Mario Cuomo on community involvement / Reflection on Eric Sevareid

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Cuomo, former New York governor, speaking at Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minnetonka about community involvement. After speech, program presents a report from MPR’s John Rabe on Eric Sevareid, CBS journalist and commentator on CBS Evening News. Sevareid was a North Dakota native and went to University of Minnesota. Program closes out with various individuals “giving thanks” for Thanksgiving.

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Good afternoon from Minnesota Public Radio on Kathleen hallinan simple mayor, Norm. Coleman is dropping and ethics complaint filed against skip Humphreys gubernatorial campaign Coleman filed the complaint in all 87 Minnesota counties when the two were running for governor Coleman said Humphrey and the dfl party chairman broke the States fair campaign Practices Act by portraying Coleman as an enemy of the family farmer based on comments Coleman made out of August candidate forum. Salvation Army fears a shortage of bell ringers could hurt its 6 million dollar holiday fun drive spokeswoman dead Wilkins says the organization has reduced the number of red kettles in the Twin Cities and still can't find Bell ringers for most collection sites Salvation. Army does have a work Therapy Program where we do employ some of those Bell ringers and we're not saying folks come out that need those jobs during the holiday season as well Avail ability of workers and volunteers isn't translating to lower need for services because many people aren't making a living wage a million dollars in federal funds will help Minnesota feed and house. Its homeless next year. The money comes from the Federal Emergency Management agency's emergency food and shelter program over the past 16 years Congress has appropriated a total. Of more than 1.8 billion dollars for the program partly cloudy skies are forecast for the state today. It will be mild with Hines from 45 near Ely 260 near Rochester MN Twin Cities. It should be mostly sunny through the day with a high around 60. That's Minnesota Public Radio news on Kathleen hallinan. Good afternoon. Happy Thanksgiving. Welcome back to mid-day here on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary iTune next week the US House Judiciary Committee goes back to work trying to decide whether to approve articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton. Next Tuesday at the committee will hold its second public hearing one that will focus on the definition of perjury and whether perjury is an impeachable offense the week of the 7th. The committee is expected to vote on impeachment Mario Cuomo for his part says the President should not be impeached. He says Clinton did not commit perjury, but Mario Cuomo says the clinton-lewinsky Scandal does underscore a basic truth namely that we cannot look to heroic figures to save us instead Cuomo says we have to start looking to ourselves, who served 3 terms 12 years is the governor of New York was himself considered a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. But ultimately decided not to run instead. He's currently in Private law practice. He serves as co-chairman of the partnership for a drug-free America makes occasional radio and TV appearances and gives the occasional speech. This Folly was in the Twin Cities to speak at the kickoff for the Minneapolis Jewish federations annual fundraising campaign Minneapolis. Federation is the central Jewish fundraising Organization for humanitarian educational and social service programs in Minneapolis Israel and 60 other nations Mario Cuomo says the Federation represents an extension of an idea that has nurtured Jews for thousands of years. One of the rest of society would do well to emulate his former New York Governor Mario Cuomo. I've been asked to talk a little bit about the Jewish community and the rest of what's happening in America that gets a little bit difficult ended. It has one serious obstacle. It's unrealistic to talk about America today without mentioning the current preoccupation with the president's confessors transgression as much as you try you can't get away from that shut you can maybe we should. There is no denying that the president statue has been impaired and that history will not record him as an eroic American leader who United our people and looked at them and that's a tragedy his opportunity to be a memorable American hero I think is gone. on the other hand If you ask yourself the question what other American Heroes have we had in recent years you'd be hard-pressed to think of any. The truth is that perhaps the most trenchant observation about our current time in this regard came out of a movie and a script written by a Jewish kid from Queens Paul Simon. Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio a nation turns its lonely eyes to you. What's that? You say? Joltin Joe has died and gone away with me about that in 1996 after we did the show for HBO on Joe DiMaggio calls, where have you gone Joe DiMaggio, and he told me how he was unhappy at the time that it happened to treated him as though he were dead. And I said no Joe you don't understand it treats you as in a way that you should regard as highly complementary what it says is your the icon of icons what it is is a kind of Lament. America saying we have no more Heroes no more heroic figures. They took John Kennedy and they took Bobby Kennedy. They took Martin Luther King Jr. Who is there? We have no Joan of Arc. We have no single great uplifting Force. And that's true and that has been true for some time. And I think probably it's going to be true for the indefinite future. Why well, I'm not sure maybe it's because of television and the internet maybe it's because of that Avalanche of information that surrounds us and submerges us and makes us all think we know so much. That we begin to believe less. We have a sensor maybe even a kind of arrogant sense of I'll command of the truth and it creates a state of mind that reject the idea that there's any Perfection out there at all. I said earlier tonight that the intense heat of the electronic Information Age melts all the feet of clay. As it has melted. presidents Thief That's