Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
FEBRUARY 5, 2026 – White House Border Czar Tom Homan—Gruppenführer Gregory Bovino’s replacement as overseer of “Operation Metro Surge”—announced yesterday a 700-agent drawdown from the purported 3,000 ICE agents and Border Patrol agents on the loose in Minnesota, mostly in the Twin Cities metro area. Ask people on the ground here, however, and no one …
FEBRUARY 1, 2026 – I’ve written about him several times on this blogsite, most recently on September 7, 2025: our neighbor, the inimitable “Mr. Paulson,” literary savant, retired honors English teacher at Roseville High, life-long coach, and honorary scout for the Twins. Our paths often cross as he’s out walking the family’s ancient canine and …
JANUARY 31, 2026 – I’ve known lots of conservatives ever since I was old enough to parrot my two older sisters as we romped around the house in the fall of 1960 shouting, “Nixon, Nixon, he’s our man . . . Let’s put Kennedy in the garbage can!” I was in first grade and didn’t …
JANUARY 30, 2026 – After my daily ski outing at noon, I returned home to “de-ice” over lunch and the latest news about ICE. When I saw live coverage of the mass demonstration underway in downtown Minneapolis, six miles from our driveway, I left word with Beth, who was out, and headed down to join …
JANUARY 23, 2026 – This morning we woke up to find that the outside temp was “A LOT” below zero, the lowest all week. At least the sun was shining, ever higher and brighter, if not warmer, as the North Pole shifts incrementally but inexorably toward the sun . . . at least till the …
JANUARY 9, 2026 – After another day filled with talk about Wednesday’s cold-blooded killing by an ICE agent, I’m in equal parts mad and sad—mad that people in positions of the highest responsibility talk and act so irresponsibly; sad over the loss of our decency and dignity. From the president and his closest minions to …
JANUARY 9, 2025 – I hadn’t intended to tune into Jimmy Carter’s funeral this morning—televised from end-to-end—at the National Cathedral. After all, I had important things to do (skiing) and important places to go (up and down “St. Moritz” in “Little Switzerland,” the regional park a mile from our house) . . . once I’d …
JULY 31, 2024 – (Cont.) Back home other Nisei were exerting a different kind of courage in quite a different sort of combat. One of the leading “soldiers” in this regard was a conscientious objector by the name of Gordon Hirabayashi, who worked tirelessly in the pursuit of justice. A Ghandi-like character, he exercised unusual …
JULY 30, 2024 – (Cont.) The most remarkable aspect of racial discrimination against Japanese-Americans is that it didn’t discourage most Nisei (people of Japanese parentage but born in the United States) from joining the war effort. They signed up because they felt it was their duty—as Americans and in defense of American ideals and principles—and …
JULY 28, 2024 – (Cont.) Every so often you read a book that changes who you are; I mean alters the way you look at the world and in a manner that you can’t forget or “undo.” For me the biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Taylor Branch was one such book—or rather, “books,” …
JULY 17, 2024 – For the Fourth of July our neighbor John was kind enough to accommodate some of our guests by opening up one of the seldom-used cabins on his compound, which borders our land on the other side of the “swamp woods.” In one of the bedrooms was a chalkboard on which someone …
JUNE 6, 2024 – For years the Soviet view of the D-Day invasion was inversely proportionate to the American obsession with commemoration of that historic day. Stalin had long been pressing Churchill and Roosevelt to open a second front in Western Europe to draw Germans away from the Eastern Front, where the Nazis had been …
JUNE 2, 2024 – In ancient times I was involved in a case concerning a prominent piece of real estate in downtown St. Paul[1]. For years the matter consumed a plurality, sometimes a majority, of my billable hours at the firm. Other lawyers with the pertinent client relationship that predated my hiring had reeled the …
MAY 23, 2024 – (Cont.) Menard’s, Lowe’s, and Home Depot have become emporia selling everything a person needs to build a house and fill it wall-to-wall from the basement floor to the attic rafters, with all the props and fittings known to the Great American consumer. And every single item that fills one of these …
MAY 22, 2024 – These days you have to ask yourself—what is America? A crazy place? A terribly bad place? A wonderfully good place? A country about to push itself over the edge of a precipice? The most resilient nation on earth, still destined to be . . . dare I say it . . …
DECEMBER 8, 2023 – After school yesterday, Beth picked up Illiana from school and ferried her back to our house to play for a while before swimming class at 5:00. I was disappointed I couldn’t join in fun around the house, but I was in the middle of a three-hour Zoom conference. With my microphone …
JULY 4, 2023 – In commemoration of Independence Day, today’s post breaks from my individual “inheritance” to celebrate our collective American inheritance. But in the mix of dazzling fireworks, condiment-loaded hot dogs, and liberal servings of potato salad, we should take a sober and sobering account of that inheritance. In my early school years, American …