Dinner with Bob Barr in St. Paul, Minnesota

It's all set. Bob Barr is coming to have dinner with supporters on Monday at Muffuletta, in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood of St. Paul. He's planning to give a speech and answer questions afterwards.

Tomorrow is the Liberty Parade. I just finished painting the base to a 15-foot, pine liberty pole I made with a red liberty cap. I plan to raise it somewhere in Loring Park during the concert in the afternoon after the parade.



Meetup event - Dinner with Bob Barr

Dinner with Bob Barr in Minneapolis/St. Paul - Labor day, September 1

Bob Barr, candidate for President, is coming to town, and he'd like to meet with us for dinner. Please join us. This is your chance to hear him speak and answer your questions in person. This is not a $1000 per plate affair. We're just getting together to have dinner and talk with Bob Barr.

This event is scheduled for 5 pm, Monday, September 1, Labor Day evening. We'll chose a location once we have a better sense for the size audience we'll have. We just found out 2 days ago that he'd be available. Please let others know if you would.

Here's a link to the invitation, where you can sign up - Dinner with Bob Barr

Bob Barr is coming to Minnesota

I just got off the phone with Mike Ferguson, Midwest Regional Coordinator for Bob Barr 2008. According to Ferguson, Bob Barr is coming to the Twin Cities in late August or early September.

Update (Aug 26, 2008): Barr is coming on Aug 31 and will stay through Sep 1 at least, according to Ferguson, with whom I just spoke on the phone.

Article in Sunday Star Tribune by Jill Burcum

There's an article in the Sunday Star Tribune written by Jill Burcum, assistant managing editor, which appeared on the front page of the opinion section. She mentions Bob Barr and his 8% showing in Minnesota and Iowa in the recent Zogby poll.

This is no accident. The other day she interviewed me and four other people active in the liberty movement. Jill's initial focus was on the Ron Paul phenomenon, but she learned from us (and perhaps others) that the movement was more than just about one man.

The first half of the 4th-to-last paragraph reflects what I discussed with her. I pointed out how I came from a staunch Democratic Party background. I mentioned how I grew up in San Francisco in the 60s and felt strongly about our entering wars such as Vietnam, Haiti, and Iraq without constitutional process. I also strongly emphasized the importance of civil liberties in this election. So I think she was looking at her notes from her discussion with me for those sentences. I also mentioned to her how Barr was in this to win. I mentioned the Zogby poll, which surprised her (as it had me, when I had first heard about it). She asked me for info on it via email, which I sent her later.

The great thing about the whole conversation was the tone. It was friendly and relaxed. We put our trust in her, and I think she sensed that. You know there's a great deal of power in what editors can do with your statements. I was very pleased tonight to see what she had written.

Burcum's article is not online yet, that I can see. It'll probably appear at http://www.startribune.com/opinion later this morning sometime. The title is It's not the man--it's the movement.

Update (August 10, 2008): Here's the article.

Baby steps for Bob

Calling all Minnesotans

Remove your party blinders, and help restore civil liberties.

Baby steps for Bob -

• Baby step #1 - Walk around a lake. Think about things.
• Baby step #2 - Construct a pair of blinders. I did it for just a few bucks. I bought a mask and some black cardboard paper at a party supply store on Ford Parkway in St. Paul. Cut two 8" x 3" rectangles and fold them in half. Staple them at the loose ends with the elastic string of the mask inside. 2 staples each will do. Place the mask on top of your head and the elastic under your chin, positioning the two black cardboard blinders forward at eye level.
• Baby step #3 - Walk around the lake again, this time with the blinders on.
• Baby step #4 - At the end of your walk, symbolically take off your blinders
• Baby step #5 - Sign the nominating petition for Bob Barr

Adult step #1 - Join the Minneapolis Bob Barr Meetup.



Update (August 10, 2008): At Rejaw, I wrote -

Bob Barr is in this to win, but he can't do it without you.

Help us remove the party blinders from people.

I don't see a check on power. Obama fails on surveillance, McCain on torture.

If you cherish due process, habeas corpus, and privacy, then please consider doing something. Baby steps for Bob.

A college friend of mine wrote me via email, commenting on the two issues I brought up regarding the other two candidates. In response, I added -

I picked two issues of great importance, which I care deeply about, where each has done a 180 or at least a 90 degree turn.

Regarding McCain…

A college friend of mine, who read this, felt, if I understand him correctly, that McCain was just pandering to the Republican base, but would, once elected, come to the rescue and stop the torture.

My perspective is different. At a debate Nov 28, 2007, shown on two big-screens at a local hotel, McCain came out strongly against torture. I nearly broke my arms applauding. Later in February he dropped the ball, I believe. See this article from the San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate.

McCain supports Bush veto of bill banning harsh interrogation tactics
Doesn't want CIA limited to methods used by military
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 9, 2008

Regarding Obama...

Obama said he would filibuster a bill such as the recent FISA bill. Instead he voted for cloture. Here's a CATO podcast on the issue by Tim Lee.

Warrantless surveillance and torture, is this America? I don't see a check on power rising from either of the two parties, in contrast to the Watergate era.



Baby steps for Bob...

When you go to the Minnesota State Fair, please do stop by the Liberty Center and sign the petition. We need your help. It's close by. If you look at the map, you can see that it's about as far to walk from one end of the fairgrounds to the other as it is to walk to the Liberty Center. -

5 minutes by car

30 minutes by baby steps

Update (Aug 13, 2008):
The Liberty Parade

Maybe we could do this as part of the Liberty Parade!! It would fit in perfectly with the spirit of the parade. We'd wear party blinders and symbolically take them off when we arrive at Loring Park. What's funny is that the organizers of the parade are encouraging people to be creative and use cardboard paper. What a coincidence!