all they'll be. No heroic figure to lead us. I'm afraid but then what will there be to lead us? If not a heroic figure. How do you fill that vacuum? We have to have some Force something to concentrate our efforts and our Ambitions and our aspirations what will serve if you don't have a hero if you don't have a great leader. Well, then I think you need a heroic idea. A commitment a belief of value a principle that binds us together that gives us that cohesion that without it we lack in my lifetime. I remember one such. When we had that kind of force. It was the Second World War. The second world war drove us all together men women children Believers non-believers. Black Brown's White's all joined in one purpose to save the world from opposition. We were good. They were bad. God was on our side. And are inspired commitment made us stronger than we thought we could be. We didn't think we could win the second world war. They caught us by surprise. We were unprepared. We didn't have the tanks. We didn't have the army. We were fooling ourselves into thinking we could remain isolated. We had to do all of that overnight convert everything we didn't have to work as we put 8 million men into the service who would make the tanks in the airplane. Don't let the women do it. We hadn't even imagine that happening. The women has been relegated to the kitchen for years all the years about history basically and all of a sudden we had to find new strength than we did. But that's the last time it's happened. Can you think of another time when we've approached that kind of ferocious commitment to one another when we've been able to come together the way we did then lock arms against the enemy put aside all the difference is all the quarrels about black and white and Jew and non-jew rich and poor put it all behind us and become one for United together as it ever happened again, I don't think so. We pulled ourselves for a few days in a rack when we thought okay. This is this is in you what enemy that we can join behind and then it became confused politically. Why are we in Iraq? Are we there they're fighting for Freedom. What is a name near? You know, what is Kewadin? It did get confusing. Are you fighting for jobs you fighting for oil or maybe it was all worth fighting for so confusing that by the time it was over we found Saddam Hussein still reviewing the troops after we had killed. So many of that people and we shook our heads and say no I wasn't real that was no second world war. That was no great cause and we haven't had one since then and I think we need one. We need a great idea and inspiring belief that makes us stronger and sweeter at the same time and idea that will strengthen the weakest of us without weakening the strongest. Does anyone have such an idea? Can you think of one? Can you make one up you don't have to make one up? Of course you have one. It's the idea that we are all in this Enterprise together. And that we will find our individual good in the good of the whole community. But that is an idea as old as civilization. Jeremiah says you will find your own good in the good of the whole Community, but the caveman understood the principal. When the caveman decided that it was time to have children in to grow there had to be a second cave person and then they had to be a nurturer and then that had to be more to ward off the beef and when they got the agriculture that had to be more still to be able to grow the crops. And before you knew what they started forming Clans and tribes and then Village isn't in cities because they began to realize in their own crude way that we need one another we can't do it alone. We're not isolated individuals on this planet. That we need to share our strength because you cannot improve you cannot progress without that recognition of interconnectedness and interdependence. It's the idea that this country. Used to go from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. You had an Article of Confederation you put together the 13th, whatever they were here when you wanted to move away from Great Britain tried it for a while. It didn't work. Why because you didn't recognize the connection and interdependence of the 13th. You need to bind them clothes together. So you made a Constitution which said we're all in this together, but even the Constitution didn't do the job perfectly because it didn't say anything about your relationship to one another except that we will all be free. The biggest part of the Constitution was Rita believe free to speak and that's a magnificent part of the Constitution reptile greatest gift what it didn't say. However was you have an obligation to one another and because it didn't order us to have an obligation to one another we didn't have an obligation to one another and we were terribly and even cruelly fragmented we owned black people as though they were property because nothing in the Constitution says they are human beings and you must treat them as such We treated our women as inferior second grade citizens. We didn't let them vote. We denied them all sorts of prerogative. There was nothing in the Constitution that said specifically we should treat them differently. Are we treated the unfortunate people that you saw in that magnificent film people like them people who grew too old and had no one to feed them people who were injured and and had no one to two of them people who are impoverished not because they refuse to work but because they were disabled and had no charity no Federation existed at that. People like that were left by the wayside. There was nothing in our Constitution that said we should help one another We learn that idea finally in the Great Depression. We learned that idea prodded by an elite is from New York. Not a populist. But an elite is Franklin Roosevelt when he was governor of the state of New York believed in the smallest amount of government possible except for Public Power and idea. He came up with that a good idea, but now is surrounded with one out of four people out of work with people living in the street with people committing suicide with the American dream going down the drain with the idea of democracy being destroyed in the rest of the world think we told you it wouldn't work. He had to find a new ID. And what was