Minnesota knows something about family members being appointed U.S. Senators upon the death of their better-known relatives.

After losing the 1968 presidential election to Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, the liberal Democrat affectionately known as the “Happy Warrior,” returned to the Senate where, prior to being President Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice-president, he had served for 15 years. He remained in the Senate until his death on January 13, 1978. Twelve days later, his widow, Muriel Humphrey, was appointed by Minnesota’s governor to fill her husband’s seat.

While Senator Muriel Humphrey had never held elected office, she was no stranger to politics and world events. She had campaigned with her husband when he ran for mayor of Minneapolis, for the Senate, for vice-president, and for the presidency. She served four years as Second Lady. She knew, as the saying goes, where the bodies were buried in D.C. She also knew herself, and the job of a U.S. senator, well enough to only serve in a caretaking role until a new senator could be elected, less than a year after her appointment.

While no one would have said that Muriel Humphrey was the most qualified person to serve in the U.S. Senate, at least she had the bona fides to do so. As South Carolinians go to the polls this week to decide which Republican will win a primary runoff and likely become the next senator to serve a full six-year term, it comes down to a single question — does it matter if the leading candidate is “not that informed on national security”?

Let’s be clear. Interim South Carolina Senator Darline Graham, sister of the late senator Lindsey Graham, wasn’t asked a hardball question in last week’s debate with fellow Republican Ralph Norman. “Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States?” isn’t even a softball question in a Republican debate. It’s a wiffle ball question. All she needed to do was respond in Trump-like fashion by saying, “Taiwan good. China really, really bad.” That response probably would have clinched the primary election for her and put her in line to succeed Marco Rubio when he leaves his post as Secretary of State to run for president. The bar is that low right now, and Darline Graham couldn’t clear it.

The newly crowned senator later said, “I don’t speak politician — I was just honest.” She then doubled down on her ignorance and displayed her late brother’s agility to pander by saying, “Of course Taiwan is our friend. But I think people in South Carolina are more worried about boys in girls’ sports.”

Senator Darline Graham was not being honest. She is ill-informed, over her head, and unqualified to serve in a job she won in a DNA lottery. If only we could bring Muriel Humphrey back from the dead.

Pie is my comfort food. Give me a slice of rhubarb pie and a hot cup of black coffee, or a cold glass of milk, and all seems right with the world — at least for that moment. I’m not alone. Beth M. Howard has created a documentary film, Piowa: A Slice of America, that’s as beautiful as the Iowa countryside on a summer’s day and as warm and cheerful as the people who call the Hawkeye state home.

A few months ago there was a one-night only screening of Piowa at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis. The Riverview — one of the few remaining single-screen theaters in the Twin Cities, and where a ticket for a first-run film sets you back only $7 — also hosts cultural events, like the screening of a film about “how pie can bake the world a better place.” After watching the movie and enjoying homemade pies contributed by local bakers, I chatted with the filmmaker in the lobby, and learned that she had also created a pie passport of Iowa — a listing of every bakery and pie place featured in the film. As a lover of both pie and kitsch, I found myself planning a personal tour of the pies of Iowa.

Early on a recent Friday morning, my husband, Kevin, our friend Clarice, and I set off on a five-hour drive from Minneapolis to our first stop in Iowa. Ottumwa is the home of the Canteen Lunch in the Alley, which has been serving loose meat sandwiches for nearly 100 years. A loose meat sandwich is ground beef and onion served like taco meat, not like a beef patty. Think sloppy joe without the flavor. When the three of us took our spots on stools at the counter, our young server only asked one question, “What do you want on your canteen?” I have simple tastes and went with just ketchup, mustard, and pickles. Kevin went all in with those standards, plus onions and cheese spread.

While I do love a good loose meat sandwich, the choice of the Canteen as our first stop was because they feature a variety of 15 flavors of pies every day. Friday is the only day for banana, which was one of the four pies we tasted there. After a brief stop in the neighboring town of Eldon to visit the house made famous in the Grant Wood painting, “American Gothic,” we were back in the car for a 90-minute drive to Bondurant.

I assumed that the town’s name was pronounced the French way, bon-doo-RAHN. I was quickly informed, by a laughing Iowan, that it’s actually pronounced BON-duh-rant. (Given that my hometown of Montevideo, Minnesota, is pronounced mon-tuh-VID-ee-o, rather than mon-tee-vuh-DAY-oh, as they say in Uruguay, I should have known better.) The nondescript building that houses Home Slice Handmade Pies was misleading. Once you walk through the door, “your tasty, pastry flavor adventure awaits!”

Home Slice made our pie tasting excursion more doable, offering a flight of small, round, single-serve pies. Earlier in the week, I emailed Laura, the owner, and ordered two flights to go — a total of eight different mini pies. When she inquired which flavors I wanted, I told her it was baker’s choice. The mystery of what pies we’d receive would make our stop even more eventful.

Laura, and her fellow baker Catherine, welcomed us effusively. We talked about the film, how Laura started making pies, the impact of Covid on her business, and Catherine’s life in the South before moving to Iowa. And then, the pièce de resistance, as Laura and Catherine lovingly described each pie in our flight: blueberry, cherry, French silk, lemon supreme, peanut butter cream, strawberry lemonade, and two pies I had never heard of before, banoffee (bananas, whipped cream, and caramel sauce) and Dutch letter (based on the pastry and made with almond paste). Home Slice was a pie lover’s nirvana.

On Friday night we gathered in Des Moines to see friends and taste the eight minis from our flight, along with an entire strawberry rhubarb pie we bought at the Canteen, and a surprise pie — our friend Stacey was celebrating her birthday and had made a coconut cream pie that topped all of our “professional” pies.

After a restless night’s sleep for our three primary pie tasters — Kevin, Clarice, and me — we were up early to visit the Downtown Farmer’s Market in Des Moines, one of the largest markets in the country, and stretching 12 city blocks. We were on a mission.

Pie Mates Australian Bake House specializes in savory pies, which have a shortcrust bottom with a puffed pastry top, and are filled with meats, veggies, and spices. Mark and his wife Summer created Pie Mates, and Mark was at the food stall on Saturday morning serving the signature food items from his home country. When the creator himself is doling out pies, we thought it best to defer to him on what to order, and he didn’t steer us wrong. We tasted three of his nine offerings: creamy Gochujang chicken and bacon; smokey BBQ beef, jalapeno, and aged cheddar; and chicken with both sun-dried and cherry tomatoes. All were some of the best food we have ever tasted at a farmer’s market, but each of us found the sun-dried tomato pie over-the-top delicious. The Australian-born Mark could not have been a better ambassador for both his home country and for Iowa.

