For five days and nights following the death of George Floyd on May 25, the city of Minneapolis was the scene of riots, arson, and looting. A two-mile stretch of Lake Street, located twenty blocks south of downtown, was almost…
The year 2020 is like the mist in the Stephen King novel — insidious and dread-inducing. The protagonists can’t escape. What started off as a dramatic political storm turned into something more ominous. 2020 was in the shadows, lying in…
There are only hours to go before election day, and businesses in most major cities are boarding up in expectation of protests, riots, and God knows what else. This weekend, I passed through Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Minneapolis. It’s the…
Recently I attended my first actual social function since the Late Troubles began. We were careful; we wore masks as we dished up our catered food and set our lawn chairs a distance from one another. It was an ideologically…
On May 29, 2020, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin with third-degree murder (later raised to second-degree by Minnesota’s attorney general) in the death of George Floyd. Former Officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng,…
Minneapolis, Minn. Today marks three months since George Floyd was killed, and the Twin Cities are still reeling. The riots are done here, at least for now. The protests, however, are ongoing, gaining strength whenever a new racial outrage in…
Epigraph of the Series “ … the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition their Government for redress of grievances.” U.S. Constitution, Amendment 1 Taxonomy for the Series “If you … then you are a … ” peaceably…
One of my ancestors knew Abraham Lincoln. All right, that’s not strictly true. He was a collateral ancestor of mine, half-brother to my great-great-grandfather. An early Norwegian settler in Illinois, he was active in the Republican Party. His obituary called…
The right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. — First Amendment, U.S. Constitution “To peaceably assemble.” Protest and Force: Mutually Exclusive. Protest is peaceable. When actions are not peaceable, they…
