Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
MARCH 30, 2026 – Participation in Saturday’s flagship “No Kings!” rally in St. Paul bolstered my faith in humanity—at least the local on-site version of it, where I could rub elbows with fellow Minnesotans who’d endured the most severe winter in collective memory, and I’m not referencing the weather. Today, however, when I read a …
MARCH 28, 2026 – Fortunately, half a century ago Bruce Springsteen’s band-buddies back in Asbury Park, New Jersey started calling him “the boss” (in reflection of his dual role as music and band finance director) and not “the king.” Lots of Americans have a boss, but no American should have a king. Springsteen’s famous moniker …
MARCH 25, 2026 – This morning, I drove to Buerkle Hyundai on the east side of town to have my car serviced. After checking in my Sonata, the service rep ushered me into the well-appointed customer waiting area well-stocked with edibles and beverages. I resisted temptation driven by my addictions to sugar, sodium and caffeine …
MARCH 23, 2026 – I often recall from the first Trump Era protest I ever attended (October 2018). My favorite protest sign, a sign of the times—then and since—read, “WHERE DO I START?” As if in a game of spin-the-bottle, for today’s topic I landed on . . . the “SAVE America Act[1]” Yesterday while …
MARCH 20, 2026 – In the all-too predictable Orwellian-speak of the Charlatan in Chief, today, just days into what could well be another endless war, he told us that he thought the economic impact of his “excursion” against Iran would have been worse than it’s turned out to be. Think about it: at the political …
MARCH 17, 2026 – I was a fourth-grader—our granddaughter’s age—when the famous St. Patrick’s Day Blizzard slammed Minnesota. School was canceled, mostly on account of the travel hazards facing school buses that ferried all the “farm kids” (whether they lived on actual farms or not) to and from schools in town. We who lived inside …
MARCH 11, 2026 – I remember watching/listening to portions of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee back in 2022. She gave a credible account of herself—erudite, respectful, genuine, articulate, and a methodical thinker. Based on her C.V. and on what I observed, I thought—Yes, she seems well qualified to …
MARCH 8, 2026 – Much ado has been made online—wholly appropriately—of the Commander in Chief’s wearing a baseball cap during the ceremony at Dover Air Force Base to receive the remains of the six dead American servicemen. I haven’t talked to any soldiers, sailors or airwomen/men or veterans about this, but of MAGA members among …
MARCH 5, 2026 – I really feel as if I’m a passenger on one of those gargantuan cruise ships with 23 decks, 25 dining rooms, 18 swimming pools, and enough poker chips to sink the ship if they all slid off the poker tables at the same time. (Eh, eh. That’s a joke.) The cruise …
MARCH 4, 2026 – Yesterday in a regular chat with a close college friend, we talked politics—as usual. After venting our spleens over the latest outrage—war against Iran—my good friend asked me, “Where do you think America will be a year from now? What’s your prediction?” After answering his question, I asked him, in turn, …
FEBRUARY 28, 2026 – When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was If I Ran the Circus by Dr. Seuss. It featured an imaginary circus inside the imagination of a kid named Morris McGurk. Morris envisioned a Big Top Circus in place of a vacant lot within the confines of a tall, …
FEBRUARY 25, 2026 – By the time I’d assembled myself for breakfast yesterday morning, I was feeling significantly better. Maybe not quite airworthy, but with two days to go before our postponed departure from southern New England, I was optimistic. In the afternoon, I actually got outside and did some light shoveling to help “widen …
FEBRUARY 22, 2026 – (Cont.) Naturally, Dio likes us to read I’m a Garbage Truck out loud to him. But here’s the rub and the DEI feature, which, if you’re a Republican and even if you’re a Democrat, you might well think I’m taking DEI way, way beyond any reasonable dimension. But note in advance …
FEBRUARY 21, 2026 – A hallmark of the Trump Era is the easy detection of truth in opposites. If Trump hates something such as wind power, for example, then I know I wind turbines are absolutely a good thing, no questions asked. If Trump’s Treasury Secretary Bessent tries to rationalize tariffs as a blunt instrument …
FEBRUARY 14, 2026 – Yesterday evening, Beth, our son Byron and I engaged in an earnest discussion about people we know well and who in the realm of politics are no more likely to change their minds than we are about to change ours. Even in a formal debate setting with strict rules of engagement, …
FEBRUARY 13, 2026 – Today a wholly clear smooth on-time uneventful two-hour and seven-minute Delta flight took us from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Hartford . . . to visit our two-and-a-half year old grandson, his new baby sister . . . and their parents. The 90 minutes in MSP terminal were a reminder that perhaps I …
FEBRUARY 12, 2026 – This year is my “reporting year” for continuing legal education credits—a mandatory 45 hours’ worth for the three years ending June 30. Credits can be obtained from a variety of sources—Minnesota CLE, local law libraries local law school libraries, and a plethora of national sponsors. Aside from mandatory credits in the …
FEBRUARY 11, 2026 – I have yet to find any survey of history with a chapter entitled, “From [When] to [When] Nothing Much Happened.” Yet even by historical standards, what the country is now experiencing represents a crisis of exceptional proportions. In the wheelhouse of the ship of state is a man with a rudderless …
FEBRUARY 9, 2026 – If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve heard about the personnel crisis sweeping through the USAO (U.S. Attorney’s Office). This is big stuff: a flood of resignations, coupled with amateur-hour attempts to hire replacements—with amateur-hour results. The version of the crisis here in Minnesota began with the resignation of Joe Thompson and …
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 4, 2026 – (Cont.) The fight over the civil rights plank of the Democratic platform at the 1948 convention was the capstone of Into the Bright Sunshine. The rest of this riveting book was divided into three parts: a detailed account of the shocking level of racism against the relatively small Black population of …
FEBRUARY 3, 2026 – (Cont.) The dramatic conclusion of Into the Bright Sunshine features the clash between advocates of civil rights and protectors of states’ rights at the 1948 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. In that era, party platforms carried far more weight than they do today, and the intra-party fight over the civil rights plank …
FEBRUARY 2, 2026 – On July 6, 2016 Philando Castile was shot and killed by a policeman during a routine traffic stop here in Minnesota. The shooting occurred less than half a mile from our quiet, leafy, liberal—and by way of our complacency, racist—town of Falcon Heights (pop. 5,200). Within a single news cycle, news …
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 …