About ready to burst from our breakfast pie, we waddled back to our car and headed to West Des Moines and the home of Rachelle and her in-house bakery, Chellie’s Sugar Shack. Although Rachelle offers other baked goods, we were there for one reason only, her sweet potato pie made from a recipe handed down in her family. As with our pie flight, I had emailed Rachelle in advance to place an order for one of my favorite pies. By the time I walked into her house, we felt like old friends. In fact, we talked and laughed so much that I walked out without paying her and Rachelle forgot to charge me. Fortunately, we both remembered at the same time and met again at her door for an exchange of the best money I have ever spent on a pie. When we were about a mile away, Rachelle called and asked if we could please turn around and come back to her house. When we pulled up, she was waiting for us on the sidewalk with a box of sugar cookies as a gift for us. These cookies were the very first thing she started selling when she opened her business and she wanted to share them with us. Rachelle embodies the art of hospitality — and her sweet potato pie is extraordinarily good.

With the temperatures and humidity rising, we still had one stop to make in Des Moines — the Iowa State Fair. After downing bottles of water, we set off in search of the Bacon Box, home of the much-raved-about bacon pecan pie on a stick. By the time we found the stall, we were stickier than the pie and worried that the hours we had spent in the heat and sun might not have been worth it for a single piece of pie. Were we wrong. Who knew that bacon and pecans would be such a winning combination. If we hadn’t already gained so much weight, and weren’t melting in the near 90-degree heat, we all agreed we would have ordered another slice from the absolutely delightful women in the sweltering food truck who couldn’t believe that we had been traveling the state for pie and that our final stop — our 19^th pie tasting in 30 hours — was their Bacon Box.

There were clear winners in our pie tasting, but ratings weren’t what this weekend was about. It was about spending time with friends, having fun in the summer, and seeing a part of the country we didn’t know well. In political terms, Minnesota is a blue state and Iowa is a red one. In the 2024 presidential election, one of the counties we visited in Iowa went for Trump 68% to 30%. That’s nearly the complete opposite of my home county, which gave Kamala Harris 70% of the vote and Donald Trump 27%.

I’m not suggesting that politics doesn’t matter. It does. But spending two days with people who only acknowledged one differing opinion — whether butter or lard makes the best pie crust — felt really good.

My parents taught me to not speak ill of the dead — at least not until after the funeral. They also told me that talk is cheap, and to pay attention not to what people say, but to what they do.

It’s been a month since the death of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and the deluge of laudatory comments, positive op-ed pieces, and glowing eulogies about this military hawk who won his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives by supporting Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America (referred to by the left as Contract on America). Graham was elected to the Senate after four terms in the House, and was running for a fifth term when he died.

The funerals are over, but there’s something left to be said about Lindsey Graham. There was one significant relationship in the senator’s life that gives us clues about his true nature.

Obituaries of Senator Graham mentioned his long friendship with the late John McCain, Arizona senator and Republican presidential nominee. “I love him to death,” Graham said. After McCain’s death, Graham gave an emotional tribute to his friend on the floor of the Senate. The two senators were, apparently, “like family.”

While running for president in 2015, Donald Trump assailed McCain’s service in the Vietnam War. McCain, whose plane was shot down over Hanoi, and was a prisoner of war for five and a half years. The injuries he sustained in the crash and capture — two fractured arms, a fractured leg, a crushed shoulder, and a bayonet wound — went largely untreated. He was tortured, and lived the remainder of his life with the resulting physical impairments. Trump, who repeatedly received a medical deferment for bone spurs in his heels to avoid serving in Vietnam, said that he didn’t consider McCain a hero. “He was a hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Senator Graham, who was also running for president when Trump demeaned McCain, came to his close friend’s defense. It was, Graham said at the time, this “growing mountain of stupid statements” that should disqualify Trump for the presidency.

Funny how things can shift — for shifty people — when a former object of scorn becomes the U.S. president. Graham went from calling Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” to proclaiming his love upon Trump’s election to his second term. Oh, how fickle love can be. Graham seems to have replaced John McCain with Trump as the object of his affection when it was politically expedient for him to do so. As my parents would have said, “It shows you all you need to know about the man.”

We’re days away from the primary that will determine whether Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan or U.S. Representative Angie Craig will be the Democrats’ choice for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Tina Smith. I’ve been with Angie Craig since the start, and I will be with her until the final vote is tallied and the results are announced. It’s a decision that has left my Flanagan supporting friends scratching their heads.

How, they ask me, can I support someone who voted in favor of the Laken Riley Act, the federal law regarding immigration enforcement that set the stage for ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota? It was a bad decision on Representative Craig’s part, but some context is helpful.

During her time in the U.S. House of Representatives, from January 2019 through July of this year, Representative Craig has cast over 3,700 votes. No one would agree with every position the Congresswoman has taken with those votes and, in fact, Craig has apologized for her position on the Laken Riley Act. Single votes should not be deal breakers for constituents unless they are indicative of who that elected official truly is. Angie Craig is not anti-immigrant. If given a chance, she will show that in the U.S. Senate.

Craig’s time in Congress mirrors Flanagan’s tenure as Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota. In that role in the executive branch, Lt. Governor Flanagan has not had to cast any votes. If she had been in the legislative branch for nearly eight years and made as many decisions as Representative Craig has, the Lt. Governor might also be explaining some of her votes.

The Walz/Flanagan administration can take credit for a long list of accomplishments for the people of Minnesota. But the Lt. Governor cannot run on those accomplishments without also speaking up about the Feeding Our Future scandal, the pandemic-era fraud in which more than $250 million was stolen from a program meant to feed children in need. This is a real issue, and not just for Republicans. Democrats and Independents are also outraged by this lack of oversight. Dismissing it as “political theater,” as the Lt. Governor has done, leaves her vulnerable in a general election. Diminishing this case of fraud by comparing it to the massive corruption of the Trump administration doesn’t cut it either. Minnesota voters know that two wrongs don’t make a right.

In the general election, I will vote for whichever Democrat wins the primary on August 11. But I know Democrats and Independents who have said that they will sit out the Senate race if it’s a choice between Peggy Flanagan and Royce White, the Republican-endorsed candidate. Others have said they will consider Michele Tafoya, should she come out victorious in the Republican primary. If Angie Craig is on the ballot in November, however, she will likely capture these wavering votes.

One thing is certain. The votes we cast in this primary will determine who will be the next senator for Minnesota.

Wonder why good, smart, qualified people don’t run for elected office or want to serve in government? Look no further than the public lambasting of Dr. Anthony Fauci, subpoenaed to appear before a Senate committee this week by Kentucky’s weasel of a senator, Rand Paul. Senator Paul was flanked by other Republican senators — other lapdogs of Donald Trump — including Ron Johnson, Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, and Joni Ernst. Even the combined intellect of this gang of goose steppers isn’t close to that of Dr. Fauci’s, yet they attacked his intelligence and credibility in another dog-and-pony show meant to cast doubt, discredit science, and demean civil servants.

