Sunday, October 5th, 2003

​Yet another gloriously cool, calm, and peaceful October morn here in beauuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, where we prepare to enlist the support of all goddesses and gods e'er invoked by humankind to help the Twins win their game with the damned Yankees this afternoon and force a fifth game tomorrow night in New York. Boys, 'tis time - you must focus, fellows - there won't be another game this year unless you do. The boys from Minnesota lost in a close one yesterday afternoon - no more of that! Strike early and keep going, boys!

In a couple of hours, I'll be giving a talk at the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship here in Bismarck on the "Role of Civic Religion in a Civilized Society."

'Twas on this day in 1930 that Father Coughlin, the Fighting Priest, took to the national CBS network with his call for social justice. He would later get into trouble for what many considered anti-Semitic remarks. Here's some of what Coughlin said on March 11, 1935:

Begin Coughlin Quote
America's destiny is in the process of fulfillment. The ancient world set aside the bondage of physical freedom. Throughout the middle centuries civilization struggled to disentangle itself from an agrarian serfdom which prevented men from owning their own homes or farms. In later days, in the spirit of the Magna Carta, there was lifted aloft the first standard for political freedom. Physical, agrarian, political--these freedoms has the world obtained. But, as the finger of Providence weaves on the wall of time the fabric of this life's story, there is still another golden thread which must be spun from north to south, from east to west--the golden thread of economic liberty and financial freedom. Palestine has given us our religion--our faith and hope and charity. Greece has bestowed upon us her culture. From the Tiber's banks at Rome came law and order. It was left to England and Spain, and especially to the Nordic nations, to teach the world the story of commerce and carry across the seven seas the glory which they inherited.

What part must America play? There is only one. We, the great creditor nation of this world, who today control its gold are in a position to strike the first and telling blow for economic freedom, for financial independence! This shall be our contribution. As long as there is a God in heaven and power within my soul I will stand out first and foremost to lead in driving the money changers from the temple. This is the destiny of Columbia. This will be her contribution to civilization. To this task I invite you to dedicate your lives.
End Coughlin Quote

This is also the day in 1989 that televangelist Jim Bakker was convicted of taking his 116,000 viewers of the Praise the Lord program for some $158 million dollars - Bakker served five years of a forty-five year sentence - his wife Tammy Faye divorced him while he was in the slammer. 'Twas Bakker who once quipped, "Why should I apologize because God throws in crystal chandeliers, mahogany floors, and the best construction in the world?" of his grand Christian resort. 

Begin excerpt of article on Jim Bakker
Jim Bakker nor the Assembly of God with whom he was ordained have never publicly discussed or dealt with the fact that Jim Bakker was Bi-sexual or that his real lover was a man! Although a contrite Jim Bakker returned to his childhood church to ask forgiveness, he never talked about David Taggart his great male lover!

Bakker, the founder on the now non existent PTL Club and Village, has downplayed the role of the bisexual evangelist John Wesley Fletcher, who arranged his tryst with Jessica Hahn. He hardly talks about James and David Taggart, the brothers who many claim controlled Bakker in his final PTL years Fletcher was bitter and said Bakker had failed to keep promises and had forsaken him during tough times. Fletcher stated during the "Pearlygate" media storm that he, too, had been sexually involved with bisexual Bakker, reported Christianity Today. So it was not surprising that Tammy Faye Bakker (now Messner), who divorced Bakker, would have a prominent role in the gay pride festivities in Washington in June 2002. The former televangelist was to judge a Tammy Faye look-alike contest, appear at a fund-raising dinner and speak from the main stage of the Capital Pride 2002 street festival. There are those who believe that Tammy Faye is really a drag queen. Once adored by viewers of the electronic church, Messner now appears at gay-pride events nationwide, such as a Tammy Faye look-alike contest held in Washington, D.C., recently where, according to National Public Radio, she was "surrounded by men in falsies and pancake makeup and...impossible to upstage." In 1996 Jim Bakker's book was published, entitled I Was Wrong (Thomas Nelson Publishers). In January 2003, Jim Bakker began broadcasting the "Jim Bakker Show" with his wife Lori Bakker (since 1998).
End Excerpt of Article on Jim Baker.

My toast of the last glass of Welch's Strawberry Breeze goes today to "Give 'Em Hell" Harry S. Truman. On this day in 1947, more than two years after the end of World War II, Truman became the first president to appear on television. In a talk from the White House, President Truman urged Americans to sacrifice for the relief of suffering, starving Europeans - he asked that all Americans give up meat on Tuesdays and forego eating chicken on Thursdays.

Kola, I hope you are taking care of yourselves today - and that you are looking out for each other - perhaps in the way we tried to do back in 1947 when President Truman asked us to - finding a way to give up one of our luxuries so that those much less fortunate might have a brighter day in the middle world - 'twill make it an even more beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful day wherever you are if you do.

Ev Albers

Saturday, October 4th, 2003

What a great cool yet most comfortable day here in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, home of the early morning peaceful streets and quiet neighborhoods in the capital city, Bismarck where I sit a mile or so from the not-so-mighty Missouri - the water both behind and below the Garrison Dam thirty-some miles north is low, low, low. I spend some delightful hours with my friend Clay Jenkinson yesterday morning - he had been here in Bismarck for a grand conference on the Missouri River and its future a couple of weeks ago when I was seeking medical attention at that bastion of hope and infinite possibility of being around to getting something done here in the middle world, the Midwestern Regional Medical Center at Zion, one the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Clay says that folks remain optimistic about the future of the river, the highway Lewis and Clark used to reach here two hundred years ago come this Ocober. One of Clay's alter egos - that is, one of the historical figures that he portrays in Chautauqua style - is John Wesley Powell, who came to Dakota when we were putting our constitution together in 1889 and told delegates to hold on to their rights to the Missouri River water at all costs - that it was what stood between us and becoming nomads on a desert. Powell said that without water, and we would never be able to depend on rain in the western two-thirds of the state - without water, Dakota could never be the agricultural Garden of Eden the railroads promised European immigrants Dakota was in fact.

The railroad never came to Hannover Township in the heart of Oliver County - nor did it come to the county seat, Center, which is smack dab in the middle of the county. Hannover is six miles to the west. My great-grandfather, his brother and first cousin hoofed it from the Missouri some sixteen miles to the east of Hannover when they came out in 1884 to homestead - 'twas a wet year, and the place looked like the Garden of the Universe. 'Twas on this day back in 1948, the year I started school with two other guys and a gal, that the radio program The Railroad Hour began on ABC radio - hosted by Joel MacCrae it had a theme song familiar to most every American, whether he/she lives near a railroad or not --"I've been working on the railroad." Work was one thing we all believed in out in Oliver Country - whether we were Missouri Synod Lutherans Germans from the low lands of northern Germany of the ilk that dominated in Hannover Township or the catholic Germans from the south who spent some time in Russia before coming to Dakota. Most everyone agreed that the Ten Commandments were a fine moral guide, but we Lutherans were not so sure the Catholics understood what God was talking about exactly in the words he gave to Moses to carry down the mountain - or that they had a handle on who the God was that said at the beginning of the Commandments, "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Must have been in the first grade that I learned that the real God always got a capital "G" - the others got a small g. Of course, the Catholics were equally suspicious of our understanding of and appreciation for the true "God," because we didn't follow all of the century-old rules in approaching him - we didn't recognize the pope, for one thing. We did go see The Ten Commandments starring a Charlton Heston as Moses - today Heston turns seventy-nine - he's damned near ninety. In the movie, Heston didn't descend the mountain with the Commandments in one hand and a rifle in the other - he had his hands full with the commandments, so to speak. The movie came out in 1956, the year I started high school at New Salem, where the railroad did come through - it's nineteen miles from the Garden of the Universe in Hannover. Back in 1956, New Salem didn't boast the world's largest cow, the gigantic fiberglass Holstein that stands on School Hill - called that because it was the spot to park and spark back in the 1950s - and we didn't see The Ten Commandments until the next year or even the year after, probably - we didn't get a lot of first-run movies out in New Salem or Center - or at the theaters in Stanton and Hazen. The commandments carried by Heston were made of fiberglass, just like the big cow. Someone bought them for a mere $81,700 at a Christie's auction in 1995, twenty-nine years after the film was made.

