Target Ain't People

Target is seeing only the beginning of this protest movement!
by Charlie Leck

This one is just too, too great not to pass it along to you. It's a video of a protest held recently at a local Target Store. It's nothing but pure fun and the demonstrators are pretty creative, too.

Be sure to watch it!

And, get into the swing of it.

What a Ball Game!

Sometimes a ball game can be awfully, awfully special!
by Charlie Leck

Mighty Casey didn't strike out last night and there was plenty of joy in Mudville. Instead, with the Mudville team trailing the hated White Sox by a run in the bottom of the 10th inning, the powerful designated hitter of the Twins swung at a fast ball right down the middle of the plate and knocked it out into the plaza beyond the right field seats.

Target Field erupted with screams, shouts and howls of delight as the big slugger rounded the bases. The entire Mudville team met him at home plate and engulfed him in celebration just the instant his foot touched home plate.

Ah, what joy in Mudville!

It was a great game and we were ecstatic that we were there to see the moment. This is what baseball is all about. We didn't care if we ever got back -- "for it's one, two, three strikes you're out at the old [hold that note a little longer] ball game!"

Dang that was fun! [You might be able to see the highlights here!]

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NIMBY

Not in my back yard!
by Charlie Leck

In a town near us – a town we pretty much consider our own, even though we don’t live there – a group of churchmen want to build a modest building where they can meet and worship regularly. So far, they’ve been refused that right because the area where they want to build is said to be zoned as residential.

Mind you, it’s not two blocks from Ground Zero but the comparison with the request in Manhattan, by a group of Muslims, is quite striking.

Is it a question of freedom of religion – both here, that is, and in Manhattan?

Or is it, as my blogging friend, Tony, says, a question of insensitivity and “riding rough shod over our neighbors?”

Now, mind you further, this structure the Unitarian Universalist Society wants to build out here would face a frontage road that runs alongside a busy Interstate Highway. It’s not as if they are trying to build their church deep inside some gated community. Further, there really isn’t anywhere else in this village to build a church. Churches are regularly built in residential neighborhoods. Who builds community churches in industrial developments? Or, in shopping centers?

This massive question of religious freedom is complicated.

“Why two blocks from Ground Zero?” That is the question many people raise in Manhattan.

“Why in my neighborhood?” That is the question in this lovely little town by the lake.

[A local newspaper story about this controversy can be found here!]

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Wherever Have They Gone?

Margaret & Helen have disappeared and I'm lonely without them.
by Charlie Leck

It's been three months and nary a blog from Margaret & Helen. How sad! It was some of my favorite reading. Wherever have they gone? To the big blogosphere in the sky?

Or, perhaps, the young ladies at Smith College, who posed as two old gals and wrote the regular blog, have graduated now and have moved on to jobs that require their responsible dedication. Margaret and Helen have passed on.

It was a great fling, girls! I loved the dalliance with you and miss you very much.

The disappearance of their blog has a premorse nature about it and I'm left shaking my head.

[Click here to go to the Margaret & Helen blog where you can go through their archives and read some of their extraordinary postings.]

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The Other Side of the Family

Anne's mother, Elizabeth Olmsted, as a teenager

The Olmsted Family is not a difficult one about which to find information!
by Charlie Leck

A few years ago I had a wonderful time spending the better part of 8 or 9 months researching the Wakefield side of my wife's family. It was exciting to dig in and come up with surprising information. All that work ended up in a book that I wrote for the family. I called it The Wakefield Pioneers.

Now I'm looking more deeply into the Olmsted side of her family -- her mother's side -- and the abundance of information available is shocking. And, what a story. My concentration will be far different this time. Since so much material is already available and staggering amounts of ancestral data has been previously published, I'll just work on information about the last few generations of the family.

The most fun this time seems to be working with the photographs. There are hundreds of them and most of them shot by exceptional professionals. Though they're old and often damaged, the wonders of PhotoShop help me put them back together when needed.

Let me just show you some examples this morning. It will explain how I'm spending my time right now and why I'm occasionally ignorning my blog.

A 1920 photograph of my wife's mother as a little girl with her father, mother and big brother.

A 1932 photograph of my wife's mother the year before her marriage to Lyman E. Wakefield, Jr.

Robert Groves Olmsted, brother of my wife's mother, in 1936.

