Guthrie’s Time Stands Still poses thought-worthy question

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Tom Bengtson

Wars, tragic accidents, natural and man-made disasters – the world can be an awful place. Do any of us get to stand on the sidelines and record the chaos for posterity, or by our inclusion in the human family are we obligated to participate? Journalists have been wrestling with this question since photojournalists went off to cover World War One. The Guthrie Theatre brings this question to its proscenium stage in its production of Time Stands Still, which runs through May 20. I had a chance to see it earlier this week.

Sarah Goodwin is a photojournalist who returns to her home in New York after being injured while covering the war in Iraq. Career oriented, she and her long-time partner travel the globe recording the darkest examples of human existence including genocide and war. Her mission is to change the world by holding up a mirror to the evil; if people could only see the destruction and human suffering, Sarah is convinced, then perhaps they will change. This work is too important to make time allowances for marriage or children.

During her recuperation period in Brooklyn, her editor marries a perky young woman who forces Sarah to consider her life choices. Mandy Bloom, who doesn’t care much about career, gives her new husband a baby right away and devotes herself to motherhood.  Upon viewing Sarah’s work, Mandy asks how she could be so close to human tragedy and not offer to help. She cries when she sees a photo of a dying child, an image dramatically captured by Sarah and her camera. Why, Mandy demands, did Sarah not put down her camera and help? Sarah says that’s not why she was there. “I am there to record the news, not become part of it,” Sarah responds.

The contrast between the emotional Mandy and the detached Sarah could not be more striking. It is as if playwright Donald Margulies is asking the audience to choose one over the other, a dilemma which prior to the play was perhaps confined to journalism classes and newsrooms.

Margulies shows that Sarah’s work comes with a significant price tag. James Dodd, who returned to New York a couple of weeks ahead of Sarah, wants to marry her. They go through a wedding ceremony but within a short time the marriage fails and they go their separate ways. Clearly the playwright is saying something about human relationships. Can anyone who detaches sufficiently to take close-up pictures of human suffering ever connect with anyone enough to make marriage work?  Sarah couldn’t.

Margulies’ observation was striking to me, as I know as least two photojournalists who have abandoned their marriages after covering war and large-scale natural disaster. Their work became known around the world, while their own personal worlds fell apart.

So Margulies answers his own question: No one gets to stand on the sidelines of life and take pictures of human drama without becoming part of the story. Most of the time, the journalist doesn’t tell this part of the story, but that is why Margulies has written this play.

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New U of M president makes funding case

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Tom Bengtson

I had an opportunity recently to listen to Eric W. Kaler, the new president of the University of Minnesota. About the time I was graduating from the U in the early 1980s with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and French, he was getting an advanced degree in chemical engineering.

Kaler, who has been president of the U of M since last July, spoke to a business group in St. Paul on Feb. 14. With the legislature in session, Kaler made the case for state funding.

“There is a direct correlation between the support the state of Minnesota provides its research university and the amount of tuition we charge students for their education. When state support goes down we raise tuition. It is no more complicated than that. So when legislators talk about student debt, you ask them about University support. They are absolutely correlated,” Kaler said.

Calling the University of Minnesota “a talent magnet and an innovation magnet,” Kaler explained that the University is requesting $169 million be included in the legislature’s bonding bill. “It is a strategic request. In the long run it will save the university millions of dollars, increase our operating efficiency and lower our energy costs,” he said.

“We are the state’s only research university. We drive discoveries, we find cures, create products, and generate scientific breakthroughs. We generated last year $800 million in sponsored research. That ranks us eighth in the nation in winning competitive research dollars. We are 21st in the nation in population, so we fight well above our weight when it comes to winning federal research dollars,” he said.

Kaler said University’s annual budget is $3.7 billion. “We generate $8.6 billion per year in state economic impact, supporting 70,000 jobs state wide, half of those in greater Minnesota,” he said. “For every dollar the state invests in us, we return to the state of Minnesota $13.20.”

“If the state continues to make the University a priority, the engine we call the University of Minnesota will continue to drive Minnesota’s state economy, but if the state doesn’t leverage this treasure trove, this hotbed of innovation and invention, this creator of human and intellectual capital, we will miss an opportunity for continued greatness.”