There was a time in Dakota when the Ten Commandments were posted in every classroom in the state - not so long ago, at that. A gentleman and an educator with a wicked, whimsical sense of humor, Burt Nygren, was Chair of the North Dakota Humanities Council back when one of the many furors over the posting of the commandments hit - must have been in the late seventies. As Superintendent of the Grand Forks School System, Burt revised them to make the text more inclusive of different religions - I don't know what happened to that masterpiece - I must get it a copy from him. Burt went on to become the superintendent at one of the large Minneapolis/St. Paul suburbs. In a visit we had a couple of weeks ago, Bernard O'Kelly, who was the founding chair of the North Dakota Humanities Council - then called the North Dakota Committee for the Humanities And Public Issues - reminded me that a photograph of Burt Nygren appearing to walk on water — one concocted, methinks, by a young Clay Jenkinson — also exists somewhere. Burt served as Chair of both the North Dakota Humanities Council and of the Minnesota Humanities Commission, now the Minnesota Humanities Council - the only person to serve as the chair of two different state humanities councils as far as I know. If I remember right, the Ten Commandments came down from the walls of the classrooms in the Grand Forks School System eventually - as they did from the classrooms of Dickinson State College, where they were prominently displayed when I transferred there in 1962. A second or third-generation Lebanese-American young woman singlehandedly orchestrated their removal because of their potential violation of the first amendment - that was in the late 1960s.

The story behind the placement of the Ten Commandments in court houses throughout the country - and later in schools - didn't come about because of a groundswell of grassroots religious fervor - 'twas, in fact, motivated in no small part by an attempt to make some money. The fellow largely responsible for the granite markers on courthouse lawns was, in fact, a lawyer and judge -- Judge E.J. Ruegemer of Minnesota, who unashamedly saw getting those monuments up with the help Eagles Clubs across the country - and Judge Ruegemer was an Eagle - would be a great opportunity to sell a good bit of Minnesota granite. He teamed up with - guess who? Cecil B. DeMille, who, of course, was interested in promoting his remake of the his 1930s The Ten Commandments in 1956. This came about the same time that Congress passed a law adopting the motto "In God We Trust" and state's began promoting posting the motto in schools and public places - all of this comes down during the depths of the cold war during a time when Billy Graham and others are telling the nation to get right with God with a capital G or get buried by atheistic communism. The widespread public support was fueled, for the most part, with fear - not unlike the return to public prayer and major breaches of the separation of church and state principle which served the pluralistic social compact of the United States so well for so long. Curiously, the first appearance of "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency came in 1864 during the depths of the Civil War when a Baptist minister, Mark R. Watkinson, suggested that the use of the phrase would "relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism." Most curious, indeed, when one considers that it was the Danbury Baptists who appealed to President Thomas Jefferson for protection of their religious freedom that prompted Jefferson's reply and the famous "Wall of Separation" that is the basis of challenges to such as the Ten Commandments on Court House lawns, posted in classrooms --the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance (also brought about during the national hysteria during the worst of the Red Scares of the 1950s), and "In God We Trust" on currency.

Perhaps the most compelling question facing U.S. citizens committed to sustaining our 200-year+ plus social compact is indeed "Is there a proper role for Judeo/Christian principles in publicly supported facilities and programs - does religion have a role in government?" The visions and revisions of the founding principles including deeply held and completely contradictory convictions about what the founders thought the role of religion should be.

I must be about thinking in the weest more organized fashion about this, for I'm to offer coherent thoughts on civic religion tomorrow to friends at the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship - and still find time this afternoon to root on my beloved Minnesota Twins to a second victory of the Yankees whom they will play in the Metrodome in Minneapolis this afternoon. Charger and I welcome you sending whatever psychic telepathic encouragement to focus, focus FOCUS along to the boys you have time to muster - especially to young Kyle Lohse who pitches against the legendary Roger Clemens - come on fellows, I know you can do it.

Have a great day and weekend, kola - and do take good care of yourselves and look out for each other. I'm fortified the weest bit of sour-cream raisin pie my friend Clay bought yesterday at fabulous Kroll's Kitchen - feeling pretty chipper. I do wonder who paid over $80,000 for those fiberglass tablets of the Ten Commandments - and for all my libertarian rhetoric, I'm not above enlisting whatever gods may be to bring about my idea of a dream World Series - the Twins win 4-2 in six games agains the Chicago Cubs - it begins with a victory this afternoon.

Ev Albers

Friday, October 3rd, 2003

​Aye, 'tis indeed a glorious Friday morning, crisp and calm in the most beauuuuuuuuuutiful of places at 5:00 A.M. this 3 of October. 'Twas not the best of time at Yankee Stadium for my beloved Twins last night - but they're coming home for a games Saturday and Sunday at the Metrodome, and if they win them both, they won't have to return to Yankee Stadium. Always look at the bright side of life, as Charger, the six-inch Great American Bison always says.

Among the cheeriest of folks I come to know a good better is the love of my brother-in-law Donald Kubik, Joy Meyers, a St. Paul, Minnesota girl who shares what could be six-star hotel over in Roseville. Joy just recently became a grandmother (obviously she married young as did her son, for she doesn't seem old enough to be a grandmother). A tireless sender of jokes good and bad of bits of wisdom to cheer one's day, Joy is the finest of kola - and a great gardener and landscaper in her early retirement at her manor with the great sun porch and magnificent back yard. Here's the day's biggest birthday salute to you, Joy - may you live long and continue to enjoy life - long enough to help your new grandchild with high school and college homework and then some. We need fine folk of your ilk around.

Two hundred years ago today, finally 500 miles downstream from Pittsburgh on the shallow Ohio, Meriwether Lewis wrote a letter to President Jefferson - he had give up on writing a daily journal for the last couple of weeks, so we glean what we can from Lewis's letters at several stops. Mostly, he describes in a long letter what he finds at Big Bone Lick - the skeleton of a woolly mammoth - something Lewis as Jefferson's former personal secretary and protégé knew the third president would be interested in because he hoped that the Expedition might discover the mammoth alive and well in the American West.

At the end of letter, Lewis asks to be kept informed of the transfer of the great Louisiana from France to the United States and then throws in plans for a little trip that we know upset Jefferson mightily - he wrote back immediately upon receipt of Lewis's letter of October 3 saying, "Don't do that, Meriwether." Lewis suggests that he'll have a good deal of time on his hands when he gets to the Missouri and that he would ride for a few hundred miles or more southwest from Missouri to explore Spanish-held lands - perhaps all the way to "Santafee." He also suggest that he might send Clark off in another direction if he thinks his friend will have time. Jefferson was right - 'twould have been a bad idea. Lewis has a way to go before he even meets up with Clark and the two get on down to St. Louis to set up winter quarters - and although Lewis spent most of his time in town at meetings and such, Clark was necessarily at the winter quarters almost every day shaping up the Corps of Discovery.

The morning news from here at home and around the world is more of the same zaniness and madness - the Berlin Wall went down with new hope of peace for millions - the great fence goes up between Israel and the West Bank - and new Israelis setters plan to build homes by the hundreds - escalating the tension in the Middle East a couple of more notches. We still can't find any WMD - weapons of mass destruction - in Iraq. At home, his devil-may-care past continues to irk Arnold Schwarzenegger mildly - but all of the business of groping women and treating them as sexual objects and saying he admired Hitler when he was young man of twenty-five and the business of about racist remarks about fellow body builders who happened to be black are really not hurting him in the polls. Reportedly, many woman following his campaign would very happily bare their breasts and have Arnold give them his autography. I must admit, I do not fathom politics and political maneuvering - now Arizona Senator John McCann has come out in vocal support for Arnold. 'Tis bizarre, kola, bizarre. We would dismiss a movie with the California scenario as totally implausible.