it? We're all in this together. Those of you still have wealth will have to share it to help those who don't and will will create the WPA which is to say you're out of work. You have no bread. I'll provide the bread you work on public projects rebuild at Bridge paint that school create a mural will find a way. Put you to work. You'll have your dignity and you'll have your bread and those of you injured while working will think of things like well unemployment insurance workers compensation all sorts of expressions of Our obligation to one another being met not because some God told us because there is no God and our constitution. That's no Christian God. No Jewish got your left to your own devices in terms of God in the Constitution. So that wasn't the motivation. It was pragmatism. This is the best way to proceed. This is the only way to proceed understand the relationship to one another if you want to recognize the fullest possible potential in this Society, you must recognize the relationship between you and everybody else. You must learn to share your benefits and burden that was The Depression. 30 years later you invented Medicaid. Think of it until 1965 if you were poor and sick. There was no obligation in this great country already becoming a very great country by 1965. There was no obligation. To take care of a sick woman who was alone in this world. If you had a charity and there were many well then maybe they could be taken care of if you were lucky and had a relative then you could be taken care of. But if all that was was the United States of America and the Constitution and its laws. There was no help for you. Until 1965 and then came Medicaid and then came Medicare. That's the idea that can save us if elaborated a little bit because it's still needed needed. It's the idea that kept the Jewish people alive and kept them strong for 4000 years. Without it there would be no Jewish people. The idea of mutuality of interconnectedness of interdependent that binded them all together against the whole world that was supposed to them it appeared at every turn. They were attacked. Threaten, what kept the Jews alive for 4,000 years what made them is strong in the safe as they are today in this country. That one idea is the idea that gave birth to Federation the idea that brings us all together tonight. And I know about the ID and the Jewish communities expression of it and Federation from a lifetime of experience my connection to the Jewish Community actually started while I was still in my mother's womb. That's the literal truth. Harry Kessler won't a small grocery store in a three-story tenement house in Queens, New York, but wasn't well enough to run it when it was abandoned by a previous operator brought two people from Jersey City, New Jersey to help him Angelo lamarca from Queens at tolls. Mr. Kessler about this couple that he was afraid would starve to death in Jersey City because the man was a ditch digger was all he knew how to do when he came from Italy where he hadn't been educated. All they could do is put a shovel into the ground and the construction work at dried up to go sit was the depression and people weren't building anymore and she immacolata who came over with one child and had two more she had no skill. She wasn't even a seamstress. She was a good woman in a bright woman in the strong woman and a wonderful mother, but they were there with no family in Jersey City, New Jersey and he didn't know how long they last and Kessler said bring them here. And we'll put them in one room behind the grocery store. And then they were without any skills couldn't speak English had no money. One child died. So now they had two children. She got pregnant again. And that was me and I was born behind the grocery store delivered by a midwife all her children were delivered by a midwife no doctors. Harry & Ruby gave them this one big room. I I remember what the room was like it had a Big black stone sink in which we did all the washing. There was no bathtub you had to use the sink. It had a toilet and sleeping space with separated by curtains. But we were lucky to have it. It was The Depression. And Harry and Ruby taught Andrea and immacolata enough English in enough numbers gradually in the grocery store. They were helping that's all they got no money for it. They got food from the grocery store and the room and heat and comfort and we did better than a lot of people in that neighborhood sell Jamaica Queens. Thanks to Harry and Ruby and over a. Of years. They taught my mother and father all I had to know to get his start in this great country. I told the group before this. I remember Papa just before he died. He died long before my mother live to be 95 Papa died before that and just before he died to know he was all upset and he was telling us he says I never kissed Mystic hessler's hand. I should have kissed his hand because now Papa had lived his life. He saw his children grow. He saw one of his sons stumble into the governorship in or something. You know, I'm sure you could never figure out who know how that could possibly have to just imagine these people imagine. Can you imagine my mother at Ellis Island go she had to come after Papa. He came first the way they would to find a place to live in in the woman take me to measure my mother Ellis Island being interviewed by Mike Wallace. What's your name? Andreea? Andreea, andreea, swipe immacolata Cuomo and what are you doing what I'm going. I'm going to meet my husband over their terrific. Do you have to use a ender? What do you have a job? No, I don't have any skills. But what what are you doing? You know I can take care of the big. What is your husband doing? Does he have no skill. Does he have any money to get about money? Do you have friends? They know if we're going to be friends if you have no friends no money. No skills. It's the what do you expect of the United States of America? God forbid a chance to work. Yes a chance to work with us where we came from. There was nothing a chance to work. Let my husband work. He'll work himself to death. He's a little man which he was and the other one leg is bad which it was but he'll work he'll work and he's like a boy you just give him a shovel he'll work. That's all that's all. You sure maybe one other thing what