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A primer on next year’s election

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Tom Bengtson

 If President Obama wins reelection in 2012, it will be difficult for him to advance a domestic policy agenda because Republicans are likely to retain control of the House of Representatives, said Larry Sabato, the political expert from the University of Virginia. I had a chance to listen to Sabato at a business meeting I attended in Texas recently.

Redistricting, which is underway across the country, typically re-enforces incumbency, making it unlikely that Democrats will gain the 25 seats or more necessary to take control from the Republican-controlled House. “Of if President Obama wins, it will be a foreign policy presidency,” Sabato said.

Democrats control the Senate, 53-47, but one North Dakota senate seat is expected to be converted to Republican control. That would mean Republicans would need to pick up two more seats to gain a tie, or three seats to gain control of the Senate. Sabato said seats in Wisconsin, Montana, Nebraska and Missouri are toss ups. Sabato put the odds at 50-50 that Republicans would gain control of the Senate, and he said it is virtually assured that by the 2014 election, Republicans will win control of the Senate.

Sabato described the presidential contest, noting that President Obama will spend about $1 billion on the campaign to Republican’s $500 million. He said it will be the most negative campaign ever. President Obama has approval ratings in the low 40s, which typically are regarded as too low to be re-elected. “Something in the economy will have to change for Obama to win,” Sabato said. Furthermore, he said President Obama is waiting for Republicans to beat each other up and nominate a bad candidate. Sabato said Republicans are struggling. “When the presidency is available, the Republicans have fielded at JV team, not the varsity,” he said.

He said the picture will be clearly by the end of January, after the first four primaries: Iowa Jan. 4; New Hampshire Jan. 10; South Carolina, Jan. 21, and Florida Jan. 31.

Sabato explained that Republicans are generally thought to have 206 electoral votes locked up, which Democrats are generally thought to have 247 locked up. It takes 270 electoral votes to win. He said 85 votes are a toss up; those votes are divided geographically as such: Nevada – 6; Colorado – 9; Iowa – 6; Ohio -18; Virginia – 13; Florida – 29; and New Hampshire – 4.

Should be an interesting year.

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Change starts with you

Posted on September 10, 2011 by Tom Bengtson

The only person’s behavior you can change is your own.

Bryan Dodge, a Texas-based inspirational speaker who addressed a meeting I attended recently, encouraged the audience to think about this familiar maxim. Are you unhappy? You have a much better chance of finding happiness if you are willing to change yourself than if you try to change those around you.

Think about the kind of change that would improve your situation. Identify one or two goals and write them down. People who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them than people who merely think about their goals.

Whatever goals you establish for yourself, think about whether you need someone to help you. If you wanted to improve your golf game, you’d take lessons; if you wanted to learn to write better, you’d get a coach. Same concept applies to career-related goals. If you want to acquire new skills, take a class or hire a personal instructor; if you want to become more efficient, consider hiring a personal coach. Don’t think you have to do it all by yourself. If you don’t have a coach, ask yourself why not? Is it because you are no longer coachable?

Whatever your goals are, encourage yourself. Positive self-talk is important. Normal, healthy people talk to themselves all day long, but sadly studies say about 80 percent of self-talk is negative. Work on that. Change that to positive self-talk. Transform your inner critic to an inner advocate.

One of the best ways to master the art of positive self-talk is to encourage others. Don’t be the person in the office who tears everyone else down. Don’t be so quick to call a new idea stupid. Encourage those around you. Look for the good in every idea. Find something positive to say about everyone you encounter. Be nice even to those who are mean to you. It is easy to be nice to people who are nice to you; the challenge is to find kinds words for those who consistently give you a cold shoulder. Attitude, however, rubs off on others so if you are positive, those around you are more likely to be positive, even those with a reputation for negativity.

What you will begin to notice as you change is that things around you will change for you. Anyone who can change him or her self has an important leadership quality, and others will begin to follow. They may change, too. The best way to make your work place a better place is to become a better person.

