Kristine Holmgren - Your Favorite Minnesota Writer
  • HOME
  • Bio
  • GOD GIRL
  • Paper Daddy
  • Blog
  • SWEET TRUTH
  • FACEBOOK

The Department of Corrections settles the lawsuit against their egregious misuse of tax dollars to support a sectarian religious program.

3/16/2011

0 Comments

 
After five years of contested legal effort, the State of Minnesota settled this horrific injustice.  The work before us now is to remove this program from our state prisons.
0 Comments

Since we've no place to go. . .

12/15/2009

0 Comments

 

No complaints from the natives. . .

Picture
Here in Minnesota, snow plays a major role in our happiness,

Without it, the holidays are bleak; the low pressure that bears down on our hemispheric weather systems depresses us. 

And let's be frank - brown dirt is not as pretty as  wet and white snow covered ground.

Snow makes a difference.

When I was a child, I began each year at this time to pray for snow.

In those days I believed that a white Christmas had the power to save the world.

Picture
All the songs supported me.

"Where the tree tops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow."

I wanted to be one of those children.  If the tree tops glistened, I'd trouble myself to be one of the listening gang of silly youngsters.

But if the treetops were naked, black and brown with the December death all around me, my spirits were bleak.

Snow made a difference then - and it makes a difference today.

Picture
That's why I cannot complain when new snow falls. 

I only complain when i am the only one who moves it off my walks and driveway.

But that's another topic, isn't it?

Happy holidays!

0 Comments

Too big for my britches. . .

11/12/2009

1 Comment

 

Why I will not run for public office.
 

Picture


There are many reasons why I would enjoy a run at the school board, a county commissioner seat or city council. Most days I'm certain I would be a better Governor than Pawlenty, especially concerning decisions affecting the poor, civil rights, the critical separation of church and state and of course, reproductive freedom.

And I've been asked. When I lived in Rice County, the local DFL leadership frequently sought me as a candidate against the notorious John Tuma, anti-choice, pro-gun legislator turned lobbyist .

But I had a real life in those days. I had children to raise, sermons to write, a man who was always in the way. There was no time for political posturing.

Now, my children are grown, my church turned Republican, and my former husband is working on his fourth marriage. My real life disappeared long ago. Even so, I cannot run.

The reasons are simple. After almost sixty years of speaking, writing, working for the poor and advocating for women, I have something my mother warned me to never have.

I have a reputation.

I'm known as an outspoken advocate. Google my name, if you don't believe me. I'm flattered that some of my essays have been identified as the "best" on the internet and the "most progressive" of printed media.

My name is not at all "household," and yet, I've been called a "dangerous American" by people who have never met me.

Last week, an executive head-hunter phoned.  He had a client, he said.  A Twin Cities corporation, seeking an experienced writer, editor, copywriter and communications professional.  He asked if I was interested.

I was.  I am.  And so I forwarded my latest work.  The headhunter, bless his heart, is a young, young man.  He looked at my material and gushed with approval.  National Public Radio.  Column in the Star Tribune - surely, he said, the client would be interested.

Seriously?  Interested in a woman who's name makes a conservative corporate officer turn to salt?  I don't think so. 

But last week, once again, I allowed myself to nurture a vague and rather adorable hope. 

I am a silly and foolish woman.  The expected happened.

This morning the recruiter called me, baffled.  I am, he said, the obvious candidate for the position.  The poor recruiter couldn't understand why the hiring manager turned me down, and asked instead for a candidate described as inferior to me - the next on the list. 

"It makes no sense," the recruiter said.  "He didn't give a reason. He only said he wouldn't meet you." 

I comforted him.  "I don't mind," I said. 

I told the truth. I don't. I no longer go where I'm tolerated.  I work now for organizations and individuals who celebrate the values and skills I bring forward. 

That's why I'm not running for office.  Momma was right - the only thing a girl has is her reputation.  Me?  In cahoots with the likes of Pawlenty and the other hooigans who promise one thing and deliver nothing?  Not on your life.

I have a reputation to maintain.

1 Comment

The President, the children and your liberties

9/13/2009

0 Comments

 

Pied Piper? 
I don't think so

Picture
Pied Piper? Hardly. . .
When President Obama addressed the school children of America this month, few of us expected the outrage, furor and fear engineered to stop him.

In a small town in southern Minnesota, an elementary school teacher I know was forbidden to bring the address into his classroom.  His principal told him that if he did so, he would lose his job.