Louise MacCracken Olmsted on the day of her 1938 wedding to Robert Groves Olmsted.

George Olmsted Wakefield, born to my wife's mother and father in 1937, died in 1940 at the age of 3. His death lies at the heart of the story of Elizabeth Olmsted Wakefield.

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Ted Olson Defends Gay Marriage

The noted conservative and former Solicitor General for George W. Bush has powerfully defended gay marriage as a constitutional right.
by Charlie Leck

One of my readers (and a follower) alerted me to the Ted Olson interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News. Olson is a noted and respected conservative and his strong statement is going to have some impact. A Californian, Olson is working to defend the California Supreme Court ruling that Prop VIII, which denies the right for gays to marry, is unconstitutional. Their intention is to make sure the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the ruling that struck down California’s law. Olson is a graduate of the University of the Pacific and UC Berkeley School of Law. It was Olson who successfully argued the case of Bush v. Gore before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ended the recount of Florida ballots in the 2000 presidential election. Here’s a Wikipedia account of Olson’s accomplishments and stature within the conservative movement.

You should really listen to Olson's amazingly convincing and compelling arguments in this FOX interview. His strong voice may turn the tide on this issue among some conservatives. If you go to this web site, you’ll also have the opportunity to send your thanks to Olson and the American Foundation for Equal Rights for this strong statement [watch the Ted Olson interview].

Courage Campaign Equality has posted 4 remarkable videos that testify to the importance of marriage among gays and lesbians. I was especially touched by the one narrated by Barry Wally about his daughter's marriage vows and how much that meant to him. Those of you sitting on the fence on this issue of gay marriage may very well be swayed by Ted Olson's interview and these touching videos.

Friday, 13 August 2010 (10:40 A.M. CDT)
Some added background

It was on 4 August that Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the Proposition 8, a voter initiative that prohibited marriages other than between a man and a woman, was unconstitutional. He said that it violated the equal protection and due process rights of gay and lesbian couples who wanted to marry. In his ruling, the judge ordered the state to stop complying with and enforcing the ban on gay marriage.

Now the judge has set 18 August as the date the state would begin marrying gays who properly apply for such marriages. That delay was to give time for properly certified officials to appeal his ruling.

Both Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown have announced they will not appeal the ruling and will not seek a stay of the ruling. It appears that private citizens will not be able to file an appeal unless they can show that they would in someway be harmed by the ruling.

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The Dirt Throwing has begun Already

One day after the primary, the GOP attacks Mark Dayton with a cheap and low-down TV ad!
by Charlie Leck

We were allowed to see – very clearly – just what the Minnesota Republicans have got in mind for the upcoming gubernatorial campaign. It’s called “down and dirty.”

However, it’s not like I didn’t see it coming. I did not vote for the winner of Tuesday’s Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL) primary just because I knew they could nail him with plenty of crappy televisions ads. Well, on Wednesday, the GOP already came with one of them and it was pretty grubby.

Just a couple of days before, Tom Emmer, the Republican candidate was calling for a clean campaign that would be based on the issues. Well, Mr. Emmer, you threw that right out the window and revealed to us the tone and tenor of what your up-coming campaign will be. Now we’ll need to convince Mark Dayton to fight back.

I hope Dayton can be convinced to talk about your driving record, your votes on Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) issues, your votes on the needs of our schools, on basic human rights and on issues that favored trial lawyers (your buddies).

I also hope that your neighbors out there in the western part of the Twin Cities will be willing to speak up about you and talk about the way you mistreat them.

I’ve never been an advocate for “dirty” campaigning. I’d much rather see the election decided on the issues, but the current Republican Party cannot be trusted to do that.

We know clearly what wing of the party you belong to, Mr. Emmer. You’re right in there with the Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman element. We’re going to make sure folks know about that, sir, because we don’t believe the real people of Minnesota buy into that cheap line of tricks.

Out in Montana on Tuesday, we saw a Congressional candidate that Palin endorsed taking a beating. Raul Labrador won the Republican nomination even against a significant financial disadvantage and Palin’s endorsement of his opponent. Tom Emmer is endorsed by Palin and I hope Minnesotans will look at that endorsement with some nervousness. We can’t sink to those kind of politics and government policies in Minnesota.

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