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Lessons from 1776

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Tom Bengtson

One of my favorite books is “1776” by the popular historian David McCullough. While I learned a lot about the Revolutionary War by reading this book, I also picked up at least four lessons that I think any small business owner would find applicable. They are:

Goals change. The book demonstrated that it is okay to raise your expectations once you get into something. In 1775, the rebel Americans were merely interested in representation in the British Parliament. It wasn’t until spring of 1776, after Americans won a major victory at Boston, that the rebels elevated their cause to full blown independence. In business, we make plans but we shouldn’t be reluctant to alter those plans if the situation changes.

It takes a long time. The Revolutionary Way ended with the signing of the treaty at Paris in 1783. The war lasted eight years! Nobody who went into the war expected it to last that long. My experience in business is that nearly every venture takes longer than expected to pay off. If you want a realistic shot at success, you have to be willing to stay in it for the long haul.

People are fickle. We think of General George Washington as a hero, but back then few people were truly loyal to the man who became this country’s first president. When times were good, they praised him but when times were bad, they blamed Washington. His No. 2 officer even wrote letters behind his back, second-guessing his decisions. Leaders at all levels have to expect this. When earnings are good, everyone loves you, but hit a rough spot and people will grumble behind your back. Washington kept an upbeat public persona, privately considering the criticism of foes and making adjustments where he thought appropriate. That’s a good model for any leader, whether you are heading an army or a business.

You can succeed, even against great odds. The Americans won independence with a rag-tag army made up mostly of untrained farmers. They went up against the most powerful military in the world. The Americans won because they wanted victory more than the British. The revolutionaries were fighting for their lives while the Brits were fighting only to hold onto one more piece of the empire. Anyone who runs a small shop should remember this. Fight  for your life and you can win, even against the world’s largest and most sophisticated competitors.

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Forgiveness mends tragic hurt in Parkersburg, Iowa

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Tom Bengtson

I had the privilege of listening to Aaron Thomas speak at a meeting I attended last week. Aaron is the son of Ed Thomas, who coached the football team at Parkersburg High School in Iowa for three decades. In spring of 2009, Coach Thomas, 58, was shot and killed by one of his former players, who was mentally unstable. Parkersburg is a small town and such a tragic event easily could have torn the town apart. Everyone in town knew the coach and his family, as well as the shooter and his family.

The Thomas family, clearly people of faith, called a press conference the afternoon of the shooting, and publicly forgave the shooter, and encouraged everyone in town to grieve and heal together. It was a remarkable gesture of outreach that held the town together.

ESPN honored Aaron with its Arther Ashe Award for Courage, presented at the 2010 ESPY Awards in Las Vegas. Here is the excellent video ESPN produced to tell the story.

Aaron, now 33, has picked up where his Dad left off, coaching the Parkersburg High School football team. He does a lot of public speaking now and his message is well worth heading. He shares a few timeless, universal truths:

  • We all go through adversity in life; life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react.
  • Someone always has it worse than you do.
  • Grace is God giving us the ability to choose how we are going to act.
  • Where you put your time and treasure shows what you are about.
  • How you deal with adversity shows who you are. Anyone can be a nice person when times are good; it is during times of adversity that others are watching to see what kind of a person you are.
  • If you are not about something, you are about nothing.

Aaron certainly has the potential to have a very positive impact on many, many people — the boys he coaches and the many people who hear him speak. I am glad that I was one of those people.

Aaron told us about a foundation his family has set up in order to preserve some of the things that were important to his father. You can read about it here.

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Wimbledon fortnight memories

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Tom Bengtson

I get to relive one of the great personal joys of my life every year at about this time. The Wimbledon tennis championships concluded over the weekend, Petra Kvitova winning the women’s singles title on Saturday and Novak Djokovic winning the men’s singles title on Sunday. I don’t watch much television during the summer but annually I make a little time to tune in the action from centre court.

I haven’t played tennis in 20 years, but I still love Wimbledon, mostly because it reminds me of my fortnight in 1982 when I got to go to Wimbledon. I took in 10 of  the 14 days of play that year. That was the year I studied in Europe and after classes concluded middle of June, I crossed the channel to visit the mecca of the game I had played since fifth grade.

I remember the lines snaking outside the grounds were seemingly endless. I would arrive early every day by train from the youth hostile where I made camp in London. Even when the trains went on strike, I figured out a way to get to the posh suburb… that is, I took the bus.