Like Anthony Fauci, Rand Paul is a physician— though he doesn’t seem to believe in science. And like Donald Trump, when Rand Paul gets something in his craw, he can’t let it go. He has long questioned the origins of Covid-19, and has vehemently criticized any and all restrictions on daily life that were imposed during the worst days of the pandemic, including mask-wearing mandates and school closings. The target of his venom has always been Dr. Fauci, who headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years and served under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

On Wednesday, Senator Paul took his unfounded complaints of Dr. Fauci to a new low, accusing him of the deaths of millions of people through “experiments” during the Covid-19 pandemic. Other Republican toads called Dr. Fauci a megalomaniac and a liar. They claimed that he profited financially from his work, and was self-impressed with his relationships with celebrities. Makes you wonder — were they talking about Dr. Fauci, or Donald Trump?

Rather than spending their day dealing with the wars in Iran or Ukraine, or the economy, or attempts to rig the midterm elections, or, God-forbid, gun violence — in other words, doing the work they were elected to do — the Republicans spent hours trying to goad Dr. Fauci into saying something that could result in Rand Paul’s real goal: putting Dr. Fauci “behind bars.” When Dr. Fauci responded by invoking the Fifth Amendment, which is still a Constitutional right, he was repeatedly ridiculed and berated.

This latest circus in our nation’s capital begs the question — who in their right mind would ever want to serve our country?

Until this past week in Minneapolis, I didn’t realize just how beaten down, discouraged, and flat-out sad I had become. The horrific events in my hometown during the past six years had taken a cumulative toll that my body and soul seemed to accept as the new normal. But there is nothing normal about what we Minneapolitans have lived through.

The murder in 2020 of George Floyd, with the civil unrest that followed, brought to light — again — the racism in our city. We have yet to rebuild from that cataclysmic event. The vacant lots overrun by weeds and the storefronts still boarded up are physical reminders of what was lost during those days of rage. Even more discouraging, however, is what has yet to be gained. Equality.

The assassin of former Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, has been sentenced to life in prison. But the hate and divisiveness he personified still walk our streets.

Another mass shooting, this one late last summer at Annunciation Catholic School, left eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel and ten-year-old Harper Moyski dead. In response, we got thoughts and prayers, not sensible gun laws.

Then, just six months ago, our government gunned down two of its own citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — when ICE’s Operation Metro Surge terrorized our community.

Those of us who live in Minneapolis couldn’t simply turn off the news and ignore it all. The smell of smoke was in our homes. Black Hawk helicopters were in our skies. Memorial sites to those killed were on the streets where we biked.

When the organization that produces Minneapolis’ signature civic celebration, the Aquatennial, announced last fall that this 86-year-old tradition was not coming back, it seemed that the city was throwing in the towel, and crying uncle. We weren’t even going to try to change the narrative, focus on all the great things happening here, and get people coming back to downtown Minneapolis and our surrounding neighborhoods. But to paraphrase Margaret Mead, never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change a city.

The Aquatennial Ambassador Organization, a nonprofit historically focused on the events culminating in the coronation of the Queen of the Lakes, stepped up. This small group of champions of the city of Minneapolis, with the support of Mayor Jacob Frey and the tireless civil servants at City Hall, accomplished the impossible. In less than six months, and starting with literally no money, they brought the Aquatennial, known as “the best days of summer,” back to Minneapolis.

From a Latin dance party at the Capri on the city’s Northside, where stoic Minnesotans danced on a hot July evening, to a summer snowball fight that drew hundreds of kids of all ages to the Downtown Commons, people came out to explore and enjoy our City of Lakes.

The Nicollet Mall, the pedestrian thoroughfare in downtown that has been desolate for far too long, came alive once again with the Aquatennial’s signature event, the Torchlight Parade. On a picture-perfect summer night, with comfortable temperatures, low humidity, and a brilliant blue sky, revelers began setting up lawn chairs, spreading blankets, and securing front row seating on the sidewalk hours before the parade was scheduled to begin.

The parade did not disappoint the crowd that came downtown to celebrate Minneapolis. Spectators rose to their feet when the color guards marched by and enthusiastically cheered the athletes who competed in this summer’s Special Olympics, held in Minnesota. Crowd favorites like the University of Minnesota Alumni Band and the Minnesota Twins mascot, T.C. Bear, energized the crowd. An Aztec dance group, Miss Juneteenth Minnesota, the TKO Drumline & Knockout Dance Team, In the Heart of the Beast Puppets & Masks, and NUNNABOVE, who performed a full concert along the parade route, highlighted the talent, creativity, and artistry of Minneapolis. Closing out the parade were the candidates from 41 towns throughout Minnesota who were participating in the Aquatennial Ambassador program. Some of these participants had never been to the city and returned to their communities as effusive advocates of Minneapolis.

This was the citywide celebration that we have needed for a very long time. Attending many of the 29 events that occurred during this year’s Aquatennial lifted the cloud I’ve been living under. People were everywhere — in parks, at lakes, along the Mississippi River, downtown. They were racing sailboats, building sandcastles, singing along to musicals, throwing snowballs in the summer. They were smiling, laughing, and dancing. Yet again, the citizens of Minneapolis were demonstrating their resilience.

The Aquatennial was back. And Minneapolis is coming back.

As a Scandinavian American, I am genetically predisposed to being a champion of döstädning — Swedish death cleaning. The practice took off in the US with the popularity of Margareta Magnusson’s book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. It’s a simple concept: declutter your home when you are alive so you can enjoy it more and so your family and friends don’t have to deal with all your stuff when you’re gone. Having cleaned out my share of homes, I can say that I was a fan of the concept long before knowing there was a word for it. I still subscribe to the notion, but recently I’ve been learning that decluttering isn’t always an accurate term to describe this process, nor is it always the best way to do so.

My friend of 30 years, Margaret Ann, died in June. Her closest relative and best friend, her older sister Mary Ellen, was Margaret Ann’s caregiver, and has begun the task of sorting through the mementos and memories that made up her sister’s life. She’s asked some of us to help her.

Margaret Ann had a full, rich life, and her home was proof of that. I spent many an afternoon or evening in her living room, often interrupting conversations to inquire about something that caught my eye, like the vast collection of blue and white chinaware pieces that line shelves and hang from walls throughout the front room. Or an original piece of pottery shaped like a dragon (or maybe it’s a gargoyle?), with a lid that opens to reveal a space with a serving spoon that suggests a utilitarian purpose no one has yet figured out. The extensive assortments of Belleek pottery and Waterford crystal pay homage to Margaret Ann’s Irish ancestry, as do the Irish sayings and prayers spread throughout her home.

Margaret Ann did not have a reading room. Her entire home is a library. Every room contains books — stacks of them — that showcase her curiosity. Those stacks include everything from Aristotle to Nora Roberts, from biographies of women who accomplished amazing feats to a complete collection of the Harry Potter series in hardcover.

