I KNOW WHAT'S IMPORTANT

Even though it seems I dwell on the insignificant, I know what's really important underneath!
by Charlie Leck

World Hunger! Peace in Afghanistan! Better relations with Iran! Universal Health Care in the United States! High speed rail transportation all across the land! I dwell, indeed, on all of these things and they are dreams that I wish I could see come true before I move on out among the stars.

Yet, all these issues lose their importance and vitalness when placed against the things that really matter in an old grandpa's life -- that is, his family.

Let me remind those I love that, although I seem consumed by issues too big for one man's brain, I care most for those who are of me. It is the children of my life -- meaning my own wife, daughters, step-children and grandchildren -- that matter so ultimately to me. Everything else is nothing when I measure it against the abundance of love I feel for family.

And today, when I think of that sweet little thing becoming a six year old, I need to remind her of this love I have inside me -- and I need to remind all of those in our family circle.

Happy Birthday, sweet one! I will love you forever and forever!

I’m Pleased You are Worried

The house, including my office is torn apart and I can’t get to my blogging machine! But here’s some important reading I recommend!
by Charlie Leck

I’m terribly pleased so many of you have contacted me about why there are such gaps between my blogs during this last week. Thanks for your concern and, frankly, I’m glad you’ve missed me.

Our house, including my office, is in shambles these days as the interior is all freshened up by hardwood flooring refinishers and now by painters who are repainting the entire interior. I’ve never had to live in such dust – a really, really fine, invasive dust. The poor painters have to clean it all off the walls before they can paint, of course.

I’ve lost my wireless connection here on my computer because there are drop cloths covering every opening and also over the top of our main computer where the wireless router is housed. So, it may be hours before I can even get this little notice posted. If you’re reading this, I’m back on-line.

Look for me to get back to my regular 6 days each week schedule starting on Friday morning. There certainly is plenty to write about.

In the meantime, here’s the most important bit of reading I can send you to… OF HEALTH CARE, WAR, COSTS & CONSEQUENCES. It’s by David Morris. Please read it.

A lot of big shots (like Mayor Ryback) are telling me the public option is still an option.

I Shut ‘Er Down

Within five pages I closed up the book, set it aside and counted it a wasted 25 bucks!
by Charlie Leck

As I sipped on my first cup of coffee in the quiet of a weekend morning, I began reading a novel by a successful writer. It was published by Simon and Schuster. In the prologue, within the first five written pages, I came upon the following sentence.

“Brown’s wild, windblown hair and gray wiry beard, speckled with specks of blood, framed a expression that was both cold and haunting.” [sic]

No typos in the above, replicated sentence. That is exactly as it was printed on the page of the novel.

“Do I want to continue reading this?” That’s the question I quietly asked myself. What happened to the Simon & Schuster editor? Why weren’t these lapses and errors caught? What’s going on here? I paid $24 for this book and I expect more.

The gentleman’s beard was speckled with specks of blood! Amazing! It was “speckled with specks.” What else? Would it be speckled with long, smooth, curvaceous stripes of blood? If it is speckled, we expect that there would be specks.

The editor should have made the following change: “…speckled with blood…” Now that is plain and simple and accurate and readable.

Then we learn that the gentleman’s hair and beard framed “a” expression… Ooops! An editor slipped up again. How about his hair and beard framing “an” expression…?

It’s discouraging! Should I go on? What’s your opinion? I set the book aside and went to the shelves to find something else more worthy of my time. Too bad! Harold Coyle is supposed to be an awfully good writer. Simon and Schuster is a top-notch publishing house.

Yup! I just decided to look away. Too bad!

What Does Obama’s Prize Mean?

The Nobel Peace Prize goes to President Barack Obama.
by Charlie Leck

The announcement came as a stunning surprise and the questions were immediately raised by one and all. What does it mean? Why? Doesn’t it seem premature?

I found that I needed to carefully read the explanation from the Nobel Committee in order to understand what is going on here. You can go to this You Tube site to hear the Committee announcement. I’ll include the full text announcement below.

“He has created a new international climate. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.”

“…for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperate between peoples.”

“Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.”“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”

And, in that final quotation you find the essence of the rationale behind the award. Even more so than he has in the United States, Barack Obama has captured the imagination of people all around the globe and given them hope for a new age of peace and understanding between peoples. Perhaps it came even more from his campaign for office than it has come from his actions after taking office.

What will be henceforth so very interesting is to see how the award may now actually affect and influence the actions of the President in matters of international diplomacy and our nation's military reactions to crisis.