before I die. I would like my son to be Governor this that you like. Thanks for the thanks for the castle is I became a Shabbos goy in the temple. Now I got I knew you would laugh. I know you would laugh and I know way down in your cynical Minds you thank you. Every politician says to Jewish audience is in New York. EZ Shop is going yeah. They do it's required. You know, even if you want to said she was a Shabbos goy. That's how much she knew you can imagine how many Jewish world she got but I was a real Shabbos goy doing for the people in the temple what they could not do for themselves because of the requirements of a religion and there were differences, of course. From what I was doing on Sunday mornings where I was an altar boy at st. Monica. Would you believe Saint Monica Saint Monica Parish? incidentally one of those things you just can't avoid you what you want to hear. You want to hear a real coincidence. I'm going to miss my plane, but do you want to hear a real coincidence? You know Saint Monica was Santa Monica was an African-American sink the mother of st. Augustine the bishop of Hippo a hippo st. Augustine is of course a very Grand Saint in the Roman Catholic Church who wrote a great deal and who lived a kind of promiscuous profligate life before he became a saint and who is responsible for that magnificent quote to show that you've heard this he was asked about the desirability of remaining chaste and his answer was I believe in Chastity, but not quite yet. That was st. Augustine whose mother was Saint Monica. Gold sort of innuendo there. But but anyway, I was there as an altar boy and there was a difference between the synagogue and the the church and then that I was young remember and I noted the difference is no nuns or kneeling or collection plates in the synagogue on Shabbos. But remember more than the difference is the similarities. The incense the Candelabra the brocade Investments the Hebrew that I didn't understand on Fridays and Saturdays in the Latin that I didn't understand on Sunday morning. In the end. My major impression was that there was more to hold us together then to push us apart so much of what we were what we believe what we strove for was the same we believed in one God who made us and deserves our love and obedience. We believe that we all deserve the chance to work hard and earn a little security or even more if you will lucky. We believe that you were entitled at the chance to help your family. And then you were entitled to the opportunity and maybe even given the obligation to reach you beyond your family to help as many other people as we could reach. That was something we had in common to and way down deep. We both understood that one of our obligations was to try to make the world better to the extent that our own capacities allowed us to make that effort. I grew up. I went to school I moved in many different circles. I played professional baseball. I wrote a book. I did a lot of things became secretary of state was a member of the Vatican Council became a lieutenant governor who fought to put Holocaust studies in the New York State curriculum. When did Israel is a governor and made a deal with the exact rubbing may you rest in peace and Shimon Peres to strengthen our relationship did nysernet before there was an internet and hooked up Hebrew University to Syracuse University and communicate. Back and forth now that kind of thing is commonplace. But through all this. Might my respect for the Jewish community and for what they believed and what they could projector. The rest of society has grown deep and for decades I watch the children and grandchildren of Jewish immigrants who received so abundantly from this miracle called America giving back even more abundantly building a strong a sweeter American Community the Jewish people certainly But not just for the Jews for all of us together is American Jewish Community has always supported education for everybody art music Healthcare research even politics. I saw jewish-american serve as part of all the Great American social movements forward all of them. You look it up the movement for workers rights. First wave of leadership. There was largely Jewish the David dubinsky of this world the fight for human rights, the Jewish people have always been in the Vanguard of that effort all over the world the fight for civil liberties my Rabbi Rabbi Israel. Now, she was a great great man head of the National Council of rabbis member the Catholic Jewish Relations Committee my Rabbi came into public service with me as I was governor and I put him in charge of relationships with the all the religious groups of New York. Remember Goodman and schwerner. Remember who they were two Jewish kids. murdered in Mississippi marching with the blacks What were they doing for themselves? Nothing? They was there for human rights civil liberties that's always been the case with the Jewish community in this country. And one of the best expressions of that extraordinary generosity has been the work you've done through Federation. You saw it on the film to Dhaka. You see what federation does Federation helps people who otherwise would not be helped and a lot of them who need help a Jewish. What you were going to have to spend some effort reminding the whole community of because there is a false belief outside of the Jewish community that there is no such thing as Jewish poor. It's a belief believe me. I'm an expert I'm a boy. I mean I'm out there I know. And even in the Jewish Community there is not the awareness that should be of the number of Jewish people in need now. I know because I was the governor and I had to deal with these people for 12 years. I know how many poor Jewish people there were in the Lower East Side. I know how many poor Jewish people that were who didn't qualify for any of the programs. We had I know that if it weren't for Catholic Charities if it weren't for Jewish Federation, if it weren't for a Salvation Army, there are all kinds of people hundreds of thousands in this country. And I know that for all of us struggle to make this country a little bit more sensitive to the notion of We're All in This Together We haven't done it well enough I know that's particularly obvious today when everybody boast, even with the the stock