A middle school teacher in St. Paul was threatened with the same tactic.  Her principal told her that the address would be taped, previewed, discussed by faculty - and if found acceptable, presented to the students.  She too, was told that if she brought  the content into the classroom, she would lose her job.

"We need to protect our families," one of the principals said, "from this pied piper of health care."

You remember the legend of the Pied Piper.

The Pied Piper came to Hamelin to drive out the village rats.  All he needed, he said, was his pipe, his personality and a chance.


The year was 1284, and the little town of Hamelin, Germany was suffering from a rat infestation. When they thought all hope was lost, a marvelous man arrived, dressed in pied clothing.  He brought hope to the little town,

He played a musical pipe and promised the village elders he could lure the rats with a song.  He told them he could drive all the Hamelin rats into the  Weser River.  Once in the river, he promised they would drown and free Hamelin of the infestation.

The village elders agreed to pay him a handsome amount of gold if he would do as he promised,  And so the piper piped, the rats were eradicated from the land.  And if everyone had behaved as they promised, the story would have ended there.

But the elders refused to pay. The piper asked for what was promised him and the elders, knowing full well their problem was solved and they need not follow through on their agreement, refused. The piper was furious - and left Hamelin filled with rage.  Little did the elders know that the rage would turn against them.

It happened on the feast day of Saint John and Paul,  while the town elders were busy in church.  The children were playing in the town square when the piper returned. 

This time when he played his pipe, he called all the children of Hamelin to his side.

One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and never seen again. The village elders, devastated at their losses, tried to make sense of the disappearance of all the children.  The answer to their questions came from one little lame boy who, because he used a crutch,  was left behind as the others danced to the piper tune and disappeared in the mountain.  He alone survived to tell the tale.

Great story - but Obama is not a piper of Hamelin or anywhere else.  He is the president of the United States - the brightest and the best we have had in decades.

Even so - his desire to speak directly to our children about education, perseverance, courage and commitment threatened many people in this nation.  Not because the nation is afraid of the charisma of our dynamic leader.  No - they are afraid of him because he is the President of the United States, a Democrat and a strong, happy black man.

Parts of this country are frozen in racism.  Let's be frank about this - if Obama were tall, dark, handsome and white, no one would think twice about him speaking to American children.

But our president isn't white.  He's black.  He's aggressive with an agenda to change America.  His name is odd - and simple folks are frightened by him.

So much so that they don't want their children watching, hearing or talking about him.

Not a word of the speech has was published prior to its release.  Nonetheless, the speech became immediately controversial  because the White House issued a set of lesson plans for teachers.  These lesson plans included suggested ways for educators to encourage discussion of the speech.

The plans suggested that pupils write letters to themselves on what inspired them about the President and how they could help to achieve his goals.

Apparently that was too much for certain Americans.

I watched the speech.  He wasn't too much for me.  If I had school age children, I would have done whatever I needed to make certain their classroom was plugged in on the day he spoke.

But then - I'm a citizen of a nation who made a promise to us - to uphold the constitution of the United States of America.  I'm on his side.

And I've never been too fond of the village elders.





0 Comments

Pouting will get you everywhere. . .

9/5/2009

0 Comments

 
Picture
Sometimes it’s hard to be a gentleman– giving all your love to just one nation. 

        Sleep deprived, over caffeinated and intellectually bankrupt , Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) put away all pretense to Southern hospitality and went on the attack.

       The Senator’s target? President Obama, his stimulus package and creative fight to right the wrongs of the failing American economy. 

        “Scaring people is not leadership,” Graham said, referencing the President’s attempts to communicate with the American people. “ Writing an editorial that if you don’t pass this bad bill we’re going to have disaster — we’ve had enough presidents trying to scare people to make bad decisions.”        

          Graham’s comments over-viewed his contempt for the Obama’s administrative approach to open communication and reliance upon the feedback and input from the American people.

          Although exhausted from working more than any white man from South Carolina should have to, Graham yesterday found the energy to flail himself into a petulant rage on the Senate floor, protesting the President’s  efforts to save the American economy.

       Coming to the conclusion that the stimulus bill is an “orgy of spending,” for the poor, Graham openly yearned for the good old days when government supported stimulus served only the rich.