There's only one reason Arnold Scwarzenegger is running for governor - for personal glory - he may have himself convinced that he is motivated by more altruistic reasons, but his entire career bespeaks a self-satisfied comfort in "I'm number one and I'm gonna stay that way" egotism that knows no bonds. It is completely within his character to have said in a 1975 interview after making Pumping Iron -- an interview that was reportedly transcribed verbatim: "I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it." The real clincher comes with the young Arnold's wish that he could experience being "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium and have all those people scream at you and just being in total agreement whatever you say." - Schwarzenegger must have seen the incredible film made by Leni Riefenstahl on the 1936 Olympics - the one that shows Hitler pouting in disgust when black American Jessie Owens wins.

"Having all those people . . . just being in total agreement whatever you say" is exactly what Rush Limbaugh has come to expect from his listeners. Limbaugh would be totally destroyed in an open debate - and devastated in any kind of formal debate with rules - he operates by screening calls and being able to turn off and put down down with heavy sarcasm anyone who does not accept everything he says.

Some folks just expect special treatment as their birthright, and expectation is half of getting it. It was on this day in 1995 that O.J. Simpson was acquitted - October 3.

It was also on this day 1932 that Iraq became independent of British rule (and the Ottoman Turks before the British) - for the first time in seventeen years. The British - and, of course, the Americans and a few others - are back in Iraq once more. Thirteen years ago today, the two Germanies, East & West, reunited - no more wall - in Germany, at least.

Here in Dakota, 'tis a great day to be alive - and well enough to spend some time with good friend Clay Jenkinson, get some work done, and prepare for a weekend of humanities programs and a talk Sunday at the local Unitarian-Universalist Church on the role of civic religion and the whole question of that old notion of a wall of separation between church and state. Busy times - and a good time to feel and be in as fine a fettle as possible - besides, who wants to waste even a moment of such a glorious day in beauuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota? Hope 'tis well with thee, dear kola - that you're taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other. 

Ev Albers

Thursday, October 2nd, 2003

Here's a special message for those kola who stop by my journal to visit in the morning - I didn't get an entry posted yesterday until late afternoon - but it's in the archive above under the date 10/1/03 and under the title "Sleeping a Dozen Hours into Jimmy Carter's Birthday and the Guilt of Feeling in Too Fine a Fettle" - some remarks about the legacy of growing up in Hannover Township.

Aye, 'this day is the weest bit warmer - a rather toasty 40s instead of the crisp 20s. We've managed, here in beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, to do in the mosquitoes for another year - and the West Nile virus, which is nasty stuff indeed. My first toast this morning - 'tis 1:00 A.M. here on the east bank of the Missouri, and the Boston Red Sox and Oakland Athletics are still playing, tied in the eleventh 4-4 - my first toast is to patriot Sam Adams (born 09/27/1722, died on this day in 1803) who didn't invent the beer named after him. I spoke of Sam the other day - and I'm picking up on something I wrote yesterday when I finally posted my journal entry late in the afternoon - by mulling over Sam's observation, "Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason." Sam spoke in the heart of the Enlightenment, during the time that the upstart Americans were about the business of forging a just and rational social compact, in words if not in practice. Certainly one who pretends to rational discouse and spews nothing but self-satisfied prejudice, often in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is the man who tells his ditto followers not they don't have to think - he'll do their thinking for them. Well, el Rushbo, Rush Limbo, most unkindly called the "anus of conservative America" by one of his critics," resigned a couple of hours ago from after just a couple of weeks of being a big-time commentator on NFL football for ESPN - after a couple of days of defending remarks he made about Philadelphia black quarterback Donovan McNabb, saying that McNabb's poor performance in the first two games of the season were perfectly understandable, because he was hyped and given special status simply because he was black - a grave social injustice that Rush said he has been trying to address for some. This morning, a story will come out that Rush might be forgiven his indiscretion because he was, perhaps, on pills - in a story that will appear on the streets in a few hours, Tracy Conner of the New York Daily News writes:

Begin Story of Rush & Pills
Talk-radio titan Rush Limbaugh is being investigated for allegedly buying thousands of addictive painkillers from a black-market drug ring.

The moralizing motormouth was turned in by his former housekeeper - who says she was Limbaugh's pill supplier for four years.

Wilma Cline, 42, says Limbaugh was hooked on the potent prescription drugs OxyContin, Lorcet and hydrocodone - and went through detox twice.

"There were times when I worried," Cline told the National Enquirer, which broke the story in an edition being published today. "All these pills are enough to kill an elephant - never mind a man."

Cline could not be reached for further comment yesterday, but her lawyer, Ed Shohat of Miami, said his client "stands behind the story."

The Daily News independently confirmed that Limbaugh is under investigation.

His lawyers, Jerry Fox and Dan Zachary, refused to comment on the accusations and said any "medical information" about him was private and not newsworthy.

They said Limbaugh - who has a top-rated syndicated radio show but resigned early today from a weekly ESPN football segment amid criticism of racial comments about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb - was traveling and had no comment.

The Palm Beach County state attorney's office, which is running the probe, said it could not confirm or deny the allegations.

Scoring in parking lot
Cline told the Enquirer she went to prosecutors with information about Limbaugh and others after four years of drug deals that included clandestine handoffs in a Denny's parking lot.

She said she wore a wire during her last two deliveries to the conservative commentator and gave the tapes to authorities.
She also gave the Enquirer a ledger documenting how many pills she claimed to have bought for him - 4,350 in one 47-day period - and E-mails she claimed Limbaugh sent her.
In one missive, Limbaugh pushed Cline to get more "little blues" - code for OxyContin, the powerful narcotic nicknamed hillbilly heroin, she said.
"You know how this stuff works ... the more you get used to, the more it takes," the May 2002 E-mail reads. "But I will try and cut down to help out."

The account Cline gave the Enquirer is that she became Limbaugh's drug connection in 1998, nine months after taking a housekeeping job at his Palm Beach mansion.
It started after her husband, David, hurt himself in a fall, and Limbaugh asked how he was.
"He asked me casually, 'Is he getting any pain medication?' I said, 'Yes - he's had surgery, and the doctor gave him hydro-codone 750,'" Cline said. "To my astonishment, he said, 'Can you spare a couple of them?'"

Husband's pills
Cline said she gave Limbaugh 10 pills the next day and agreed to give him 30 of her husband's pills each month. When the doctor stopped renewing the prescription in early 1999, Limbaugh allegedly went ballistic.

"His tone was nasty and bullying. He said, 'I don't care how or what you do, but you'd better - better! - get me some more,'" Cline said.

The housekeeper said she found a new supplier and arranged to hide Limbaugh's stashes under his mattress so his wife, Marta, wouldn't find them.

After several months, Limbaugh told her he was going to New York for detox and didn't need any more pills, Cline said.

But a month later, he said his left ear was hurting and asked her for hydrocodone, followed by an order for OxyContin.

Limbaugh, 52, suffered from autoimmune ear disease, a condition that left him deaf and had to be corrected with cochlear implant surgery two years ago.

Cline said she continued to make deliveries to Limbaugh even after she quit as his housekeeper in July 2001 - but he became increasingly paranoid, even patting her down for recording devices, she said.

In June 2002, Limbaugh told her he was going to New York for detox a second time.

After he returned, "I went to talk to him, and he cried a little bit," she said. "He told me that if it ever got out, he would be ruined."

She claimed that a lawyer for Limbaugh gave her a payoff - $80,000 he owed her, plus another $120,000 - and asked her to destroy the computer that contained the E-mail records.

Soon after, Cline and her husband retained Shohat and contacted prosecutors.

Feeling no pain
The drugs Rush Limbaugh is accused of abusing are legal only with a doctor's prescription. All are habit-forming.

- Hydrocodone

Anti-cough agent and painkiller similar to morphine. Side effects include anxiety, poor mental performance, emotional dependence, drowsiness, mood changes, difficulty breathing and itchiness.