The kitchen of this talented cook is packed with pots and pans, a rainbow of colored spatulas, and hand-stitched tea towels. The cabinets burst with spices, and there’s nary a clear surface to plate a meal. Dining with her could include informal plates, flatware, and paper napkins, or holiday-specific china, sterling silver dinnerware (complete with crystal knife rests), and vintage Irish linens.

Aficionados of Swedish death cleaning who didn’t know Margaret Ann might enter her home and immediately begin planning and organizing, sorting and packing, tossing and recycling. They would measure progress by the number of empty closets, filled Goodwill boxes, and garbage bags ready to toss. On my first visit to Margaret Ann’s house after her death, I too thought that such organizing was how I could be most helpful. Just dive in and start decluttering. But then I listened to her sister.

“This isn’t just stuff,” Mary Ellen said quietly. “Everything in here meant something to my sister. I am not going to rush through this like just another check-off item on a to-do list. This home, these things, were important to Margaret Ann, and I am going to take the time to do this right.”

This wasn’t an overwhelming task that just needed to be completed with speed and efficiency. This was an opportunity to learn more about Margaret Ann and what she valued.

The detached labels from Campbell’s soup cans weren’t part of a mess; they represented Margaret Ann’s commitment to doing all she could to raise funds for education. The scores of unused legal pads and unopened journals were evidence of a woman who loved the written word and still had much to say and write. A herd of whimsical, beaded animals and dolls from South Africa confirmed both her love of beautiful things and her determination to support income-generating projects that allowed women, half a world away, to care for their children. A bank bag full of pesos from the 1970s helped me learn about Margaret Ann’s time teaching school in Mexico City.

If we were following the Swedish death cleaning model I would have tossed what has become a treasured object into the trash without a second thought. A single-hole, all-steel, half-ounce paper punch, manufactured by the Presto Company in the 1950s, represents for me all that Margaret Ann was. Like my friend, it is form and function. Its value has increased with age. It’s small, but it gets the job done. It’s nearly indestructible. And it now has a prominent place on my desk.

While helping Mary Ellen sort through Margaret Ann’s life is a joyful experience that I am honored to be part of, I’ll probably follow döstädning when decluttering our home, because that’s what old Norwegians do. Still, I hope the person who survives me and discovers a little Presto paper punch in my office will see the beauty in it that Margaret Ann and I did. Perhaps, like the two of us, they will see in it a value greater than the simple ability to punch holes into paper.

Memories can be devilish things. One minute you’re carefreely skating along to the soundtrack of your life, then bam! The music stops and a monstrous jester pops out of the jack-in-the-box of memories that you placed in the back of a long-forgotten, seldom-opened closet in your mind. And then, for no apparent reason, the memory is front and center and attention must be paid.

I know what triggered a recent single memory that then cascaded into a waterfall of flashbacks and emotions. I was walking down a street in Midtown Manhattan in June. I turned a corner, and for a brief moment it was forty years earlier, when I turned a similar corner and unexpectedly ran into my best friend in New York, John.

John and I laughed about the coincidence and confirmed where we would meet later that day to take the subway to Brooklyn Heights. It was nothing more than that…and it was so much more than that. It was the first time, in a city of millions of people, that I had run into someone I knew, and that felt good. It was a blue-skied day, I was young, and we didn’t yet know that John was sick.

This was when a new disease that was making homosexual men sick was known as the “gay plague.” By the time the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was discovered and we began, more appropriately, calling the disease AIDS, I knew John had it. He had shown me the first Kaposi sarcoma lesion — the skin cancer that signaled the infection — on his chest.

It was a different time. John wasn’t out to his family or his conservative Christian church, both of which he knew wouldn’t accept him. Unable to hide his failing health, he told people he had hepatis, and his elderly mother and aunts bought it. Eventually, when he could no longer work, John lost his job and his home. He blamed himself for infecting his boyfriend, George.

John and I talked about his impending death. Weeks before he died, he asked me to call his sister who lived in the western US and ask her to please come to say goodbye. He also told me that if his estranged brother in Canada found out that John had AIDS, under no circumstances was I to let him visit. His brother did call, and asked me which hospital John was in. I said that I wouldn’t tell him and, if he figured it out, I would have John moved rather than break a promise to my dying friend. He yelled at me and, if memory serves, hung up on me, but didn’t come for a visit.

I cried only once during John’s final days in the hospital. I had left his room and stood looking out a window in the corridor. It was August and you could see the heat rising from the sidewalk. People in shorts and t-shirts were walking on the street, talking and laughing and gesturing with their hands. They didn’t know the sadness that was playing out in so many of those hospital rooms that summer. It seemed like forever that I stood there with tears streaming down my face until I pulled myself together and went back to sit with John.

It was nearly a year to the day of John’s death that his boyfriend George lay dying in a single bed in the walk-out basement of his sister’s Upstate home. On another sweltering hot August day I bypassed the front door, as instructed by George’s sister, and walked around the house to visit George for the last time. Despite the dog days of summer, the heat was on in the room and George was covered with blankets. I was drenched in sweat and he couldn’t get warm.

I remember thinking how loving it was that his sister was allowing George to die in her home. But then he told me that the reason I couldn’t walk through the main house was because she feared that I, too, might be infected and somehow be contagious. George adored his preschool nephews, and I knew it would be calming for him to have the kids near him. But they weren’t allowed in the basement. Their mom didn’t want them to come in contact with her AIDS-infected brother out of fear that her children might themselves become infected. What I had hoped would have been a haven for my dying friend was torture instead; he could hear his nephews playing and laughing upstairs, but never got to see or hold them again.

That’s why some of my memories, like the one that popped up on that Manhattan street corner recently, are monstrous. On that day we bumped into each other, instead of telling John that I would meet him downtown later, I should have said the one thing I never told him: “I love you.”

Trump’s world is one in which I choose to not live in. For people who feel the same way, there is no need to enumerate the many, obvious reasons why we refuse to participate in his dystopian worldview. For those who relish living in his world, there is no changing their opinion. With two and a half years remaining in Trump’s term, it’s easy to wallow in despair and assume things won’t change. But it doesn’t have to be like this. We needn’t be a nation divided and defined by mistrust, anger, and fear. There is another way to be in the world. I know, because this week I’ve seen it for myself.

The 2026 Special Olympics USA Games are being held in Minneapolis. The games have brought 3,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities, 1,500 coaches, 10,000 volunteers, and 75,000 fans from all 50 states to “spark a change that transforms lives, communities, and the world.” I can testify that this isn’t hyperbole. The Special Olympics have transformed this community.

Just as I needn’t spell out the reasons for not living in Trump’s world, I needn’t remind anyone of what Minneapolis has been through, with the murder of George Floyd six years ago and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti earlier this year. It’s been hard and isolating.

But then the Special Olympians started to arrive, and for those of us fortunate enough to volunteer at the Games, it’s been as though the cloud over our city lifted and the sun once again peeked through.