Once inside the grounds, I was fascinated with the field courts where fans could easily get a court-side seat at a match. It was just like watching two friends play at a local park, or at least kind of like that. They do, after all, play on grass, something I had never experienced in person before. The proximity of the fans to the players is remarkable. You can hear every grunt, see every grimace, watch every drop of sweat fall from your favorite player’s brow. And if you grow bored with one match you can walk to another court and watch two other players.

But the field courts are only a prelude to the sanctuary – centre court. I was able to enjoy centre court matches from the standing room area, which is remarkably close to the court. It is much better viewing than most of the much more expensive seats in the stadium. I was young, so standing for hours on end to watch three consecutive tennis matches seemed perfectly enjoyable. I was studying journalism in college, so the previous Christmas my parents had given me a Cannon AE-1 35mm camera. I brought it along. Only months earlier I had purchased a 200 mm lens to accompany the standard issue 50 mm. That extra magnification brought all the players into incredible view.

I snapped hundreds of pictures of many players: John McEnroe (who lost that year to Jimmy Connors in the men’s finals), Mats Wilander, Billie Jean King, Pam Shriver, Martina Navratilova (who beat Chris Evert that year for the women’s championship), Stan Smith, Virginia Wade, Roscoe Tanner, Frew McMillian and John Newcome – superstars all, but just regular people playing tennis a few feet in front of me. Most still played with the old, small racquets, the larger model made popular by the Prince brand having yet to win favor with the established pros.

It rains a lot at Wimbledon, although now there is a retractable roof over centre court, so rain delays are not so common anymore. Back in 1982, rain was an inescapable part of Wimbledon. As a fan, there was nothing you could do about it, except wait and hope, sometimes for hours. I remember during one rain delay, I took pictures of the centre court scoreboard, where the operator sent us messages: “The scoreboard operators are with you all the way,” we were told. “We are now going to sing a song. Please clap if you would like to join in… Excellent. How about Ten Green Bottles?” It was a song I had never heard, but apparently most of the locals knew it because before long thousands of waiting, damp tennis fans were singing together like sailors in a British pub.

A new generation of tennis players, most of whom were not even born when I went to Wimbledon almost three decades ago, now dominate the game. But when I turn on the TV to catch a glimpse of the action these days, I cannot help but remember my very happy visit to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

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Allen shows there’s no time like the present

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Tom Bengtson

“Midnight in Paris” is Woody Allen’s thoroughly charming film about an American writer visiting Paris who dreams of living in the city’s golden age of the 1920s. Through the magic of film, he gets his chance, meeting Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and even getting his own work critiqued by Gertrude Stein. This film is any writer’s fantasy, but for me — who majored in French and English in college — Allen hit all the right buttons with his 44th full-length movie.

While it is easy to get caught up in the charm, wit, romance, nostalgia, and magic of this movie, it is really the story’s message that resonates: We have to live in the time when we are born.  It is easy to imagine that life might be better in the late 1940s or the 1950s, or maybe the 1830s. But as Allen demonstrates in the most important scene in this film, one person’s golden age is another person’s disgusting era. Adriana, the 1920′s-era subject of Gil’s affection, cannot figure out why the American writer would want anything to do with the early 20th century. She wants to go back to France’s Belle Epoque of the 1890s. At that point they part ways and Gil resolves to make the life he wants in 2010.

This is always life’s challenge: realizing we can’t have what we can’t have, and resolving to make what we do have into what we want. It is not a matter of when we live, but how we live. And the beauty of chronological living is that just because an era has passed does not mean it is dead. We can keep alive the jewels of the past — the work of Hemingway and Fitzgerald — without giving up the present.

We are often told not to look back but to focus on the future, to look only ahead. What foolishness. The present is the culmination of the past so if we want to be alive to the world around us we have to have some sense of what has come before us. Looking ahead can only mean something if we understand our vantage point.

Midnight in Paris is a lot more than a romantic comedy. By the end of the story Gil finds his voice as a writer, but more importantly, he finds his place in time.

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The best is often home-made

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Tom Bengtson

My wife’s birthday is this weekend. The kids will make cards for her and I plan to bake a cake. We could buy those things but we prefer to make them.

If you think about the difference between buying something and making it, you get some idea about the difference between Chesterton Academy and other private schools. You might know I am a big fan of Chesterton Academy, the nine-through-12 high school in Saint Louis Park started by a group of parents three years ago.