- Lorcet

Brand name for the combination of Tylenol and hydrocodone, prescribed for moderate to severe pain. Side effects include dry mouth, nausea, vomiting, decreased appetite, dizziness, tiredness, muscle twitches, sweating and itching. - OxyContin Potent time-release medication for relief of moderate to severe pain, known as hillbilly heroin because of black-market popularity in some rural areas. Side effects include drowsiness, dizziness, sweating, muscle twitches and decreased sex drive. A large dose can be fatal.
End Allegations of Limbaugh Drug Use

Rush spent two days saying that he was right in his remarks about McNabb - and that all of the fuss was caused because people knew he and he alone had the truth. For my part, I'm a little sorry to see him go - 'twas wonderful to see a man so full of himself, so egotistical, made such an ass of himself time and again. Limbaugh's appeal is the unashamed, blind prejudice, the way in which he slices up all of human experience and the social compact into "those who agree with me and those who don't." That his listenership is so large is the weest bit disturbing - all of those Americans in search of values who are afraid to think for themselves - they would rather have Rush do it. Perhaps the best characterization of El Rushbo came from Eagles defensive end N.D. Kalu, who said, "He speaks well, he's well-read, but he's an idiot." I'm sure that my darling wife, Leslie, the fiercely political one in our family, will find a way to hear from Rush himself what he has to say on the radio today - 'tis one of my spouse's greatest entertainments, listening to such idiocy and getting outraged by it. We'll get an update from her tomorrow.

The point is, of course, is that Sam Adams was right - we don't really care to function in a rational way - or we can't - we run on emotion - for some of us, it's rawer than for others.

There was plenty of raw emotion when President Lyndon Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to join the Supreme Court as its first black member, but the great jurist was indeed sworn in on this day in 1967 - he served with distinction until his retirement in 1991 - two years before the completion of his passage in the middle world at the age of eighty-four. One day in 1981, Justice Rehnquist complained that the appeals for one inmate had cost too much money. Quipped Marshall, "It would have been cheaper to shoot him right after he was arrested, wouldn't it?" Like Rush, Marshall often dissented from majority opinion - always with great painstakingly persuasive logic rather than an appeal to emotional prejudice. In his 63-page dissenting opinion in San Antonio School District v Rodriguez, Marshall disagreed with the slim majority of 5-4 that the constitutional rights of citizens were not violated by the property tax system that funds public education in much of the country. Marshall cut to the quick when he said that the Court had given "unsupportable acquiescence in a system which deprives children in their earliest years of the chance to reach their full potential as citizens."

You can learn more about this remarkable man by going here. Rush Limbaugh could certainly benefit from reading the book featured at this site, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams. At this same site, "Everything is easy." Again, I remind you about what Charlie Houston said, "You have got to be better, boy. You better move better."

Be careful of these people who say, "You have made it. Take it easy; you don't need any more help." ...I would like to read ... for these people who tell you, 'to take it easy. Don't worry, etc.'

"The great enemy of truth very often is not the lie; deliberate, contrived and dishonest; but the myth persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic." - John F. Kennedy
End Marshall Quote

No one is a greater master of invoking the worst of unquestioned prejudice than Rush Limbaugh, who depends upon what Kennedy called "the myth persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic" to underscore every point he tries to make. When confronted with the possibility that what he says may be something less than true, Limbaugh's answer is always a variation of "I must have been right, otherwise the comments wouldn't have produced such an outrage." - that's what he offered in the wake of reaction to his comments on Donovan McNabb.

Out in California - never known for a preference for either rational thought or for anything but an alternative construct to reality - a weak myth based not on human experience but on wishful thinking - it's beginning to look very much as though Arnold Schwarzenegger will become the next governor the state which ranks with nations in the size of its economy and population - the fifth largest economy in the world. If one is to believe several body builders who knew and worked with Schwarzenegger - they happened to be black - Arnold was anything but politically correct in his speech and actions - even reported by Drudge, who shares many of Rush Limbaugh's political views. Here's what an earnest sleuth called Reconquista posted on a San Diego forum:

Begin Allegations of Schwarzenegger's Racism
Another black bodybuilder has come forward claiming that California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger has a history of making racist comments, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.
Robby Robinson, one of the most respected and well known of all body builders [a former Mr. America, Mr. World and Mr. Universe titleholder], backs up claims made by fellow black bodybuilder Rick Wayne.
"No disrespect to fans of Arnold but Rick's claim is in keeping with my experiences with the man," Robinson explains in a message.
Robinson says that Schwarzenegger repeatedly directed the term "nigger" at him.
Known throughout his career as "The Black Prince," Robinson continues:
"In San Jose at the Russ Warner Classic, as it was called in those days, there was a scene. 7 or 8 of us bodybuilders were invited to guest pose at the show. We were all paid $650.00 to do our thing.
"After the show there was a big banquet. We were all dancing having a nice time and in walks Arnold who started shouting out, 'Down with the blacks, niggers this and blacks that,' for about 10 min.
"All during this time nobody said a word.
"The banquet hall was full of IFFB [International Federation of BodyBuilders] officals. There was a dead silence. You could've heard a pin fall. Everybody in the room was shocked except for me.
"All of his hostility and rage was directed at me. For once he got caught out of shape and I was in contest condition. Me being in great shape put him in a bad light and a bad attitude.
"In my mind I wanted to bust him up. But that would not have done any good. So with all my intensity bottled inside me I walked out of the room. I'm walking out as he was still in his mode of, down with the blacks, when the silence was broken by Joe Weider's voice telling Arnold to stop. That did no good. He was on a roll by now. I left the banquet and went to my room.
"His actions were cowardly and disrespectful. That's why Rick Wayne is speaking out.
"During Pumping Iron more racial slurs were directed at me because I walked out of his house refusing to be involved in the movie if we did not get paid something. We ended up getting $100.00 a day but not before more racial slurs of nigger-nigger were leveled at me for speaking up for myself and the rest of the guys.
"What the fans and media don't know is we all then signed $10,000.00 contracts with White Mountain Film Company and Arnold. To this day Arnold has not paid us a dime. I wonder what the value of that contact would be today. BB [body building] has a dark past, it's a tragedy. The Weiders and Arnold have to deal with their ghosts being uncovered."
End Allegation of Schwarzenegger Racism

More revealing of Schwarzenegger's character than these allegations is his membership in an organization called U.S. English, a organization based in Washington, D.C. that says it exists to preserve English as America's first language. The organization has another agenda - one of its founders, John Taton, was ousted after his remarks on immigration were leaked to the press - he asked such questions as, "Is apartheid in Southern California's future?" and "Will Latin American migrants bring with them the tradition of the mordida (bribe), the lack of involvement in public affairs, etc.?" Taton was worried about immigrants out-reproducing white, English-speaking Americans - "Perhaps this is the first instance in which those with the pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down!"

Well, kola - 'tis time to get on with a glorious day in beauuuuuuuuutiful Dakota - much less tired, not as nauseous - and ready for the weest bit of work, I hope. I hope you'll find time to send some positive vibes for the Twins battling those forces of evil, the other - those damned Yankees - how's that for perpetuating a myth? But think of how much fun it would be were the Twins to, say, sweep the Yankees - can you imagine Steinbrenner's reaction? In the meantime, let us encourage the ilk of Rush Limbaugh and Arnold Schwarzenegger to speak their mind - or whatever part of themselves they speak from. 'Tis the best way for the truth to surface - may their own egotism expose 'em for the selfish "only I can save the world" attitude they bring to all human interaction - tell you the truth, I doubt if either has ever reached beyond the confines of their self-satisfied righteousness to embrace a friend or to ever have a genuine conversation where there's give and take instead of pronouncement of truth ala Charlton Heston descending the mountain with the ten commandments. Fact 'tis, were they not so irritatingly unlikable, we'd do well to be more than kind, for those of such ilk are more to be pitied than censured.

Take care of yourselves kola - exercise the weest bit of moderation (that is, do what I say, not what I do) - although I did confine myself to a single piece of peach pie yesterday and I laid off the complex proteins that take so much energy to digest - like meat. And take care of each other - our most important work here in the middle world.

