reasons supporters don’t turn out is because of inconveniences caused by some states' voting laws.

Why do you think Republicans in Minnesota and many, many other states want to toughen up laws that govern the right to vote? How many states tried to pass laws in the last few years that would require tougher identification procedures? Or tougher proof of address procedures?

It is no secret that Democrats depend a great deal on voters who live in situations that make it more difficult and inconvenient for them to vote. And Republicans, of course, have no sympathy for such voters and don’t want to do anything to help them out. Republicans traditionally oppose any early-voting laws. Of course they oppose voting-by-mail laws. Image how they feel about voting-on-line laws? They always stand firm against laws that would increase the number of precincts in urban areas that would make it more convenient for people with difficult transit situations to get their voting place.

Here’s a True-Story situation right in south Minneapolis. Until recently, when voting-rights advocates showed her how to vote early and helped her go through the procedure, she just didn’t vote. She’s a poor woman and lives her life in a home that is 15 or 16 blocks from her voting precinct. She moves around with the help of a motorized cart. She isn’t close to a bus line. She would never pay for a taxi because she simply can’t afford to spend her money that way.

Years ago, when I lived in the city, we’d organize crews to go out on Election Day to assist people like this in getting to their voting places. It was a tough organizational task. We’d never get around to all the people we needed to help. The job is easier these days, thanks to laws that make it easier for people to vote. Those laws haven’t gone far enough, but they’ve helped.

Apathy is something that kills Democrats in many elections. And, it is apathy that, many times, is difficult to criticize. You can’t imagine how many people there are who just have to expand vast amounts of energy on surviving and keeping their loved ones fed and sheltered. They’ve lost faith in politicians and political promises. They’ve come to believe that their vote isn’t going to matter one little bit – that it won’t change the difficult circumstances under which they live.

A lack of awareness among voters also hurts Democrats. So many people, who would favor the Democratic Party’s approach to life and law, just aren’t in touch with political information and the potential of holding political power. Campaigns don’t seem to be aimed at that sector of the population because we haven’t yet figured out how to do it.

Age is another factor; and I’m not talking about old age! Young people of eligible voting age are among a very high percentage of those who do not vote. Political scientists believe that a huge percentage of this group of non-voters would likely vote for Democrats if they did vote.

In recent years, some advances have been made in reaching these groups of non-voters. Campaigns have found new ways of reaching these groups, but we’re not going to see a big impact on this year’s election from these new techniques.

Turnout is Key!
The headline is correct. The Democrats can keep control of the Senate this coming November is they can get a strong turnout in an off-year election. There is no doubt that the Democrats could taste the bitter pill of defeat in this election if they don’t make extreme efforts to get voters to turn out and vote.

The country hasn’t bought into the slick line of the Tea Party and the Republicans. It has not given in to the vast power of the wealthy to affect and effect elections. The question about turnout is vital, however. Will the majority cast votes this November?

Look, states like Mississippi and Georgia are really governed and run by minority parties. If Georgia could ever figure out how to turn out those voters with Democratic leanings, we’d get a Democratic U.S. Senator for sure. Though it sounds both impossible and improbable, the same thing is true in Mississippi. Getting a heavy voter turnout in that state is almost impossible and conservatives sure aren’t going to pass laws that make it easier.

At a recent fund-raiser, President Obama had the following to say about voter turnout this November…

“During presidential elections, young people vote; women are more likely to vote; blacks, Hispanics more likely to vote… We do pretty well in presidential elections, but in midterms we get clobbered.

Somehow, the Democratic Party has got to figure out how to treat this November’s election with all the seriousness and vigor that it would put into a presidential election. We just must. To turn the Senate over to the Republicans at this time will be a disaster for the progress we’ve made

This is probably the most serious election of my life-time. In the coming weeks, I’ll deal with some of these crucial Senate races state-by-state.

  

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