Stay tuned!

Announcement

The Norwegian Nobel Committee

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in he concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

Oslo, October 9, 2009

Wonders in the Tree House

When the city of Saint Paul was controlled by the mob!
by Charlie Leck

The projection from the guys refinishing the floors in our house is that we'll be able to move back in on Friday. That's the day my wife flies to New York City, so I'll be alone here during the move in. We'll probably wait until Monday to begin moving the furniture back in. The good news is that I'll be able to reclaim my office Friday morning and blogging will then become much easier.

As I am reminded again and again, there are often wonderful discoveries to be made even in moments of great inconvenience. Such happened yesterday in the Tree House.

The bookshelves in our little guest apartment are the resting grounds for some of the tackier books I read. Anything that falls into the category of mystery, thriller, spy or crime novels end up on the shelves up there. A couple hundred books are neatly lined up, according to author, on the shelves. Another hundred have been haphazardly piled on top of the shelved books because there isn't space left to shelve any more. There's all of John Grisham's work, most of John Sandford's novels, a dozen or so by Patricia Cornwell, all of Anne Perry. John LeCarre, Jody Compton, M.C. Beaton, Richard North Paterson, Dick Francis, Tom Clancy and a host of others. There's also a very nice set of all of Arthur Conan Doyle's work. Lately, I've been piling on these shelves all of the works of Daniel Silva as I've finished them. I have always thought that everything up there in the Tree House had been read.

Yet, I was standing there in the early afternoon yesterday, thinking about how I had to either put some more shelves in the big room up there, so I could more neatly shelve all these books, or I had to weed some out and get rid of them. About ten percent of the books are paperbacks, so I thought, perhaps, those could go. As I fidgeted with a few of the books, trying to find the appropriate spaces for them, I picked one up that didn't look at all familiar to me. Hmm!

It was a paperback by Steve Thayer called Saint Mudd. Thayer wrote an extradinarily good murder mystery call The Weatherman. I'd read it about 10 years ago and counted it among my favorites. Another of his books, Wheatland, which I hadn't liked, stood on the shelves, too. With certainty I realized that I had not read this other book that proudly proclaimed on its cover that it was by the author of The Weatherman. Hmm!

So, I sat down in one of the less than comfortable chairs that we keep up there and began to read. Three hours later I was approaching the mid point of the book and enjoying every page of it. The Twins game was about to begin on television and I sadly set the book aside in favor of the ball game.

Well, I want to recommend this book to those of you who fit into each of the following categories:

You like mystery stories!

You enjoy reading about the history of our own metropolitian region (the Twin Cities)!

You can handle a few explicit descriptions of sexual escapade and some raw language!

You like compelling 'who done it' surprises.

The setting is Saint Paul, Minnesota. The time is the early 30s and prohibition is coming to an end. The protaganist is a columnist for a cheap and failing city newspaper.

Even though I'm only half-way through this one, I am willing to tell you that you'll be captivated by this terribly good story that goes way beyond simple mystery. Thayer is a marvelous story teller and a very good writer. Certainly you'll be able to pick this book up for a song in any good used book store. Go for it!

What I realize now is that I've got to order the other four books by Steve Thayer that I've not read.

Here's the Steve Thayer web site's description of Saint Mudd.

Steve Thayer's web site home.

Other books by Steve Thayer.

Living in the Tree House

Illustration by Stiles Designs. Visit the web site!

Making way for the hardwood-flooring boys!
by Charlie Leck

Running my life with less is what I’m trying to do this week.We’ve had to abandon our house. We won’t be able to get back in until, at least, the weekend. Our hardwood floors on the main level are being restored and refinished. They’ve not been attended to since we built our home in 1991. I had no idea what a mess it this process would be (is). There are massive amounts of extra fine dust everywhere – except on the newly sanded floors, of course, because those have been immaculately cleaned for the shiny finish that will now be put upon them.

In the meantime I can’t get to my loft-office to use my computer. My books and papers are all up there where I cannot go. I’ve got withdrawal shakes that this laptop computer, with no Internet connection, cannot cure. I’ll write this and then go off to a lovely little coffee shop (Crow River Coffee Company) in Watertown, where I can get wirelessly on-line to post this rambling.

Of course, I am worried that the world cannot get along without my vital postings. Afghanistan is a mess – the chaos that I long ago predicted – and the President is having trouble with the progressives in his party who don’t believe any real health care reform is possible without universal care or a public option at the very least.