During my volunteer shifts I talked with people — athletes and those who came to cheer them on — from 36 states. The majority of the people I talked with hailed from red states, many from deeply red states. Some, I surmised from messages printed on their buttons or tote bags, held social and political views antithetical to mine. One even made a point of politely sharing that she was “to the right” of what she correctly described as my liberal city. And you know what? It didn’t matter. Everyone was respectful, kind, joyful, and tolerant.

Some conversations were brief, others were ten minutes long and ended with hugs. Once I knew where people were from, I asked if they had been to Minneapolis before; 90% said this was their first time here. To a person, no matter their political persuasion, they were ebullient in their praise of our city. They loved how green it is, they loved the lakes, parks, and the Mississippi River, but mostly they couldn’t stop talking about the people of Minnesota and their hospitality. They were over the top in their compliments and appreciation. For Minneapolitans who have come through a winter of ICE, it was the balm we have been craving.

What brought all of us together were the athletes. Their enthusiasm, compassion, and unconditional love mitigated whatever differences might have otherwise divided us.

An auntie, who had driven 12 hours to support her niece, was brimming with pride for her Olympian. She told me that at the last Games her niece, who was competing in the breaststroke, had come in second. But the results changed when the judges disqualified the first-place winner, who swam freestyle instead of the required stroke, and the niece was awarded the top prize. The disqualified swimmer was unconsolable in her tears. Until, as the aunt told me, her niece went over to her competitor, put a hand on her shoulder, and told her that she was a fantastic swimmer who was going to do great in her upcoming meets. She then took the first place medal from her neck and placed it on the disqualified swimmer, saying, “I’ve got plenty of other medals. You take this one.”

I’m not a Pollyanna. I know the euphoria of this special week will fade. But for now, “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.”

To handle those on the fringe right, the best approach is to ignore them. They thrive on attention, and the smallest puff of air can turn a spark of intolerance into a firestorm that births the likes of Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. June is Pride month. I planned to ignore those who see me as “less than” because of who and how I love, and to focus on celebrating the diversity and inclusion that makes us a richer, and certainly more interesting, country. But then I read about Carl’s Bakery.

Nuclear Family Month, also known as Straight Pride, is the radical right’s attempt to present heterosexuals, as a proponent once told me, as “the most persecuted group in America today.” It was easy for me to ignore this absurd attempt to change the narrative, but then it appeared in the backyard of where I grew up.

I was raised in Montevideo, a town in west central Minnesota. The next town over is Granite Falls. From Minneapolis, there are two routes to these prairie towns. State Highway 7 is the fastest, because there are fewer small towns to slow down for. But taking US Highway 212 meant that I could stop at Carl’s Bakery in Granite Falls for a slice of pie or, at Christmastime, a package of lefse, a Scandinavian delicacy. It was always worth going out of my way for a stop at a true old-fashioned bakery.

Turns out, Carl’s Bakery really is old-fashioned — stuck in an earlier, backward time.

Joshua Streblow, owner of Carl’s, proudly displays a large nuclear family logo in the window of his establishment. He and his wife and nine children honor “the only design we believe brings about the multi-generational good we seek, the one instituted by our Creator: one man and one woman in a covenantal (married) relationship, eagerly receiving the fruit of their union (children) as God allows.”

Streblow sees no hypocrisy in claiming to love all of God’s children while speaking against homosexuality. He also has no problem using God to market his business and turn a profit. This week, in honor of Nuclear Family Month, parents — read heterosexual parents — receive a free donut with every donut purchased. Apparently God loves a BOGO, but not a homo.

Here’s what Joshua, and other supporters of the so-called Nuclear Family Month, should ask themselves:

• Have you ever been beaten up because you are straight?

• Do you know anyone who was murdered because they were heterosexual?

• Have you ever lost a job or been passed over for a promotion at work because of your heterosexuality?

• Have you been denied housing for the same reason?

• Were you called names, thrown into lockers, and bullied so much as a teenager for being straight that you contemplated suicide?

• Did you ever attempt suicide because of all the negative messages you heard from Fox News, the church, and community leaders about your heterosexual tendencies?

• Were you thrown out of your home when you came out as straight to your parents?

Pride exists because it is difficult to find an LGBTQ person who hasn’t experienced some level of discrimination or hate — and those instances are on the rise again in the United States. Meanwhile, these “nuclear family” folks don’t understand that they don’t need a designated month to celebrate their identify. They can celebrate that 365 days a year. That’s the unrecognized perk that comes with the privilege of being born heterosexual.

Music got me through my teenager years in Montevideo. In the 1970s, Simon & Garfunkel had a hit called “My Little Town.” Its chorus, “Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town,” was my anthem. As I’ve grown older, and thought the country was becoming more accepting of differences, I’ve wondered if I ever could return to live on the prairie. Joshua Streblow and Carl’s Bakery have shown me that nothing has changed in the past 50 years. I’m still not welcome there.

There’s nothing but the dead and dying back in Granite Falls, Minnesota.

The debasement of the People’s House and its grounds reaches its apex today when the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) holds mixed martial arts fighting in a massive octagonal cage that’s been constructed on the South Lawn. It’s not worth one more second of our time and energy bemoaning the latest antic from the buffoon-in-chief. Rather, let’s remember an earlier resident and her efforts to preserve and transform what she called “the first house of the land.”

The White House that Jackie Kennedy moved into in January 1961 was, by all accounts, dreary and in need of a do-over. But as she would say later that year, “It would be sacrilege merely to redecorate it — a word I hate. It must be restored, and that has nothing to do with decoration. That is a question of scholarship.”

The First Lady assembled a Fine Arts Commission made up of “museum experts, government people, and private citizens” and charged them with locating and acquiring historic pieces. The commission had to approve all acquisitions and privately raise the money to purchase items that weren’t donated. Prior to Jackie Kennedy’s efforts, previous presidents could do whatever they wanted with furnishings — take them, sell them, throw them out. Because of Mrs. Kennedy’s efforts, Congress granted the White House “museum status,” ensuring that any items unwanted by a future president in their temporary home would become part of the Smithsonian’s permanent collection.

One of the rooms that was restored, the East Room, became the stage for long-remembered concerts by artists such as cellist Pablo Casals, and for performances by the American Shakespeare Festival. The Kennedy’s passion for the arts was constantly demonstrated through the list of artists invited to perform at the White House — Marian Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, and the American Ballet Theater. Jackie Kennedy said that “Everything in the White House should be the best,” and that included the entertainment.

Mrs. Kennedy’s restoration of the White House came to an end with her husband’s assassination. At that time, it cost approximately $2 million dollars to preserve American history — equivalent to $22 million today. The cost of the UFC Freedom 250 fights? It’s expected to be about $60 million.

The now-former pillar of American media, CBS News, broadcast a tour of the refurbished White House with the First Lady on Valentine’s Day, 1962. In the refurbished State Dining Room, Mrs. Kennedy pointed out an inscription under the mantel of a fireplace. The quote comes from a letter that President John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, from the White House in 1800. The quote, which Mrs. Kennedy refers to as a prayer, reads “I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and on all that should hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

Watching A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy is the perfect antidote to a DC cage fight.