        “The process that’s led to this bill stinks,” he said. “There is no negotiating going on here.  Nobody is negotiating. We’re making this up as we go.   This is not the way you spend a trillion dollars.”

The Right Way to Spend a Trillion

        To be fair, it is important to acknowledge that as a long-time supporter of  failed Republican economic decision making, Graham knows a great deal about the correct way to spend a trillion dollars.  His comments signal his intention to hold-out for some old-time thinking to solve these new-age problems.

       “Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill set  (sic) down,”  he said, “and found a way to go forward with Social Security.”

        Of course, Graham seems to have forgotten that the Social Security administration is weaker today than ever before.  His comments signal an ignorance of the fact that the American  infrastructure is crumbling.  Federal financial systems are inept and bankrupt.

       But perhaps the Senator  is not exhausted afterall.  Puffed, privileged and petulant, perhaps the rages we hear from the Senator are the last gasps of an old era, yielding the the fresh winds of change. 


0 Comments

Christ is risen; what abou the rest of us??

9/5/2009

0 Comments

 
Picture
No one in my family believes in Easter anymore.

My grown daughters are both self-confessed atheists. My former husband would rather be in the woods, slogging around listening to the toads mate than in church. My brothers and sisters all died knowing this, this life, this is it.

And sometimes it’s hard to hold up this faith all by myself.

Church people don’t make it any easier. The churches I attend are over-populated with self-congratulating couples, trotting about in matching Sunday outfits, chatting nonstop about their fabulous getaways to the latest bed and breakfast, or their wonderful dinner party last night with Garrison Keillor and his darling wife. What was her name again?

I kid you not. This is what Presbyterians do for fun.

So, here I am, facing the Big One. The Resurrection Sunday. The holiday for which all other Sundays were born.

Christ is Risen – (as the signs say, he is risen “indeed.” I always giggle when I see that word…) and those of us who still believe in the power of the faith and the strength of the eternal metaphor – those of us who have taken vows and who hold them fast in every bargain — we want to be in the front row.

I’ll be there again this year. Alone.

Wearing, as always the obligatory Easter bonnet with all the frills and a big smile for all the kiddies in their cute little pastel frocks and over sized baby-sport coats.

And I’m glad he is risen. Indeed, I am.

My wish is for the church to rise as well. When it does, I’ll have a leg to stand on when I, once again, try to lure my wayward people back to worship.


0 Comments

Heading north - one more time. . .

8/29/2009

0 Comments

 

The inevitable is near. . .

Picture



When you grow up in Minnesota, you can't help it.  The end of summer means one thing only.  The future is predictable here; eventual and obvious.

And so, before the inevitable becomes the day-to-day, we make a run for it.

I'm off to the Northshore, one more time.

Earlier this summer, I went north.  North west, however, is not north shore.  No loon call, no gulls.

This time, I'm taking due north - snaking the roads that parallel the highways to get my fill.

The leaves, they say, are beginning to turn.

The sky here, in this sleepy little city, promises the end of my summer.

Bring it on - - and in the meanwhile, I'll chase it down.


0 Comments

Recession, writing, and keeping it real. . .

8/27/2009

0 Comments

 

Writing the real life. . .

Picture
The cafe where I do my creative work is on an empty little street in the center of my lost little city.  St. Paul scrambles through this recession with the heart of a street fighter; fierce in determination to make it through the night - committed to keeping the lights on, the traffic moving, the appearances upbeat.

Before the lunch crowd descends, I make my way to the corner table by the window. 

It's a privilege to live like this - unfettered by the nonsense and worry other assign to "security."  Those of us who write and fend like this are not entitled to worry.  The life is a good one; simple and clear. And so we don't. 

Instead, we take our mornings in bright sunshine, filtered through dusty windows in shabby cafes around this struggling town - and when the muse assaults, we roll over, play dead and write for a living.

Before I was old enough to know how hard this would be, I imagined writers as one considers Fitzgerald, Hemmingway - or even Sinclair Lewis.

Celebrated at every stage of their artistic lives, living as a Steinbeck or a Salinger, in beautiful country homes, attended to by a doting, adoring spouse, unfettered and free to think, create and thrive.

It took me a long time to get over that fantasy.  Assisting in the death of that idea was the experience of warching August Wilson, morning after morning, slouch at the bar at W.A. Frost, writing "The Piano Lesson."

Poor as a church mouse, his face was lit with a beacon of iconic insight.  A genius, I suppose.  Still, like all the rest of us, Wilson wrote, one word at a time.