Local Politics
I’m also supposed to be running a local political campaign here in my town. A scoundrel wants to be reelected to our city council and another scoundrel with a disreputable past wants to get elected. They’re both libertarian oriented guys who want to take government supervision out of just about everything. You know how these wingers think – that a property owner ought to be able to do whatever he wants on his own property – like draining his pickup’s oil directly on to the ground – or sticking a big out-building right on the property line in plain view of the house his neighbor just built so lovingly. They haven’t any regard for the wonder and importance of our natural wetlands and they think it is okay to randomly drain them, fill them and build upon them. Go ahead and do it when no one is looking. These guys want to get rid of our fine police department and they believe we could return to the vigilante days of volunteer deputies in charge of law and order with no supervision (or very little of it supplied by a county sheriff’s office that is 25 miles away). These guys don’t understand much about protecting the beautiful environment and open space that we have out here. They propose to allow property owners to make all the money they ever dreamed about, when they can chop up their land into tiny parcels where cheap, but profitable, little houses could be sticked together all over town.

So, our little town is under a serious threat right now. Winning is vital. I have a difficult time sleeping at night when I think about it. I push myself to do other things so that I can relax a little bit.

Fortunately, sports madness is consuming our state and this wonderful metropolitan region right now. The Twins finished the regular season tied for first place in their division and face a one game “play-in” this afternoon at 4 P.M.. The Vikes played the Packers last night and the whole state – and our neighboring state, Wisconsin – was crazy with anticipation while they waited for the nationally televised encounter. If you’re a football fan you know all about this passionate encounter between the Pack and the Vikes (with superstar Brett Favre in the middle of it). Our professional hockey team, The Wild, also started its season this week and this is, well, simply put, the State of Hockey you know.

I got lost in the Viking game last night and I expect to immerse myself in the Twins game this afternoon. That will mean a touch of relaxation for a while before the intensive work to save our town begins again.

Well, I’m about to put a last period on this rambling essay, but first I’ll take a quick glance at the newspaper.

H1N1
The general population is getting more worried about this strange flu epidemic that crawls across the nation. A perfectly healthy little boy died from the disease a couple of weeks ago. He’d been loaded into an ambulance for a trip to the hospital and died before the vehicle could even begin the journey. He’s the seventh death from the disease in our state.

RACINO
Support is growing to turn our horse race track, Canterbury Park, into a RACINO; that is, a combination racetrack and gambling casino that would provide huge amounts of income for the state government that might allow them to help the Minnesota Vikings build a new and wondrous stadium. It’s an issue I don’t care about one way or the other.

Republicans are all over Obama
The President foolishly threw himself into Chicago’s attempt to get the International Olympic Committee to bring the 2016 Olympics to the windy city. The Committee did not choose Chicago and somehow this becomes a vital catastrophe to the right-wingers. In his column this morning, Paul Krugman calls the Republicans “a party of spite.”

WHAT I WANT FROM HEALTH CARE
The President of Alina Health Care and Hospitals, one of the giants in the industry began a column that ran in today’s newspaper with a powerful couple of sentences. Then the rest of the column trailed off to mediocrity and seemed to avoid his own opener.

“I want everyone to have health insurance and access to health care service. Health care is a right, not a privilege. The United States is a country built on capitalism and self-reliance; yet compassion valued in equal measure. My neighbor who was laid off deserves coverage, the ingle mother without benefits deserves coverage, and the poor, disabled individual with a preexisting condition deserves coverage – plain and simple.”

Nevertheless, Kenneth H. Paulus, who wrote the above statement, makes it pretty clear he opposes a public option that would compete with his company.

Enough then!
"Enough then," as we say around here in Minnesota. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in my office by Friday and then I’ll be able to put together some respectable blog themes.

Twins Win

Win Twins!
by Charlie Leck

In truth, this is not one of my blogs. I'm going to send you on to Blog from the Moderate Left, to read a posting by Jeff Flecke about the closing the Metrodome. Flecke very cleverly calls it "the worst, most beloved stadium in Major League Baseball." Indeed, it has been a terrible baseball stadium, but, boy, did it provide us with a slug of memories. Yesterday's game, and the ceremony that followed it, was no exception.

Following Flecke's essay there is a video that highlights many of the wonderful moments in the stadium that we, here in Minnesota, simply call "the Dome." Even if you don't like baseball, you'll find Flecke's piece well worth reading (I think).