Triggering a war with Iran

Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker reports that someone at a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney seriously suggested that a fake incident be staged to provoke the American public against Iran, to start a war. Who was this man? Has he been fired? Where is the outrage? If there is a unitary vice-presidency :-/, Cheney, if he condoned a breath of this behavior, if he did not drum him out, adds a count, a count to his impeachment. Where is Congress?

Cascade Creek

Yesterday at the Borders Bookstore in St. Paul, I saw an old map of Minneapolis from 1849. With the help of a magnifying glass, I discovered that Minnehaha Creek used to be known as Cascade Creek. The name means the same thing. I'm glad it changed.

Source: Map of the Territory of Minnesota Exhibiting the Route of the Expedition to the Red River of the North, in the Summer of 1849 By Captn John Pope, Corps Top Engrs. Drawn by P. S. Morawski.

Minnehapolis - "City of the Falls"

Years ago I researched the meaning of the name Minneapolis at the Minnesota Historical Society. Now thanks to Google Books you can see for yourself... The name Minneapolis comes from a combination of "minnehaha" meaning waterfall and "polis" meaning city.

Source #1

An interview with Daniel L. Payne, who at that time was working on the St. Anthony Express, was published shortly before the death of Payne a few years ago. In this interview Payne said that during a meeting called a the office of Col. John H. Stevens, to see if a better name than Albion could be found, Colonel Stevens suggested that Minnehaha be compounded with the Greek word polis in some way. [George D.] Bowman suggested dropping "ha" from the combination, making the name Minnehapolis. Payne advised dropping the other "ha", leaving Minnepolis. The conference ended by taking "hah" from Minnehaha and attaching polis. Minneapolis was the result. The combination of polis with Minnehaha was no doubt first suggested by Charles Hoag and seconded by Colonel Stevens; but the exact way in which the combination was made was probably as stated by Payne. Bowman advocated the name so persistently that it was finally adopted.

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Volume X. Part 1. (1905), p. 262

Source #2

The name of a place is so important that the manner in which our city was christened ought to be known to everyone. In the beginning, not to be outdone by St. Paul and St. Anthony, the citizens on the west side of the river called their settlement "All Saints," and so it was known to travelers. Possibly it seemed to some of the residents that there was too much saintliness. At any rate discontent arose over this name, and various artful schemers tried to better it. "Albion," "Lowell" and other names were suggested in vain. Finally Charles Hoag, one of the crowd at the St. Anthony jewelry store club, wrote the editor of the Express the following letter:

Minnehapolis, opposite St. Anthony, Nov. 5, 1852.

Mr Bowman: We are accustomed on this side of the river to regard your paper as a sort of exponent of public sentiment and as a proper medium of public expression. My purpose in writing this letter is to suggest a remedy for the anomalous condition we occupy of dwelling in the place selected by the constituted authorities of Hennepin County, as the county seat, which yet bears no name unless the miserable misnomer "All Saints" shall be considered so thrust upon us that the unanimous determination of the inhabitants cannot throw it off. It is a name that is applicable to no more than two persons in the vicinity of the falls and of doubtful application even to them.

The name I propose is Minnehapolis—derived from Minnehaha, "laughing water," with the Greek affix "polis," a city, meaning "laughing water city" or "city of the falls." You perceive that I spell it with an "h" which is silent in the pronunciation.

The name has been favorably received by many of the inhabitants to whom it has been proposed, and unless a better can be suggested, it is hoped that his attempt to christen our place will not prove as abortive as those heretofore named. I am aware other names have been proposed such as Lowell, Brooklyn, Addiesville, etc., but until some one is decided upon we intend to call ourselves—Minnehapolis

...

From that time forward all other names were forgotten and Minneapolis, dropping its silent letter in spelling, became famous for its beautiful name as for its useful products.

Ernest Dudley Parsons (1913) The Story of Minneapolis, pp. 52-53 [bold emphasis added] (photo p. 173)

Source #3

You remember that John Stevens, "The Father of Minneapolis," came in 1849, and in two years a settlement began to grow about his house, for which, of course, people wanted a name. Goodhue, the editor of the first St. Paul paper, said that everything in Minnesota was named after a saint, and so, as the names were almost all used up they ought to call this one "All Saints." Though no one liked it then, the name stuck for quite a while, as a nickname will. Afterward they tried calling it Lowell, then Albion, and finally Charles Hoag thought of Minnehapolis, spelled with an "h," which name at once pleased everybody and has been the name ever since. We often hear people say "what's in a name?", but perhaps there is a good deal, for the little town began to grow and grew so fast that before many years it had outstripped all the older ones. As the fur trade grew less and the lumber and wheat trades greater, and after the railroads came, it wasn't important to be the head of navigation, and very much more important to have the great water power, which was a cause, of course, for the mills.

Hester McLean Pollock (1917) Our Minnesota, pp. 157-158.

Related posts:

• Minnehaha Falls
• Wayward as the Minnehaha

How Bob Barr became liberty-minded

Bob Barr speaks about how he has come around and how important it is for others to move forward, too,—that's you and me—to rally around our Liberty.

Zogby shows Minnesota support at 8% for Bob Barr

Bob Barr approaches double digits here in Minnesota. A recent Zogby poll breaks it down state-by-state. 8% of Minnesotans already support Barr. I was surprised and pleased. That's a number you can really do something with.