market having its occasional correction, and that's all this is everyone both have a great economy for 8 years and it has been a fantastic economy if you're an owner. Or if you're a shareholder who has a formidable amount of shares or if you're a high skilled worker, but that's only one in five in this country. If you're low and moderate skill does a worker and that's 80% of 160 million work is you're in deep trouble your wages. Haven't gone up since 1987 in a real way and all that time while your wages haven't gone up the cost of higher education has gone up. The cost of healthcare has gone up the cost of Transportation has gone up much faster than your wages. If you're keeping your head above water is probably because you're working more hours. Look at the numbers or second person in your family is working and in those families lucky enough to have two parents. Most of them are unlucky enough to require both those parents to work leaving the children too much of the time unattended. I'm not talking about the people in this room here tonight. I'm not talking about the Jewish Community. That's so generous. I'm not talking about my family. We're the lucky people. But Wildey shining City on a Hill has more people in there, but we have more millionaires more billionaires more people making over $100,000 a year than ever before in our history where the glitter doesn't show that we don't even talk about. When's the last time you heard either a Democrat or Republican politician step to the before the stage and take a look at the HMO Bill of Rights and how we have three million people working for that no Health Care. None of you got a breast cancer and you're a woman with two children making average wage for a family $33,000 to taking home $27,000. If you have a breast cancer your bank drop your gun, you're finished because you have no plan. Nobody even mentions them. This is a hard-hearted Time believe it or not. As far as government is concerned hard-hearted. You can get a capital gains tax for money to repair schools in poor communities where they desperately need them if there is no money for that need more money for healthcare. There is no money for that will give U Mario a capital gains tax cut so that you can make more wealth on your stock transactions and your clients can do well. Thank you very much. I'm grateful. I have its but what about the health-care Liberals? Old is that does that take care of it? You won the argument politically you convinced people that the Liberals waste money. Forget the politics. Look at the numbers. You have more poor people now than you did in 1987 literally more people going bankrupt private people. I'm not going to do it. So convenient than ever before in our history over Million last year a lot of that to go to healthcare. I didn't know that more drug-addicted children than ever before in our history is more in prison people than anywhere in the world more violence more guns than any place in the world more teenage suicide than I did. You know that No, no. No, this is this is a world desperately in need of help and desperately in need of Things like Federation and that's why this is so important. But let me let me finish by talking again about your exam. Israel needs help to we know that particularly now. They're on the verge. They have to make peace than making a little progress the question. I don't waste time on the question. Is there a solution that must be a solution? And the alternative is chaos, and I'm not going to allow myself to think about chaos. The Federation has an obligation to them and we have an obligation is real to not because we have a lot of Jewish people here and they Jewish that's that's I'm not Jewish. I have an obligation to them to go send an American belief in the individual belief in God belief and dignity belief in democracy. I mean we give them three billion dollars and we think we doing somebody a favor. That's an investment and most of that they spend on buying equipment from us to defend themselves. Barrow Ally if you didn't like them you'd have to support them. Now it helps that a lot of us love them. But even if we didn't would have to support. But let me tell you unless you supported then the American Jewish Community. Nobody would support them in this country and never forget that. That unless the American Jewish Community reminds people that there are a lie that they were there when we needed us remember what happened when Bush asked them not to fire back in the Iraqi War. Now remember that the policy of the Jew has always been in Israel if attacked fight back doubling trembling the force against us why you had to this surrounded by millions and millions of people for a place to destroy them and their whole defensive posture was if you hit us we hit you back much harder. The only way we can defend Alsip. They never refused to respond ever and here they were lobbing missiles lobbed on them and the present the United States as I ask you I beg you don't fire back. And the Israeli government had to go to its people and say we're not going to fire back for the first time. We're going to tie our hands behind Outback and take them because the United States says it is the best way to end this thing and they did it for us. Thereby, once again establishing their commitment to us. The other has to be a solution. We should help them get it. We can't tell them what it is. They have to decide to go to was there blood that was spilled in Federation does that too and that's an important thing that we should all keep in mind, but I'm not a Jew I'm an outsider and the thing that is most important to me is the example you give to the whole world. And I'm thinking about President Clinton. I'm thinking about the lack of Heroes. I'm thinking about the vacuum that exist in this country. I'm thinking about the desperate need we have for something real to believe in for something that inspires us all for something that makes us feel that as Americans all of us. You know, we we are we are being Noble we are doing the right thing and we all share a common vision. That's what I'm thinking of and you have the answer you have lived the answer for 4000 years the belief you have the principal you have your value system was built which is built on two simple Proposition 1 