Ev Albers

Wednesday, October 1st, 2003

Oh, my, kola - 'tis after 3:00 P.M. on this beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful day in Dakota, the first day of October - and I spent half of it in bed for some reason - in fact, I slept some fifteen hours - getting up frequently, and wrestling with strange dreams that my dreams were being arranged, repeated, and edited by some unknown force. I also thought that perhaps the bed and bedding were haunted. The cause?

I'm not sure, but I was pretty charged up with the sweet, sweet victory of the Twins over those damned Yankees yesterday afternoon - Charger, the six-inch great American Bison, and I had our hands full in the bottom of the ninth, when the Yankees threatened to come back. Ah, but that victory - the first in two years for the Twins over the Yankees, was sweet indeed. I celebrated by overindulging in some great grilled pork chops and many wondrous side dishes served up by Norm & Idell Albers last night - in fact, I had two and one-half of those big jobbers - and I probably sent my system into shock, for I've not had much meat for a good long while - couldn't get it down. I'd be well-advised, methinks, to exercise just the weest bit of moderation.

Methinks that something else, all too human and infinitely curious, is happening - I was feeling in too fine a fettle with no chemo for a month and roto-rootered bile duct - and when things go too well for us humans, we get worried and anxious. It's bred in the bone - and reinforced with that guilt that passeth all understanding that is part of my heritage from growing up in the Missouri-Synod Lutheran Church out in the Garden of the Universe in Hannover Township in Oliver County. At their most tolerant, clergy of the Missouri Synod can make one feel guilty for breathing. I'll never forget a day in the second grade in the "little school" out in Hannover Township - grades one to four were public, and grades five to eight in the "big school" were parochial - came about, I think, because at one point the church couldn't afford the teacher during hard times, so they went public - and then they kept half of the school public in order to get some public money. The teachers for the "little school" were hired by the School Board, which was a different entity than the one that oversaw the "big school" - and they usually came out of a Missouri Synod institution of higher learning - like Concordia College at Seward, Nebraska. My second-grade teacher was Carol Roegge, who did indeed attend Concordia at Seward. There were more than twenty students in that little school - the first-graders were a big class. But I digress - I loved Miss Roegge, in no small part because she was left-handed. So was I. Back in 1949, the prevalent theory was that left-handers should be forced to become right-handers in writing - Miss Roegge would have none of that. Her encouragement helped me for many a year - but by the 1970s, I was once more scribbling so badly that it's now at the point that I cannot read my own handwriting five minutes after I scratch a note.

Anyway, 'twas on a fine autumn day like this one back in 1949 that I began my long career of "appropriating" images - and I found this great picture in a book that I wanted --for the life of me, I cannot remember what it was - and decided that I would trace it using carbon paper. I carefully put a clean sheet beneath the carbon paper on the page after the one containing the image and started tracing away. When I finished, I turned the page - and, to my utter horror and immediate fear of eternal damnation, discovered that I had placed the carbon paper the wrong way, so I had traced the image in reverse on the back of the printed page - and ruined a book. I agonized for two days before I confessed to Miss Roegge - she gave me a hug, told me that it would be OK - and told me to get some sleep. 'Twas the greatest moment of grace in my entire life.

But, I ask you - what kind of church so infuses guilt that a seven-year-old thinks he's going to hell for putting carbon paper in backwards - well, that, and tracing to begin with? Fact is, I listened too carefully to the sermons and paid too much attention to our daily class in religion - we went over to the "big school" to a special room to do that because we didn't want to have any truck with mixing religion and state out in Hannover Township - 'twould have been far better had I not taken it all so seriously.

This day cannot pass without recognizing the birthday of an American president who doesn't get the respect he deserves - a man who had his own trouble with guilt and sinning in thought, if not in deed. Jimmy Carter was born on this day in 1924 - he turns seventy-nine today - and I think that what he's done since he left the presidency a great example of how we fellow travelers here in the middle world should be treating each other. His speech accepting the Nobel Prize this past year is among the finest statements of a conviction that our common interest lies in finding a way to do it without bombing the hell out of each other or killing each other. Here's Carter's conclusion in his speech of December 10, 2002:

Begin Carter Excerpt
At the beginning of this new millennium I was asked to discuss, here in Oslo, the greatest challenge that the world faces. Among all the possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now seventy-five times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them. The results of this disparity are root causes of most of the world's unresolved problems, including starvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict, and unnecessary illnesses that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS.
. . . .
But tragically, in the industrialized world there is a terrible absence of understanding or concern about those who are enduring lives of despair and hopelessness. We have not yet made the commitment to share with others an appreciable part of our excessive wealth. This is a potentially rewarding burden that we should all be willing to assume.

Ladies and gentlemen:

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice.

We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes - and we must.

Thank you.
End Carter Excerpt

I would believe that we can indeed choose - although I'm enough of a student of us humans and how we get along here in the middle world to know that rational choice seldom triumphs over emotion. And that's one of the great things about baseball - the way in which it mirrors life itself - for all of the attempts to buy the best players, for all of the statistics and probabilities, it's since a highly-emotional game, one that the Twins can win over those damned Yankees. Be well, kola - take care of yourselves (don't overdue those grilled pork chops) and look out for each other --

Ev Albers

Tuesday, September 30th, 2003

The last day of a glorious September in beauuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, home of Angie Dickinson, who was voted to have the best legs in all of Hollywood back in 1962 when she was but a lass of thirty-one. In fact, Universal Studios insured her legs for a million dollars in 1963. You can figure out how much time she has passed here in the middle world from your clue, kola. Here's a big swig of strawberry breeze ala Welch's to Ms. Dickinson - may you live long and prosper. North Dakota has already given Angie its highest award, the Rough Rider (1992) to the woman born Angeline Brown in Kulm (that pronounced KUL' UMM around these parts - two syllables). At first she played rather wholesome roles in movies and on television, but her voice and manner led to better stuff - and the portrayal of tougher broads. She was married in the early sixties to a semi-pro football player named Dickinson - that's how she got her last name - they parted friends. Over the years, she was linked romantically to some of the most notorious and glamorous of Hollywood's males, including Frank Sinatra. In fact, Angie's best line might be, "My mother was against my being an actress . . . until I introduced her to Frank Sinatra." She married composer Burt Bacharach in 1996 - they divorced in 1980, and Angie entered the twenty-first century unattached - denying rumors that she was having a relationship with a guy thirty-six years her junior. She also dated Harry Reasoner and Larry King. I don't know whether or not she still gets together with the ilk of Dom De Louise and Barbara Sinatra to play poker - a group that used to include Gregory Peck, who has left the middle world. I'm not sure why I'm interested in all of these details of Angie's life - I like to know all about the lives of those on whom Dakota bestows its highest award.

Way back in 1964, North Dakota gave the award to Roger Maris, who broke Babe Ruth's home run record of 60 hit in a single season on this very day back in 1927. One of the crummiest things ever done by a sports official was the asterisk supposedly placed by Baseball Commissioner Fred Frick next to Maris' record - indicating that Maris hit 61 home runs in 162-game season, but that Ruth needed only a 154-game season. Actually, there never was an asterisk in any record book - it's one of the great myths. Here's a swig of strawberry breeze to the memory of Roger Maris, the guy from Fargo who hit 61 in '61 - there's a museum in the heart of the largest shopping center in the state, West Acres in Fargo. Roger completed his passage in the middle world in 1985 at age fifty-one of lymphatic cancer - far too young. And James Dean was far too young when he left the middle world on this day in 1955 in seventy-five-mile crash of his Porsche outside a small town in California, Cholame. Born about eight months before Angie Dickinson in 1931, it's difficult to imagine James Dean at seventy-four - he will forever be the young Rebel Without a Cause. Millions of people know who he was - if you don't know as much as you want, you can find out at this well-constructed web site.