When I was in my 50s and my mom was in her 90s, I struggled with an existential dilemma.

Having bought hook, line, and sinker into the belief that we should each leave this mortal coil with no regrets, I was having regrets. It seemed that if you lived long enough — and at that point, I had — there would be times and situations when inevitably, no matter your actions or inactions, you would have regrets. But the world said the opposite — that a life fully lived was one of no regrets, one in which every item on your bucket list was checked off by the time the grim reaper knocked on your door. That’s what we appreciate and celebrate in this culture — a life where everything we ever dreamed of is actualized.

“That’s bunk,” said my nonagenarian mother, though in much saltier language. There are times, she told me, when every decision you make will lead to regrets because there is no regret-free decision. Little did she know that the decision I was regretting involved her.

I had left my dream job as executive director of Open Arms of Minnesota for what turned out to be the second best job I ever had — executive director of Project Open Hand in San Francisco. To spend my days ensuring that people who were critically ill from diseases like HIV/AIDS had delicious, nutritious meals to eat was the sun, moon, and stars to me. But the universe threw me a curveball.

I was living in San Francisco, working at a nonprofit organization that I loved, when one of my sisters was diagnosed with ALS. Days later, another sister was diagnosed with cancer. When I flew back to deliver the news, my 95-year-old widowed mother, who had already lived through the death of a daughter and son-in-law in a car accident, said “I can’t do this again. I can’t lose another child.” I told her that she might have to experience it, but that we would go through it as a family.

For months, every two weeks, I took the redeye from San Francisco to Minneapolis, slept for a few hours, then drove three hours to my hometown on the prairie to see my mom and my sister with ALS. When I was in Minnesota, I worried about what was happening at work in San Francisco. When I was in San Francisco, I feared what I was missing in Minnesota.

Something had to give, and what gave was my career. I quit my job, packed up my San Francisco apartment, and drove back to Minnesota. A week later, I was living in my boyhood home in a rural Minnesota town of 5,000 people. My mom said that she wanted to die before she lost her daughter with ALS. Less than a year after I returned, I delivered the eulogy at my mom’s funeral. The following year, I spoke at the funeral for that daughter. (Fortunately, my sister who had been diagnosed with cancer is still with us.)

Everyone told me that I would never regret my decision. “You did God’s work.” But for two years, I didn’t work. I spent down my savings. By the time I was ready to return to the workforce, I couldn’t get an interview, let alone a job. I cashed in insurance policies. One friend, who really didn’t need my help, took pity on me and offered me work that resulted in $5,000 in income that year — income I greatly appreciated.

My career was my identify. l no longer had a career, and no longer had an identity. And I no longer had money to pay my bills. I regretted my decision to give up my career to return for my family, and I knew that if I told anyone how I really felt, I would be seen as a terrible person.

Here is the existential secret. When I finally did confide my regrets with people who had left their jobs to do the same thing (75% of people who leave their careers to take care of family members, by the way, are women) many told me that they felt exactly the same. But they, too, felt pressured to say that they had no regrets, even though they would never recover financially or emotionally from their decision.

I’m not proud of the fact that, if I had known then what I know now, I would have made a different decision. I wouldn’t have given up my career and my husband’s and my future security to do “God’s work.”

I also know this. If my mother had known the cost of caring for her during the last year of her life, she would have told me not to do it. “Live your life,” she would have said. For her entire life, she did what was expected of her.

I have regrets. It does no one any good to pretend otherwise.

Six years ago, George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer a few miles from where my husband and I live. COVID-19 was raging and, with mandated social distancing, we could only meet people outdoors or connect via Zoom. Every conversation at the time was about George Floyd. On a Zoom call, a friend shared their opinion that the Minneapolis Police Department should not just be defunded, but should be eliminated. When I suggested that this was the wrong solution to a real problem — that there were some bad cops but that the overwhelming majority were upstanding — I was told, “You’re nothing but a moderate.”

Only in the cities where I’ve lived — New York; Cambridge, Massachusetts; San Francisco; and Minneapolis — would my political worldview be seen as “moderate.” Anywhere else in the country, I would be seen as a bleeding heart liberal. I am proud to be a moderate in a liberal city. I believe that the extreme right and the extreme left are cut from the same cloth, and that MAGA (Make America Great Again) on the right and the most far left-leaning members of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) do not represent the majority of Americans. Most of us us live in a world comprised of shades of gray and “what ifs,” while MAGA and the DSA live in black and white and absolutes. Both sides have utopian views of what society should look like and how it should operate. Too often, those of us who disagree with their worldview are painted as ill-informed, disloyal, or old and out of touch.

Minnesota has an open Senate seat this year, and two smart, talented, and experienced leaders are competing for the job on the Democratic side. Angie Craig is a four-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Peggy Flanagan served in the Minnesota House of Representatives for four years before spending the last eight years as Governor Tim Walz’s Lieutenant Governor. When Flanagan was elected to her current post, she was the highest-ranking Native American to ever hold elected office in the United States. Angie Craig was the first lesbian mother to ever serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Flanagan coasted to the endorsement of the Democratic Farm Labor Party at the statewide convention this weekend when Craig announced that she would skip the convention and go straight to the primary this August. Of Craig’s decision, Flanagan said, “If you can’t face your own party, you’re not ready to face a Republican.” Hypocritical to an extreme, when Tim Walz and Flanagan did the exact same thing in 2018.

As a moderate, I’m interested in only one thing in this fall’s general election — who can win. Peggy Flanagan cannot win a statewide race. Angie Craig can.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren’s early endorsements of Peggy Flanagan have been effective in mobilizing her base in urban centers. But if she ends up winning the primary and being the Democrats’ choice for the U.S. Senate, these same endorsements will have a polarizing effect in rural Minnesota, and you can’t win a statewide office on only the votes of the progressive urban areas. Additionally, Walz’s political career was ended by the cases of fraud in Minnesota, which has involved hundreds of millions of dollars, and Flanagan was Lieutenant Governor when that fraud went unchecked. While it can be argued that the buck stopped with her boss, as the state’s second most powerful person she bears some responsibility for the scandal. She can’t tout her accomplishments as Lieutenant Governor and then disassociate from her administration’s greatest failure.

You can imagine the ads against Flanagan should she win the August primary. “The Socialist Bernie Sanders-loving Peggy Flanagan, who was asleep at the wheel when millions of dollars were absconded in the largest fraud case in the country, now wants to be your U.S. Senator so she can do to the country what she did to Minnesota.” I’m from a small town in rural Minnesota. Trust me when I say, “that dog won’t hunt.”