is across the DACA. If only the rest of the world understood what you meant by Sedaka, we're all brothers and sisters I said in the earlier group because I I like it's easier for me to think about it this way tevye in the Fiddler on the Roof tevye looking up for guidance heavy asking God. What is it all about because he was confused. And that's what I told you know, but first of all the probably having with people remember this you're all brothers and sisters no matter what it looks like to you. Now, you're all brothers and sisters and you have to learn to live together and you have an obligation in righteousness to the extent that you can't to help all the people around you starting with your own not limited to your own but starting with your own starting with your daughter starting with the people in the village. In the people like you and your community as Jews you have an obligation to the charity charity in Christian thinking a takes on the aspect of an option. It's nice to give birth is not essential with Judaism. It is an obligation. That's the first rules have you? Okay? I do that I do the best I can I don't have a whole life when you get whatever you get your share. Take care of people with less than you if you can break and what do I do with their with this nice relationship with brother and sister? Your mission is to repair the universe, but I can barely take care of my family take care of your family to take care of the village. And as your power to help others grows, then reach out for as much of the world is you can touch. And I said earlier if you if you if you lose all your wealth, if you lose most of your strength if you're about to die, but you have breath and a little Consciousness left is still enough to pray pray for the good of the whole society because that's your mission to be at while so you think I put the you there to see how much money you could gather in 40 years or fifty years to watch your child die in its crib. To torture you with all of these Unthinkable Horrors that appear to have no justice to them. No. No. No, I put you there to do the very best you could under the circumstances to make the place better than it is and that's the Christian way too. If we saw it clearly we borrowed it from the Jews. We say it in different language Our God told us love one another as you love yourself for the love of me and I am truth. And what are we to do with this love French Jesuit take out the shot. Dance says you are collaborators in creation. God made the world, but he didn't finish it. He left the finishing to you. It's up to you to make it what you wanted to be and what God hopes you make it is a pure replace a sweeter play some more civil place a less dangerous place unless stupid place where people hate one another in fight one. Another For No Good Reason what God wants you to do is to make it as much like a perfect places. You can you build your own heaven and come as close as you can and I know you're not going to succeed perfectly. But every little thing you can do every child you can help in the streets of South Jamaica every old lady. You can help in Kiev or in the Soviet Union old Soviet Union where you have the terrible irony of a Jewish people in worse shape. Now after the use Nix thinking boy, if only we could end the Soviet Union with a Jews would be safe. Then you took away the Soviet Union and all sorts of horrible power rush to fill up that vacuum tonight. More anti-Semitism than you had before now you have a mafia that you didn't have before terrible. Terrible. Irony all through the old Soviet Union. But that's what you're supposed to do is make the whole place better. There is nothing else. That's what the United States should understand. Yes, of course. Everybody should work the way my mother and father work. Of course, that's the first rule of course. Yes. We should all be free to believe what we want. Of course. I'll Liberty is the most important thing the Constitution gives us all of that is right, but my mother would tell you she told me in Italian in the speech this way cuz you don't have to make all those long speeches about America Mario. You just tell them to things you just tell them that in America. You have to work very hard. But if you work very hard as hard as you can and you can't make it for some reason you just can't get that education. You need. You can't get that Healthcare. You just not strong enough to do it. Then America will find a way to help do everything you can for yourself. That's what they did for Andre and Immaculata. That's what Tesla did and that's what the government is giving me Public Schools. They educate myself in. That's the rule that's the rule God intended Sedaka and Tico. No, LOM, who does it better than the Jewish community? Nobody and I don't think you understand that. I don't think you would appreciate it. You set an example for all of us and one of the reasons you have the capacity to do it. So well is that you have done it so well for long for so long and as you've done you've made your own communities strong and if we could take that lesson and interpolated into all the rest of America, we would have all those poor people would be investing in them instead of going to jail instead of being drug-addicted still be working there be in Laboratories that be lawyers that be business Mets the way we're trying to save Russia the way we're trying to save Japan the way we brought your pan back to life after the second world war the way we sent the Marshall Plan. Why did we do it? Because in our own crude sense we understood we are interconnected and interdependent when you talk about foreign policy if we do need Japan, we do need Germany to sell to to trade with to stabilize the world where the nuclear weapons are in Russia. Yes, we knew do need them. If you need them. Don't you need your own children don't you need your own work is Don't you need your own poor people mustn't you help them with a great strength of the greatest. Most powerful Nation. The world has ever seen. Nobody have a drink would be as strong as we are. Now how dare we say that we must have these poor people. We must have under educated people. We must have homeless people speak us we can't afford to do anything. That's a monstrous Distortion and why of course we