'Tis a cool, crisp day in beauuuuuuuuutiful Dakota today, kola - won't reach 50 degrees, and 'twas a hard frost last night. Warmer weather is ahead in the best of all possible seasons in this magnificent place - autumn, fall. Today, Charger and I will have to take some time from a busy schedule to support the Twins as best we can against those damn Yankees in the first play-off game between the two - it's been a good while since the Twins beat the team that Roger Maris was on with that other guy - Mantle was his name, I think - back in 1961. In the refrigerator is a whole cheese cake and a couple of slices of a great peach pie brought last night by our friends and my relatives, cousin Norm Albers and his wife Idell. I'll need that fortification to sustain the psychic telepathic support I'll be sending to Yankee Stadium this afternoon. You know the routine, fellows - focus, focus, FOCUS boys, FOCUS.

Of course, I'll be focusing on my work - with but an occasional look at the game - and if you believe this, I have some wonderful investment opportunities I would like to discuss with you. I really could become accustomed to this life of no chemo and a clean bile duct - I'm thinking about food a good deal - and eating it, including a great seven-bean-or-so soup prepared by my lovin' spouse, Leslie, yesterday - ate enough that I feel like the fattest squirrel in our backyard must after eating the hundred or so acorns we brought back with us from the Kubik Manor backyard, home of Leslie's brother Dave and his spouse Sue. We set them out thinking we would watch the squirrels carry away the acorns to storage - no so - one fellow ate 'em all. I also managed a long walk yesterday morning, early, when the trusty Volkswagen Golf died about fifteen blocks from my office - 'twas brisk and most invigorating.

Kola, I hope this last day of September is an invigorating one for you . . . even those of you who may be Yankee fans - that's how mellow I am this A.M. Take care of yourselves and look out for each other - and have a piece of peach pie if you possibly can, along with some laughter and music.

Ev Albers

Monday, September 29th, 2003

​Listening to some great music provided by my good friend Jim Lund from over in the lake country in western Minnesota - Willie Nelson's "Healing Hands of Time," one fine album. As today's birthday boy, Miguel de Cervantes (born on this day in 1547, died in 1616), once said, "Where there's music, there can be no evil." The musical Man of La Mancha, a creation which entwines Cervantes' life with his great gift to the millennia, the book Don Quixote, is my favorite of all time. I was silently singing the title song, "To Dream the Impossible Dream" before I awoke this early A.M. on a marvelously crisp day in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota - this cool weather will do in the mosquitoes and clear the air of viruses and such - nothing better than cool weather. 'Tis the best of times in Dakota, those days - in the most fortunate of times, weeks - following a hard frost or two.

This day is also the birthday of Elizabeth Gaskell (born 1810, died in 1865), the English writer who declared, "I'll not listen to reason. Reason always means what someone else has got to say." Sounds reasonable to me this great day to be alive. 'Twas Gaskell who described a thin character thusly: "He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, and leanness goes a great way towards gentility." I'm trying to move the weest bit away from being too genteel by gaining a bit of weight - although I'm not going to do it without pie, and it's been two days since I've had a slice. I'll take care of that problem today - but it won't be the "Bachelor Pie" that author Pascale Le Draoulec refers to at the beginning of one of her chapters on the search for great pie in America - a marvelous book sent by South Dakota kola Jeanne Jones-Manzer, American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America's Back Roads. Says Le Draoulec, "Bachelor Pie: it's what cowboys ate on the wagon trail . . . basically a quick biscuit dough filled with whatever flling was handy or available, such as prairie oysters (bull testicles) sliced thin and fried in bacon grease" Doesn't sound that appetizing this morning. But speaking of thinness - methinks that the two greatest roles in theater on my mind this A.M., Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha and Shakespeare's King Lear, call for thin guys. In my impossible dreams, I tread the boards once more as Don Quixote - can't be done, of course, because I can't really sing a lick - but 'tis good to dream. 'Tis especially good to dream of a better world, a more humane society in the middle world. As Cervantes said, "Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."

'Twas on this day back in 1984 - doesn't seem possible that '84 is a generation past! - back in 1984, Elizabeth Taylor was voted the most beautiful woman in the world in a Lou Harris poll - this after she succeeded at rehabilitation at the Betty Ford Clinic and conquered her weight problem. Who says we can't change? Today is also the birth date of the first performer to sell out Madison Square Garden. I don't know if he sang "The Death of Mother Jones" at that gig - but it's a great song that is about the famous agitator - "May the miners all work together/To carry out her plan,/And bring back better conditions/For every laboring man." Orvon, the telegraph operator, sang this song at the beginning of his career in 1931. The home town of this man who acted in over 100 movies didn't change its name from Tioga, Oklahoma to Gene Autry, but Berwyn, Oklahoma, where Autry had a ranch, did. I saw Gene Autry and his famous horse Champion in Mandan, North Dakota, when I was a youngster back in the 1950s - he came for the great Mandan Fourth of July rodeo. He had the weest bit too much of Dakota hospitality, methinks - and it wasn't grape juice that had him riding less than tall in the saddle. But that must have been rare, cause Autry lived to be more than ninety and did extremely well financially - two things usually not achieved by those who overindulge habitually in alcohol.

It's also the birthday today of Jerry Lee Lewis, his sixty-eighth. Jerry's around in spite of his best efforts not to be in the middle world. Double first cousin of evangelist Jimmy Swigart and cousin of Micky Gilley, Jerry Lee has a ranch down in Mississippi - one can visit the place for a mere $15. Don't know what's going on with Jerry Lee - according to an announcement at what purports to be his official web site, Jerry Lee asked that the big bash scheduled for two days ago, be cancelled, and it was. Jerry said he wouldn't show at the Ranch for the fifth annual Jerry Lee Lewis World Fan Club gathering and that he didn't want folks to come to the ranch to celebrate his birthday. The party was arranged by Jerry Lee's sixth wife, Kerrie. Jerry Lee filed for divorce from her in April of this year, she countersued. She's the president of the fan club and sold the $200/head tickets to the event. Phoebe Lewis, Jerry Lee's daughter, said in an Associated Press story that "her father had been concerned about the cost of the tickets and 'that she's taking all those people's money. Jerry Lee told her back in February that he was not participating in the party this year. So she's known since then.'" Some guys' trouble just never ends.

I do hope that such is not the case for you, my kola - I hope your day is filled with hope and music - and that you're taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other instead of trying to make a buck and then some as Kerrie Lewis was trying to do. Yah, the Twins lost big time yesterday afternoon to the Detroit Tigers, who avoided tying for the all-time loss record for a year with their victory. Just hope the boys will be ready to meet those damned Yankees tomorrow afternoon - help 'em out with a little telepathic psychic energy if you're of a mind to, and take care.

Ev Albers

Sunday, September 28th, 2003

Ah, what a gloriously cool, healthily brisk day in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota this Sunday noon - home at last. Twenty-four hours ago, we were just the weest bit north of Lincoln, Nebraska -- above are scenes from my darling daughter Gretchen's apartment and her new couch, which we waited to see installed and put into just the right spot before we left (if Gretchen is anything like her mother, my lovin' spouse, Leslie, the couch has been moved a dozen times since." The insert at top left is Gretchen, left, and her mother a few years ago around the same age - perhaps a few years older. Remarkable resemblance! In fact, 'tis more than remarkable - it's quite extraordinary, I think. Of course, I'm totally biased, but I don't think I've ever seen two more beautiful - make that beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful - women in sixty-plus years. We wended our way home along the Missouri, stopping at several Lewis and Clark sites from Iowa through South Dakota. 'Twas a grand trip on a cool day - all in all, 'twas the grandest of journeys from landing at the clean, well-lighted place of the Hermanson-Albers, my son Albert and his lovely spouse, Bobbi, to the return to this bastion of peace and tranquillity on the east bank of the Missouri here in Bismarck.