If you buy a cake, it will look great. It will be consistent and uniform, and you pretty much know what to expect. It will taste like all the other bakery-made cakes out there. The cake I make at home probably won’t look as good as the one in the store. It won’t be as uniformly shaped. It won’t have the perfectly scrolled writing on top. Both cakes cost money, but the store-purchased cake will be much more expensive than the home-made one. The home-made cake will be much more work, but – at least for me – much more gratifying. I also know that my wife will appreciate my extra effort.

The kids will make birthday cards for mom out of paper we have lying around the house. They will cut and glue. They will write something; perhaps a word or two will be spelled incorrectly. You might have to squint to determine exactly that kind of picture has been drawn on the front. A store-bought card would be professional and nearly perfect. But I know my wife prefers the home-made cards.

Chesterton Academy is like the home-made cake and cards, perhaps because it is a home-made school. This is a school created by parents, not experts. Like the home-made cake and cards, the school reflects loving effort more than professional execution. We use what we have rather than buying what we want. Chesterton Academy might look a little different from traditional schools – small theater, photocopied signage on the entrance, no swimming pool or football stadium – but it provides a great educational experience. The students seem as happy as my wife on her birthday. And I like it because tuition is a lot lower than all the other private schools.

Chesterton Academy is proof that you can do a lot with a little, that private education doesn’t have to be outrageously expensive, and that parents can make a big difference in their kids’ education. We live in a time when most people forego their own creativity in order to buy things, but like a home-made cake or a home-made card, Chesterton Academy is showing how good the do-it-yourself approach can be. 

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Happiness and joy

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Tom Bengtson

The day after I attended a funeral for a dear friend, I feel compelled to write about happiness. Dick Miller, with whom I had worked for nearly five years, died suddenly at age 64. The well-attended funeral in Saint Paul was both sad and joyful, but maybe I am confusing my sadness with grief. My tears for Dick acknowledged loss, my own being miniscule compared to that of his wife, three sons and their extended family.

But there was joy in the room too. Dick was a good man, a gentleman if ever there was one. The priest said his life exhibited “quiet virtue.” He further noted that Dick set aside two holy hours per week for prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Dick had just committed to a third hour so that he could devote one hour to each of his sons. It is a blessed thing to know a truly good man; those of us who knew Dick experienced that blessing. None of us at the funeral had to wonder about this faith-filled man’s eternal fate. He is with his Maker now; I believe his joy must be so abundant that some of it literally spilled over onto us still living in the corporeal world.

Lasting joy is about a solid relationship with God. All through life we can nurture that relationship, and I think happiness helps us to do that. Happiness is, therefore, serious business. And for a long time, I have been a fan of Gretchen Rubin, who wrote a best selling book about it.

I would encourage anyone to read “The Happiness Project.” As a memoir, I like the way she has structured the book, a chapter devoted to each month of the year. There are tons of tips in this book for actually living a happier life. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this to be a very spiritual book. Apparently, I am not the only one who sees the distinction between happiness and joy, and believes that one can lead to the other.

Rubin is a fan of Saint Therese of Lisieux. In her August chapter, she writes about “the Little Flower” and the impact this Doctor of the Church had on her. The beauty of St. Therese, at least as far as I know, has always been her ability to find joy in the little things. The mundane and ordinary were sources of great joy to St. Therese; that has given me something to think about. We take so much for granted; St. Therese calls us into gratitude. Rubin write about gratitude, too. She is so right-on here. The more we thank God for what we have, the less time we spend cursing over what we don’t have. 

Dick figured out a long time ago what Rubin writes and blogs about, albeit sometimes in a round-about way – that happiness comes from God. It takes humility to recognize this fact, but once you get there it’s a great thing. Most of the world won’t go there, and so we have a lot of unhappy, joyless people wondering about. Most people seek happiness in the false promises of the world, that is, sex, wealth, politics, health and education. These are the Holy Grails of our time, as misleading today as they have been since the beginning of time. Each is a great gift, in and of itself, but none can bring lasting happiness.

I am going to remember Dick fondly, keep working on my relationship with God, and keep trying to bring happiness to all those I meet.

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