could do it. If we wanted to the way we save the Savings and Loans the way we went into space selling finding billions and billions of dollars that nobody knew existed. Of course, you could make this place a better country for all of us. Not just for the people like me. Who says the Jews say so that's what they teach us with their example. I will forever be grateful. Not just for Tesla. And I would kiss his hand if he were here now the way my father fell to. But I'm grateful to the Jewish Community for the lesson you demonstrate to the whole largest Society. I only wish we were better at learning it from you. Thank you for your patience. Former, New York Governor Mario Cuomo speaking this fall at the kickoff of the Minneapolis Jewish federations annual fundraising campaign. The event was held at the Adat yeshurun synagogue in Minnetonka. This is midday coming to you on this Thanksgiving day. Today would have been the 86th birthday of Eric sevareid the longtime CBS reporter and commentator one of the greatest journalists ever come out of the state of Minnesota. But you're sevareid died back in 1992 at the age of 79 and while his working life are admired and respected by those who know about him even his biography questions his impact on American broadcast journalism, Minnesota public radio's John Raby reports when Eric sevareid retired from CBS News in 1977. He spoke at the national Press Club and somebody asked him about the good old days. It's come a long way this broadcast journalism think it's bad now, but I remember what it was like Father Coughlin is a Winchell's arrest we wouldn't have that today 21 years later. We don't know it's ever I would say about today's screamers spring or Limbaugh on the rest, but odds are paid see the good side and the bad side. Measured from the depth of his personal experience Eric sevareid was born in North Dakota in 1912 and he hung around the local paper the family move to the Twin Cities in the 1920s sevareid eventually got a job writing for the old Minneapolis Journal. He was fired in 1936, but got a job at the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune just two years later, but then came his really big break in a PBS American Experience documentary sevareid. Remember to phone call just before the outbreak of World War II was on the other end asking if I would like to try reporting by race. He said I like the way you ride and I like your ideas. I was flattered scared but willing to try we take you an hour to Paris. Good morning. This is Eric sevareid Google got up this morning to face one more day of this crisis last night story official e war broke out two days later and as his bullet and continued Add distinguished himself by accurately predicting that France would capitulate to the Nazis after the war sevareid moves smoothly from Radio into television and stay there until 1977 is trademark was trenchant analysis. He was not an objective reporter in the purest sense of the phrase the analysis was there at the start in an old Minneapolis Journal article about anti-semites who claimed Jews would take over the city. He wrote I was astounded that such childish reasoning could exist in the brain of a man. So mature and a piece on World War II, he wrote a million murdered live leave an empty place at only one family table. That is why at bottom people can let Wars happen. He attac Joseph McCarthy before Moreau did and pointed out fallacies. He saw in the United States Vietnam policy at his retirement speech sevareid was asked about a reporter having opinions whether he said danger that the reporter will become the news instead of reporting it to the great reporting. Civil War Richard Ian Davis Lincoln steffens review want a lot to do with it. I don't think you could ever separate two. And I don't worry about it much the late Charles kuralt said sevareid was one giant tree in the forest. He stood alone. This has its good and its bad sides when I was good to have someone set a standard. It's awful tough for any journalist to Aspire to be another Eric sevareid father Raymond trowth wrote the biography The American Journey of Eric sevareid. That's at at that time any people that that works and never heard of their people down at CVS who didn't know who he was. Young people just got their education. Is it working their way up and CBS News then maybe didn't have any lasting impact did they keep showing your stuff again? And again the University of Minnesota where sevareid went to school has an Eric sevareid library in the journalism building the shelves are lined with journalism texts and the stern countenance of the man himself looks over the student shoulders from Big photos on the wall, but the most of the students I talked with he might as well be the man in the moon Eric sevareid was any idea Why was just in his Library actually? Yeah, where did he broadcast the name? And do you know who Eric sevareid is, you know Eric sevareid was and you know who Eric sevareid was coming out of after him broadcast. I believe it was CVS to be fair. It was mostly the first year journalism students who hadn't heard of a man who arguably should be their role model the last didn't we heard though. You knew the separate name and resume was a PhD candidate, but even one of the journalism school secretaries a woman apparently in her 50s didn't know him. Nevertheless Albert Tim's the interim director of the U of M School of Journalism. See sevareid is still a driving force in journalism, Eric sevareid, like Merle really set of standard for integrity in journalistic responsibility. Chrissy he was a very credible voice. I mean in many ways to Aspire to be like in Eric sevareid is something that any journalists should try to do a footnote to our story on what would have been Eric sevareid 86th birthday if separated never been a reporter and never recovered World War. I had never spent all those nights adding his Cota to the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Even if he had never done these things, he would have accomplished something notable in that farewell speech in 1977. He mentioned it in the Vintage sevareid Loki style, but I was 17 and I went out for another crazy kids on a canoe trip great distance. And we survived but we're actually ignorant of what we're getting