Two hundred years ago, Meriwether Lewis, wrote to his friend William Clark from Cincinnati - he had written to Jefferson three days before from Marietta. Finally, Lewis knows that Clark has accepted his invitation to accompany him on the journey and Clark knows that he is going. President Jefferson received Lewis's letter of September 15 on the 30th of September - quite efficient mail, all things considered. Lewis stopped writing his journal (or, perhaps, the entries are lost) in mid-September, so his letters give us what little we know about his progress down the Ohio. Wrote Lewis to Clark:

Lewis to Clark, September 28, 1803
After the most tedious and laborious passage from Pittsburgh I have at length reached this place; it was not untill the 31 of August that I was enabled to take my departure from that place owing to the unpardonable negligence and inattentions of the boat-builders who, misfortunately for me, were a set of most incorrigible drunkards, and with whom, neither threats, intreaties, nor any other mode of treatment which I could devise had any effect; as an instance of their tardyness it may serfice to mention that they were twleve days in preparing my poles and oars.

I have had the pleasure of receiving yours of the 21st of August & the 11th of Septr. I am much pleased with the measures you have taken relative to the engaging the men you mention, as men of that discription only will answer our purposes; I scarcely suppose that such as you have conceived not fully qualifyed for this service will be any means meet my approbation; your ideas in the subject of a judicious selection of our party perfectly comport with my own. I have two young men with me whom I have taken on trial and have not yet engaged them, but conditionally only, th' I think they will answer tolerably well; there are a party of solders, 6 or 8 in number, now at aMassac waiting my arrival, they were scelected from the troops in the State of Tennessee by Majr. MacREa, perhaps most of these will answer; I am also authorized to scelect by voluntary engagement any men from the Company of Capts. RI. and DI. Bissel's and Soddart's now occupying the posts of Massac & Kaskaskias; from these I think we shall be enabled to form our party without much difficulty; 4 or five french water-men I concieve will be essential, this we can do I presume very readily at St. Louis.

The amount of the monthly compensation (or 10$) which you have mention to the men is precisely what I have calculated on; I shall cloth and susist the men I have with me, these will of course form a proper charge against the U States and in addition to the monthly wages of a private will be estimated by the Secretary of War and myself amount to reather more than 10$ pr. month.

I do not much regret the loss of Mr. Connor for several reasons which I shall mention to you when we meet; he has decieved me very much.

It is probable before the reciept of this letter that I shall be with you; I shall leave this the day after tomorrow. Adieu and believe me your very sincere friend and associate,

MERIWETHER LEWIS
End Lewis to Clark, September 28, 1803

The two young men with Lewis at Cincinnati were most probably John Colter and young George Shannon - the former famous for returning to the West as soon the Expedition returned to the Mandan/Hidatsa villages in what is now North Dakota, the latter for getting lost, several times. It is not likely that there were other members of what would become the Corps of Discovery that went to the Pacific with Lewis at Cincinnati - with the notable exception, of course, of Seaman the dog, Lewis's best friend.

We stopped at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Sioux City, Iowa on our trip back to Bismarck from Lincoln - there's yet another version of statue of Lewis, Clark, and the faithful Newfoundland, Seaman the dog.

My spouse indulged my listening to the curious game between the Division Champions, the Minnesota Twins, and the Detroit Tigers, who were trying to avoid losing the 120th game this year, and thus tie the all-time recored losses for a season - they did so by coming back from 8-0 to win the game 9-8 in the bottom of the ninth - and I must say, boys, especially you, Rincon & Romero, relief pitchers - you did not show much focus there at the end. 'Tis no way to prepare for the mighty Yankees, boys - even if you are not going to be starting the game. I would strongly urge you to win the game today, boys - or at least show the weest more focus on this last day of the regular season.

'Tis the day William the Conqueror invaded England - you know the year, if you remember any date from your history classes whatsoever - 1066. 'Tis also the day in 48 B.C.E. that Pompey the Great was assassinated by order of Egyptian King Ptolemy, who was afraid that Caesar would punish him if he helped Pompey. 'Twas the day after Khrushchev's long visit to the United States on this day in 1959, and both the Soviet Premier and President Eisenhower were optimistic that the cold war would be thawing the weest - and said so in international press releases. Things were going pretty well - and would for a few months - but that all went to hell in May 1960 when the Soviets shot down the spy plane over their air space, and we were back in the soup.

The world is in the soup these last days of a great September - but we in Dakota still find time to find escape from troubled times - for example, hundreds of professional wrestling fans showed up hours early and lined up to get the autographs of such as Rob Van Dam, Trish Status, the Hurricane, and Rosey - I don't know one of them. A twelve-year-old who was able to shake hands with these greats said "I'm not washing my hand." Young Jeffrey Oster watches wrestling every Monday night from 8 to 10 - and he was there for the Bismarck appearance of the inheritors of the ilk, I assume, of Gorgeous George, Butcher Vishon, and Andre the Giant - amazing. And there's a story in today's Bismarck Tribune about Trinity Bible College of Ellendale, North Dakota - yesterday they established a new Division III record by getting whupped 105-0 by Rockford College down in Illinois. The boys - some of them older-than-average students who haven't played for five years or more - don't mind that much - because they think that they'll start winning a game in a year or three. After years of meetings, many letters to the editor, and a general belief that the government was trying to mess with dairy herds by changing the time, Mercer County just to the northwest of Bismarck will remain on Mountain Time rather than switching to Central - despite the fact that a small majority voted to change. In this instances, those who made the most noise won the battle. There's also a story about seventy-three-year-old Garnet Bloms, who has started goofing off - she only helps with the milking five or six times a week instead of the twice-a-day she did for fifty-two years at the farm up at Carpio - her lazy son wants to retire in four years when he turns a mere fifty-five - but his mother Garnet says she'll stick around and hopes that her grandson takes over. "Every morning I wake up and I thank the Lord that I have another day to milk cows."

Well, kola, I awoke this morning happy to have another great day to think about milking cows - but not not in time to take care of 'em if I had had to - too late. 'Tis time to check up on the Twins - and to share another view of my darling daughter and lovin' spouse in this collage - here's a big toast to 'em, and to my son Albert and his lovin' spouse Bobbi, and to all of you, kola, on this grand, crisp day - hope you are taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other - and that you awoke this morning in time to milk the cows, if have 'em --

Ev Albers

Saturday, September 27th, 2003

Ah, kola, 'twas an evening long to remember, last evening at our fine Lincoln friends, the Fishers – that's Fred on the left --- Chautuqua tentmaster par excellence, father of Elias Alexander Everett who is vacationing with him mother Susan in Louisiana, Molly on my right, her husband Jerry on my left – and Gretchen. You will notice, of course, the two pies – yes, 'twas a two-pie night after an exquisite meal of crab cakes, depression corn, macaroni and cheese – and then both a great tart apple and a succulent pecan pie – I had a slice of both, of course. Ah, 'twas grand, 'twas grand, indeed. We had great conversation, talks of this and that – Molly was the most indefatigable and innovative of toilers in the vineyard of the public humanities – she retired a year or so ago at a tender age from the Nebraska Humanities Council so she and Jerry could travel together – which they do in the summer to national parks where they work as volunteers. Their son Fred is the finest tentmaster we've ever had – he worked for more than a decade – he knows more about the Great Plains Chautauqua Society and what happens out there each summer than I could ever hope to . . . and I've been serving as the Society's executive for a couple of decades.

Leslie and I wend our way back north to beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota today – a two-day trip, methinks. We'll stop at a clean, well-lighted place along the way. The history department's symposium on "Exploration, Encounter, Empire: Lewis and Clark Expedition I Comparative Historical Perspective" was a full day of the finest of lectures – five from 8:30 in the morning until almost 5:00 P.M. – I was too weary to return to the finale at 8:00 last night. This department where my darling daughter is in graduate school has the most gracious group of scholarly professors who are also terrific teachers one can find anywhere in the nation – and they put on one hell of a great symposium. I especially enjoyed a presentation by a young man who is at Montana State, Brett Walker on "Mamiya Rinzo and the Japanese Exploration of Sakhalin Island" and David Murphy of Anderson University on "Disorder and Hierarchy: Explorers, Natives, and the Failure of German Pluralism, 1820-1930." All the presentations were good – these were exceptional. Almost makes one wish that he could drop everything and return to school – 'tis grand indeed to see young people so earnestly engaged in seeking clues from past to help us understand what the hell we should be up to here in the middle world today.