Becoming the state’s next U.S. senator will not be a walk in the park for Angie Craig, but she has a much better chance of success than Flanagan. Craig represents a purple district in which she has had to compete for every vote. She has held her job for eight years because of her willingness to work across the aisle. That might be antithetical to the progressive/Socialist wing of the Democratic party, but here’s the thing: a party endorsement and primary victory for your DSA-leaning candidate doesn’t matter at all if that candidate loses the general election and we are stuck with a U.S. senator who is a Trump-loving, card-carrying MAGA member of the next iteration of the Republican Party.

At stake with Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race is nothing less than the future of our democracy. I will support the one Democrat who can actually win statewide and fill the seat formerly held by Al Franken, Paul Wellstone, Walter Mondale, and Hubert Humphrey — the next Senator of the great state of Minnesota, Angie Craig.

Michael, the biographical film of Michael Jackson’s early life, has earned over $740 million worldwide and is on track to become the highest grossing biopic ever. I’m not going to see it.

I used to be a big Michael Jackson fan. His music is front and center in the soundtrack of my life. In elementary school the chart-toppers “ABC” and “The Love You Save” had everyone in my class wondering how a kid a year older than us could already be a huge star. In junior high, we couldn’t wait to see Ben, the eerie movie about a pack of rats, because Jackson had a hit ballad of the same name. Off the Wall, his break-through solo album, had me dancing to “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” at Uncle Sam’s (what is today First Avenue) in downtown Minneapolis. Then came Thriller and the rest, as they say, is history. I saw Jackson in concert once — his “Bad” tour in 1988. It remains the most extraordinary performance I have ever seen.

In 1993, when the parents of a 13-year-old boy, Jordan Chandler, accused Michael Jackson of molestation, I accepted the Jackson family’s claim that the Chandlers were only after his money. I accepted it, at least, until Jackson settled a civil lawsuit for $22 million — the equivalent of $50 million today. As part of that settlement, Chandler’s family agreed to not cooperate with prosecutors, which put an end to any criminal prosecution in that case.

Then came Leaving Neverland, the 2019 two-part documentary that chronicles the lives of Wade Robson, who charges that Michael Jackson abused him from the ages of 7 to 14, and James Safechuck, who claims he was 10 years old Jackson first sexually assaulted him. No one disputes that Jackson hung out with boys; just Google Michael Jackson and Macaulay Culkin for confirmation. Staff confirmed that Jackson slept with these boys at Neverland, his 2,700-acre estate and amusement park. If Jackson had been a “creepy uncle,” every family member would have made certain that he wouldn’t come close to a young boy. But because he was the most famous performer in the world, it was easy to ignore the obvious. (By the way, good luck trying to watch Leaving Neverland. Following a legal battle between the Jackson estate and HBO, the documentary is no longer available for viewing in the U.S.)

From the Me Too movement, we learned to believe women when they say they have been abused. Garrison Keillor, of Public Radio’s Prairie Home Companion fame, was cancelled for what were termed as “sexually inappropriate incidents” of misconduct directed towards a female employee. Minnesota’s U.S. Senator Al Franken resigned after eight women accused him of touching or kissing them. These charges, and the prices paid by Mr. Keillor and Senator Franken, are not insignificant. The charges pale, however, in comparison to the multiple charges that have been leveled against Michael Jackson for decades. Yet Jackson’s music is played on the radio, MJ The Musica, won four Tony awards on Broadway and has sold over seven million tickets worldwide, and the Jackson estate, which was $500 million in debt when Michael Jackson died in 2009, is today worth between $2 billion and $3.5 billion.

I’m not going to see Michael, the movie, because I believe Jackson’s accusers. I don’t understand why the careers and lives of others have been ruined for “inappropriate incidents” and “misconduct” while Jackson, who was repeatedly accused of sexually abusing boys, gets a pass. When charged with child molestation, no innocent person would offer $22 million to make a civil and criminal case go away. Unless they were guilty.

Michael Jackson’s music continued to be the soundtrack of my life into adulthood. The lyrics of “Man in the Mirror” inspired me.

I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place

Take a look at yourself and then make a change

It’s a message from the grave for the Jackson family. If you want to make the world a better place, acknowledge the totality of who Michael Jackson was. Only then can his victims — and his former fans — move on.

What Donald Trump and Marco Rubio don’t understand or, more accurately care about, is that an infectious disease outbreak anywhere in the world is only one international flight away from the United States.

Ebola, a viral hemorrhagic fever that has all the symptoms of the flu but can lead to internal and external bleeding, is fatal in 50% of cases. It is not spread through the air, but requires direct human-to-human contact. The numbers of suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola in East African countries of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda are rising daily, leading health experts to predict that this could be the worst outbreak ever.

The first sign of this outbreak was on April 24, when a nurse in Congo died of Ebola. The World Health Organization (WHO) was informed on May 5. But since Donald Trump had withdrawn the US from the WHO, citing its “mishandling” of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S.government didn’t learn of the health crisis until nine days later.

We knew this would happen.

On January 20, 2025, inauguration day for Trump’s second term, he signed an executive order eliminating the Unites States Agency for International Development (USAID). He went on to gut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and announced a future withdrawal from WHO, which went into effect earlier this year.

In September 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued the America First Global Health Strategy, a fatal restructuring of America’s role in international public health — a repositioning that put money before people and blind allegiance to the U.S. before the common good.

One of the outbreak response goals cited in the strategy is to “Contain outbreaks that originate outside of the United States rapidly at their source. The first 72 hours of the response to an epidemic are often the most critical to keep a pathogen contained. The U.S. government will prioritize mobilizing a response to every outbreak that threatens the United States within 72 hours of detection.”

Because of their fundamental lack of understanding about public health, Trump and Rubio didn’t even know about the outbreak until weeks after it had been identified. Weeks. So much for 72 hours. The lack of an immediate U.S. response has resulted in the spread of Ebola and an increased number of deaths.

When it learned of the growing crisis, the U.S. did respond with $23 million in aid — an amount equivalent to what the Trump family has earned from international name-licensing deals since Trump returned to the White House.

It is unlikely that Ebola will make it to our shores; if that were to happen, it will no doubt be contained. But what about the next airborne virus that catches a ride on an airplane or cruise ship?

When it comes to global public health, the chickens are coming home to roost thanks to Donald Trump and Marco Rubio’s ill-thought-out plan. To learn more about how their Orwellian “strategy” could be the death of us all, go to Global Health Strategy

Republican Lisa Demuth, Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, wants to be the state’s next governor. Voters need only look to the last days of the just-ended legislative session to get a glimpse of how Demuth would govern if elected as Minnesota’s chief executive.

On the morning of August 27, 2025, 10-year-old Harper Moyski and 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel, students at Annunciation Catholic School, were killed in a mass shooting. It was the first week of classes, and students and faculty were attending a school-wide mass when shots rang out, leaving the two children dead and 28 others injured.

