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North of the ports and shore, things remain somewhat resource focused, as in mines, mining and timber. Without the timber, ores and grains coming to the ports there’d be none, not even an old ore dock for the touring to photo and take home.

What was is no more, as in where’s the active ship builder or fishing fleet? We tend to phase things out fairly quickly, as in no longer big as tool or mattress makers. Gone. Change. Inevitable. But there might be a limited future if what we have is pictures of the past and a few overpriced restaurants serving the bilious traveler.

In past articles I’ve mentioned archaeological, educational, leadership and camping activity. The doing of those things with others was worthy work, more so than looking back to talk it up. Maintaining what I hope is a level head I try to have (with no apology suggesting expert betters were well-trained fart sniffers) a focus on doing; accomplishment rather than imagined achievement.

This means (hope you’re ready) a lack of patience for most lip smackers and busy prognosticating net-zeros. Ignore, I say, fine-sounding words. Look at results. When you do there’s often disappointment when a claim produced its opposite and is more successful at praising itself than doing anything of use.

Words of general criticism such as the above need to have some basis, don’t they? Let’s apply basics to, say immigration. An un-critical (meaning ill-controlled) policy stupidly ignores what’s needed. How do I know? Through my family having taken in and worked with immigrants from Cuba.

This was a long-term commitment aided by and monitored by Catholic Charities. At the time the local school had a Spanish program and at home we had to stay on our toes about language. Our two guests arrived at Christmas. Guess what. The jolt going from tropical Cuba to northern Minnesota was so big that when asked about it some years later our guests expressed unawareness of their arrival coinciding with Christianity’s main event. They were simply overloaded. Too much change and stress, and that was in a situation where there was a stable home with three people, a school system and church assisting them.

From my point of view having seen a five-year process, a loosely organized immigration policy is ignorant of human needs while also exploitative and callous of those let in without adequate support. It is also unfair to American workers in terms of labor supply. If you look for a good quality result with new citizens willy-nilly is not the way to get there.

But if government has other reasons behind its façade of caring you see pretty easily why Cubans and Hattians were aggressively blocked. If you’re going to let in enough new people to populate some states you darn well better have a plan better than let the chips fall. It’s not politics that has me say failed policy. But it is politics that produced and promoted poor policy.

What if a similar how-does-it-work-out process is applied to voting? Used to be Election Day was an important date where people made an effort to vote and were often proud-happy to do so. Election Days, Week or Month dilutes the process as does mail-in and etc. Having been a DFL election judge in a small precinct I had a reasonable notion of who lived there and was eligible.

Face-to-face on THE day was and is real voting. The more Election Day is prolonged and made less direct the greater the chance of things going awry. Who wants that and why? If nothing else absentee, remote and mail-in ensures that some votes counted will come from people who died before Counting Day, the term I believe now applies to our former Election Day.

Simple as can be, whether it be a football game or an election, the longer you extend the play the more chance for foul play. Who’d say it was fair to play a game on Friday and get the result four days later? The main accomplishment of extended play-voting is greater distrust of the result. About that. All but hopeless to challenge election results under the best of conditions. Yet challenges are all but ensured the more the system is played with extensions and rule changes and quirky activities that thrive (because they provide results) when the system can be played by a ton of fine-sounding words that can so easily hide corrupt practice.

Quite clear, seems t’ me, that a great many anti-democracy folk speak loudly for “our democracy,” but actually mean their control or authority. This has become so common it’s no longer surprising. That in itself is worrying. Democracy has popular voting. When a candidate doesn’t get enough votes they lose. The loser needs to accept that outcome as democratic. That’s how it works.

Adults in a democracy have to accept results they don’t like. They can work to undo the result they dislike, but that doesn’t mean not winning was not democratic. Why weren’t students better informed in Civics?

If your school system no longer offers Civics why not and when did it stop doing so? Shouldn’t a HS graduate in America know some basics of citizenship, unless, perhaps, a better-informed electorate isn’t desired in a free-entry state where none of that matters so long as benefits are provided? But then, is that condition one of citizenship or dependency? Where might compassionately removing barrier-lines go? Is citizenship a card enabling benefits? Is it a birth certificate, a Passport from Tanbalolagotoa, a state driver’s license or note from grandmother? Do all and more become voting participants by showing up until the final vote of the people’s rule is cast for all to henceforward follow?

The little steps toward oblivion are scarcely noted as the past is left to be forgotten so that few, so few, will know the road to Damascus or the nature of the miracle awaiting the opened eye, mind and heart sprung alive outside the grasp of one-rule orthodoxy.