This is the day in 1540 that the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, received their charter from Pope Paul II. Created by Ignatius de Loyola, a Spanish soldier turned priest, the Society of Jesus became the Black Robes who were the most active of missionaries among American Indians. The secret to the Jesuits' success was an uncanny ability to relate all aspects of indigenous religion to Catholicism – they were able to find in Catholicism the equivalent of such as a goddess (Mother Mary), etc. Ignatius de Loyola became a saint in 1622.

The Twins won last night – of course, they were playing the team with the worst team in baseball since the Mets of the 60s – but they focused, and methinks they are ready for the mighty – and damned – Yankees next week. They'll need all of the help that Charger, the mighty six-inch American bison can give them by way of telepathic psychic support.

Today's birthday boy is Samuel Adams, President John's first cousin – the guy who threw the tea into Boston Harbor – and the patriot probably best known to the current generation for the beer that's named after him. Born on this day in 1722, he lived until October 1803 – dying while Lewis was descending the Ohio on his way to hook up with Clark and get ready for a trip up the Missouri and on to the Pacific. 'Twas Sam Adams who understood that "Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason." We are indeed, Sam, we are indeed. No one understands the triumph of emotion over reason better than among the five or so finest of contemporary writers of American fiction, Sherman Alexie. I'm just finishing his Ten Little Indians so that I can leave this collection of great stories with my daughter Gretchen. 'Tis one I'll read again and again.

Kola, I trust you are well and happy this fine final weekend in September – that's it's as beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful wherever you are as 'tis in Dakota and becoming here on this day in Lincoln – and that you're taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other – the most important work we have here in the middle world. My passage here these days is filled with joy and feeling fine . . . 'tis a great day to be alive.

Ev Albers

Friday, September 26th, 2003

Aye, kola, 'twas a perfect day long to remember yesterday - perfect weather in a place almost as beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful as Dakota, Lincoln, Nebraska - a visit with friends at the Nebraska Humanities Council, a wonderful Mexican lunch, crying at the wonderfully sappy movie Secondhand Lions with Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, and Haley Joel Osment, and a great lecture opening the University of Nebraska-Lincoln history department. Carroll R. Pauley Memorial Symposium on the topic "Exploration, Encounter, Empire: The Lewis and Clark Expedition in Comparative Historical Perspective" given by Dr. Elliott West, the great historian of the late 20th, early 21rst century who wrote The Contested Plains the book awarded the Franci Parkman Prize as the Outstanding Book in American History. West hails from the University of Arkansas where he the Alumni Distinguished Professor of History. He talked about "Disease, Exploration and Conquest: A New Look at the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition." West explained how Napoleon's effort to re-establish control and reinstitute slavery in San Domingo in the early 1800s with 30-40,000 troops under the control of his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc - and the subsequent death from yellow fever of 80 percent of the those troops and 60 percent of the officer corps led to Napoleon's decision to sell Louisiana. Moreover, Dr. West gave compelling evidence that Lewis and Clark - with the advice of Dr. Benjamin Rush - took with them medicine to combat possible malaria and yellow fever in the American West they would explore. We now know that these tropical diseases did not exist in the interior of the American West - Lewis and Clark did not, and their preparation for the journey and general medical practice was based on a strong possibility that they would encounter the diseases. Dr. West is an entertaining, modest speaker who knows his stuff - the best of all possible guest lecturers, methinks - as Gary Moulton, the University of Nebraska historian who has spent more than two decades working on the definitive edition of the Lewis and Clark Journals pointed out in his eloquent introduction of West. I also was able to visit briefly with an old friend, John Wunder, who also teaches in the UNL history department - John was recently honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Western Historians Association - most well-deserved.

Of course, I was able to spend much of the day and evening with my darling daughter and her mother - we truly enjoyed the movie. Tell you the truth, I like it as much as any movie I've seen in the last decade - it's whimsical, it doesn't pretend to profundity, but yet it features great acting - the kind where you never catch the actors acting, if you know what I mean. The outrageously enigmatic uncles with the unbelievable history never appear for a second to be characters in a movie - they are so flesh and blood that I always expect Duvall - and, in this movie, Michael Caine and young Haley Joel Osment - to be able to walk off that giant screen and carry on as those they portray so realistically. I laughed raucously, I did indeed cry, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this movie. I think it may have added a month or so to my life, I enjoyed it so much.

My beloved Twins, despite Charger's best efforts tonight, lost by a run to Detroit - it doesn't make any difference in the standings or jeopardize what has already been determined - the Twins play the Yankees next week. But I still think it's a mistake not to focus completely on the last games of the season and try one's best even though the division championship has already been clinched. Go out with some wins, boys - don't let up for a second!

Some swigs of my morning cranberry grape are in order in salute of the memory of T.S. Eliot, born on this day in 1888 - of Johnny Appleseed, without whom I may not be enjoying all of those apple pies --he was born in 1774, and George Gershwin, born on this day in 1898. All have been gone from the middle world for some time - all deserve to be remembered long. 'Tis also the birthday of Marty Robbins, the last country-western star to perform in the old home of the Grand Ole Opry, Ryman Auditorium. Born in 1925, he lived to be fifty-seven - in 1960, he sang his great "El Paso." On this day in 1960, the first televised debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy was broadcast. I was among the some 69 million who watched the debate - my English instructor at the University of North Dakota, Valborg Oslund, has assigned us the task of writing a paper on who we thought would win the presidency and why. Miss Oslund taught a rigorous honors English program - no messing around. She was also a staunch, entrenched Republican who did not hold with the young upstart Senator Kennedy, although she did her very best to appear neutral. I wrote a paper defending a Kennedy victory because of his superior communication skills and his sense of humor - Nixon didn't make many jokes, and when he did, they were pretty grim. I believe that Miss Oslund actually wrote on the paper, "A reluctant A - the paper is well-presented, the thinking all wrong."

Aye, this a grand day this morning - I'll be picked up by my darling daughter in the weest for a full day of stimulating presentations by historians - with the weest bit of lunch thrown in - and then an evening enjoying the culinary delights of the Fisher household - Molly and Jerry - and seeing my old pal Fred Fisher, former tentmaster for Chautauqua - his son, Elias Alexander Everett Fisher is on vacation in Louisiana, so I'll miss him this trip. Tomorrow, we head home for beauuuuuuuutiful Dakota at last. 'Tis time - 'tis time. For 'tis the greatest of time in Dakota, the autumn. Charger and I need to be in the best form to help out the Twins against those damn Yankees, there's work aplenty to be done - and challenging preoccupations such as giving a talk a week from Sunday on the role of religion in the social compact of a civilized society, with special emphasis on the relationship between religion and official govern policy.

I've been fascinated, for example, by how often John Adams is invoked as a God-fearing Calvinist who called for a national day of prayer (as did many other presidents), who thought that religion had a primary role in decisions by government officials. Most Americans will admit that Thomas Jefferson had some reservations about religion mixing with the state, but most actually believe that John Adams would have welcomed the creation of a Christian nation. That's not what he said, on more than one occasion. He said, for example, in a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756): "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." To Thomas Jefferson he wrote, "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" He also said, "Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?" And Adams remarked, "The Doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

'Tis revision history of the most blatant sort that would recreate the founding fathers as fundamental Christians. Adams makes it clear that he did not consider the United States a nation under God: "...Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

I think my talk will be subtitled, "What difference does it make if the Ten Commandments are cut in stone and placed in a public park, anyway?"

But that's a Sunday theme, and this is a glorious Friday, the finest of autumn days in a marvelous place, Lincoln, Nebraska - a place some of the finest folks traveling in the middle world live and work. Here's a salute to Lincoln, the University, and the great historians at UNL - all of the Great Plains are a better place that we all better understand because of the extraordinary work done here. Kola, I hope you are well - that you are taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other.

Ev Albers