The late Paul Gruchow once whined to me about the few spots he could identify for publication of his odd brand of writing. Paul wrote about trees, prairie, farmland - and there were, and are, multitudes of others writing the same thing, seeking a venue for their work. How, oh how, would Paul ever sustain his energy? Why didn't everyone get out of his way and let him be published?

When he finished his rant, I reminded him that creativity is not a competitive sport.  Nor is it a team effort.  Writing requires concentrated attention to the solitary investment of time, agony and self-indulgence.

"Then why does it feel like that?" he asked.

I don't know, I replied.  And I realized - once again, I am alone. Because it does not feel competitive at all - not to me.

I'm not in this to beat anyone.  I'm in this to beat back something  - the vague, unsettling haunt that life might be, without my energy infused at every moment, meaningless.

Writers write to bring order, meaning and agenda to the vague, random assaults of reality. 

Here, light breaking through dust, things fall, like early autumn death, into place. 



0 Comments

The senator is dead

8/26/2009

0 Comments

 
Picture

And now a Kennedy has died of old age.  Gray hair, legislative legacy, and the crowds pouring forward to call him blessed; it's a beautiful thing.  I haven't seen this happen in my lifetime.

I remember where I was when John F. Kennedy was announced assassinated - my eighth grade Spanish class with Senior Saucedo - sitting next to Joy Nedoff and giggling about Loren Gilbertsen's steady stare.

Robert F. Kennedy died before our eyes on national television - and John F. Kennedy Junior was taken from us long before we had the opportunity to test his fitness for public life.

But Ted?  He went on and on.  Past 
Chappaquiddick, beyond divorce, alcoholism,  the sex-abuse scandal of the nephew in his custody -past the rumored misconduct with a wide variety of young women - all the way to marriage with a young wife.

Teddy missed the bullets - dodged the scandals, and outlived the negatives that assailed his life.

The good he has done will be with us forever. The evil with which he gambled and bartered his immortal soul will haunt forever the families of those he personally injured and neglected.

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a study on the human condition titled, MORAL MAN AND IMMORAL SOCIETY.  His thesis was that the individual righteousness of a person cannot survive, nor can it prevail in community with other moral agents.

Kennedy proved this to be so. A man who prevails will be redeemed.  Irrespective of his sin.  Irrespective  of his crime. His good deeds will follow him as his children rise and call him "blessed."  


0 Comments

Building the future by honoring the present

8/26/2009

1 Comment

 
The economy is on the rebound; still, in some parts of the nation, unemployment is creeping into the double digits.  How are things where you are?  What has this economic downturn meant to your personal life, your business, your hopes for the future?

I'll be posting daily here, and letting you know how the economy affects the people around me.  Share your perspectives, and let's keep in touch.

As all of this repairs, our national complexion will be more open, caring and decent.  Our shared values and common ground emerges as we join together and look forward.

I look forward to hearing from you!

1 Comment

    My blog and welcome to it!

     Straight up, no-nonsense opinion.  Enjoy!

    Contact Kristine

    Thank you, your message has been sent
    Site Meter

    RSS Feed

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    March 2011
    December 2009
    November 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009

    Kristine Holmgren

    Create Your Badge

    Categories

    All
    American Infrastructure
    Blessings
    Blizzards
    Chappaquiddick
    Christianity
    Common Dreams
    Communication
    Community
    Complaints
    Constitution
    Easter
    Economy
    Elders
    Evil
    Families
    Fitzgerald
    Free Speech
    Graham
    Gruchow
    Happy Thoughts
    Hemingway
    Holidays
    Hope
    Ignorance
    Inept Financial Systems
    John F Kennedy
    John F Kennedy Jr
    Kennedy
    Light
    Meaning
    Meaningless
    Meaning Order
    Ministry
    Niebuhr
    Obama
    Patriotism
    Pied Piper
    Poor
    Poverty
    Privileged And Petulant
    Racism
    Random Assaults
    Recession
    Reinhold Niebuhr
    Resurrection
    Robert Kennedy
    School Children
    Shoveling Show
    Sin
    Snowfalls
    Soul
    Steinbeck
    Sundays
    Winds Of Change
    Worship

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.

  • HOME
  • Bio
  • GOD GIRL
  • Paper Daddy
  • Blog
  • SWEET TRUTH
  • FACEBOOK