into that got me enough. So I got a job in a paper. This wasn't your typical canoe trip in 1930. He and a friend canoe 2200 miles from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay and then he wrote a book about it canoeing with the cree which not only two tails the trials of the trip but paints a picture of the traditional Curry culture. He also writes about wrestling violently With His companion being so mad at him that he wanted to kill him. It was a rare glimpse of emotion sevareid would later right? I am cursed with a somewhat forbidding Scandinavian manner with a restraint that spell stuffiness to a lot of people but inside I am mush full of sentimentality about this country the Midwest Abraham Lincoln and the English language. Viagra for Raymond schroth says the English language is severide's real historical milieu is impact shorts as will continue to be felt through his autobiography not so wild a dream which is seen a dozen printings since 1946 John Raby, Minnesota Public Radio and find late night on this Thanksgiving a day day edition of midday some national public radio commentators answering the question for what are you thankful. I'm Cokie Roberts at this stage of life. It doesn't take Thanksgiving to remind me to count my blessings by the time I get to work something usually starts me on a Litany of gratitude. It might be the morning sun glinting off the purple of the plum tree leaves that leads to the quick thought. I thank you God for that bit of beauty and thank you for my loving husband my happy children my active mother my funny friend and thank you for my Basset Hound Abner who won't be with us much longer and thank you anytime Steve gets home first to clean up after that old dog before I do. amen This is David Sedaris. And this Thanksgiving. I'm trying to look on the bright side and do the glass is half-full rather than half empty and this Spirit. I'm thankful that never having touched a computer or engaged in email. I'm forced to hear the words. Com no more than 800 times a day. I'm also thankful that those with cell phones are able to enjoy meaningful conversations while the rest of us are trying to watch a truly awful movie that cost. It's only $9.50 not smoking airports rollerbladers on the sidewalk. The fat-free pretzels handed out in lieu of your in-flight meal. The world is a beautiful place when you're not nice like me. This is Lorraine Johnson Coleman. Well, there are always the blessings of good family good friends good health in God love but this year. I also have to add to that list that I am great that once again, I will be able to make the Thanksgiving Day collard greens. You see when I was 21. I cook the greens without renting them properly and my aunt after Crunch and her way through to Grady mouthfuls Proclaim loudly enough for the devil to hear that the greens taste like I'd walk Barefoot through them before I put them on the table ever since then she wanted a family that keep me out the kitchen. She almost kills with a pot full of collard greens. She said, can you imagine what will happen if she cooks a whole meal 15 years later. I have been given a second chance this time. I will scrub those suckers with every ounce of my ability and if it doesn't work, then I'll buy them in a can. This is Pat Morrison. My mother has never really like to cook In fairness. She never had much of an audience in my father whose tastes and appetites bread and depression poverty made him more grateful than Discerning. The measure of a great meal was amplitude just so long as there was a lot of it whatever it was was almost incidental canned cranberry sauce. Keep it coming now that my brother has just married and my sister is soon to there's a family food paradigm shift in the works. We are all grateful that my mother won't be cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe my siblings will maybe some restaurant Chef working holiday overtime, but mother is off the rotisserie hook and so gratefully are we I'm Sandra Tsing loh. This is a small thing but recently in a mail order catalogue I saw this photo of a fleece robe that zips closed along the bottom with twin hulls for your feet sweat holiday home where has come to a bag when swollen from a turkey dinner, you find the prospect of pulling up sweatpants just too exhausting a loving family member can zip you into this room a $69 fleece tube, the fact that we live in a country where such a garment can be mailed to your home for that. I am truly grateful. This is Baxter Black. We in America are blessed with a rock-solid constitution of fertile land in a freedom unlike any place else on Earth. So I'm thankful for that. And I'm also thankful for my wife between cook and read my mind the Miracle Whip comes in plastic containers and horseshoes come in all sizes, but I am most thankful the older I get that I believe in God, it just makes it tough part 2 life bearable and if someone to give the credit Can I see a sunrise over China Peak an animal is majestic is a horse or a table full of turkey and family. Some thoughts from national public radio commentators on this Thanksgiving day with your hope you have are having and continue to have a great Thanksgiving day tomorrow. We're going to have some tips from Jane Brody on wearing off that Thanksgiving Day meal. We hope you'll be able to enjoy the day that's coming up tomorrow and the day programming a Minnesota Public Radio is supported by the Pillsbury company Foundation caring for the community by giving kids a loving left catch up on some news headlines. And then Ray Suarez will be along with the Thanksgiving day book club of the air. It's Lynne Rossetto Kasper this week on The Splendid Table hits the art of the party with Washington. DC host is Sally Quinn. Be sure to join us. That's this Saturday at 2 and Sunday at 7 on Minnesota Public Radio channel W FM 91.1 You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. We have a sunny Sky 50°. I can't believe I found 91.1 Minneapolis. And st. Paul should be sunny all afternoon with a high approaching 60° partly cloudy tonight with a low on the low 30s, then partly cloudy tomorrow with high once again near sixty should be dry on Saturday. Maybe a little rain in the cities on Sunday.

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