Nine months later, as the legislative session was coming to an end, shouts of “Hold the vote!” were ringing out from protestors at the state capitol in Saint Paul where Speaker Demuth was refusing to bring a gun violence prevention package to the House floor for a vote.

The package, which had passed the Minnesota Senate, called for a ban on semiautomatic weapons and a cap on the number of bullets a magazine can fire before reloading. It didn’t pass committees of the House, which is evenly split 67-67 between Republicans and Democrats. This allowed Speaker Demuth the cover to attempt to explain why she wouldn’t bring the legislation to a floor vote. While what she said was true, it was classic political posturing, not leadership.

As Speaker of the House, Demuth could have called for a floor vote, which would have resulted in every lawmaker in the state being on record as to where they stand on sensible gun laws. Then, this November when state senators and representatives are up for election, the electorate could have made an informed decision as to who they want to represent them. Instead, the would-be-governor played politics as usual and hid behind procedure rather than demonstrating transparency, courage, and anything remotely representing a moral compass. The children of Minnesota deserve better than Lisa Demuth and her fellow Republican legislators.

On the day of the Annunciation shooting, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said, “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying.”

If Lisa Demuth is elected governor, these prayers will continue to go unanswered.

I’m optimistic about the future of my city and country, but not because of any current leader.

While Donald Trump and his minions are glaringly different from those on the left who more closely align with my worldview, I’m not looking to any current politicians, Democrat, Democratic Socialist, or Republican, to be the change I’m waiting for. I’m tired of waiting.

Corporate leaders? Here’s all we need to know about corporate America’s values. Target’s plan to win back customers is not to address their abandonment of DEI or their $1 million contribution to Trump’s inauguration, but to introduce new “easy-steer shopping carts that feature improved cup holders.”

Journalists continue to speak truth to power. But their employers, like CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, whose media moguls act like the Constitution doesn’t apply to them. continue to demonstrate that democracy really does die in darkness.

What, then, is my source of optimism? The people.

The trauma sustained by the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul over the past six years cannot be overstated. The murder of George Floyd at the hands — at the knee —of a Minneapolis police officer, followed by the assassination of State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, the Annunciation School shooting that ended the lives of 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski, and the months-long occupation by ICE that resulted in two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, being killed by representatives of their own government…all of this could have paralyzed the citizens of Minnesota. But as the world witnessed, that didn’t happen.

Minnesotans resisted, and they continue to resist, But resistance looks different today.

Resistance looks like Julie. Seeing the negative impact of Operation Metro Surge on the hospitality industry, with workers fearing they’d be abducted from restaurant kitchens, she started arranging group lunches and dinners for her friends. Every week, they meet at a restaurant that needs diners to return in order to stay open.

Resistance is all of the new activists who, following the Annunciation School shooting, joined Moms Demand Action, and who are now speaking up for sensible gun laws at the State Capitol.

Resistance is the neighborhood groups who converge at intersections or bridges over freeways protesting that Trump be held accountable for all of his actions.

Resistance is people like Glyn, who tirelessly volunteers to get audiences to return to our vital arts and culture organization, which have been decimated by the Covid pandemic and by federal cuts to arts funding.

Resistance is the growing network of food pantries and meal delivery programs whose staff and volunteers are determined that no one will go hungry.

And resistance is the thousands of people who continue to donate money to buoy a social safety net for people in need — people our government has abandoned.

Resistance in Minnesota is individuals coming together to create the world we want to live in.

In the past, there have been leaders I have looked up to. One of them, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, left us with messages that continue to inspire today, like this one: “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good, put together, that overwhelm the world.”

When same sex marriage was legalized in Minnesota in 2013, my partner and I eloped.

Weeks later, the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner, the largest fundraiser for the LGBTQ+ community’s fight for equality, was taking place at the Convention Center in downtown Minneapolis. We both joined the queue for the S–Z check-in line. While we were, by no means, the only gay married couple at the gala, we did have a distinction. As R.T. Rybak, the then-mayor of Minneapolis who married us, said to us on our wedding day, we were both the first same sex and same first-named couple he had married.

“Kevin Shores and Kevin Winge,” I told the freshly scrubbed Fortune 100 employed volunteer who was working the check-in table, and who made a point of telling us that he was an “ally.” (For those unfamiliar with the code, identifying as an ally is a way of exclaiming, “Hey, I know I’m volunteering at a gay event, but I’m straight so don’t hit on me!”) A few minutes later, the volunteer, clearly confused by our shared first names, returned, sans name tags, and asked our names again. As he went off for the second time, we could sense that gay men behind us were growing irritated by the delay, anxious for a cocktail and a to make a beeline to the silent auction.

Eventually, our “ally” came back to us, perplexed, and asked our names again. I repeated “Kevin Shores and Kevin Winge” and, to the audible groans behind us, the volunteer went off yet again.

The next time he returned, still unsuccessful, I knew I had to do something different to fend off the crowd who were now desperate for a drink and to bid on the signature Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams armchair in the auction.

“You’re not familiar with gay married couples, are you?’ I asked the volunteer. While not uttering a word, the pained look on his face confirmed that he had no idea what he’d signed up for when he agreed to volunteer at an LGBTQ+ event.

“Here’s what you need to know,” I said to him. “When gay people marry, we don’t follow the heteronormative tradition of taking the same last name. Rather, we take the same first name. So we’re not surprised that you’re confused by the fact that we’ve both taken the same first name of Kevin.”

We watched the blood drain from the face of our erstwhile volunteer as he turned his back on us and walked through the curtain behind the lines of tables, never to be seen again. I heard a loud “What the hell!” from the now agitated homos behind us who thought they were missing the opportunity to bid on a signature armchair.

My husband said to me, “That’s not funny. Why do you think that’s funny?”

I replied, “Because it’s hysterical.”

Suddenly, another volunteer, a gay man of our age, appeared before us. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

“Yes,” the other Kevin responded, “My husband is the problem.”

I explained the confusion over both of us having the same first name, and the supervisor quickly found our nametags. When the logjam of guests realized that they now would be allowed to bid on things they really didn’t value, everyone exhaled a sigh of relief.

And I realized that Kevin and I were onto something.

Since that day, I’ve been on a tongue-in-cheek mission to convince unsuspecting straight people that when gay people marry, we take not the same last name, but the same fist name. I think it’s taking hold. Recently, my husband and I were at a party. After chatting up a straight couple for a few minutes we introduced ourselves. “Oh,” came the response, “You’re those Kevins.”

We’re one step closer to creating an urban myth.

Sweetpea, affectionately known as Sweetie to everyone who knew her (except other dogs, who she had no time for) died in the lap of her preferred dad, Kevin Shores, with her number two daddy, me, petting her brindled coat. A stubborn English Bulldog to the end, Sweetie battled a myriad of ailments until letting her two dads know that it was time to go. While we weren’t ready, she was. Euthanasia was our last act of love.

As a puppy, Sweetie had all the makings, and markings, of an award-winning show dog, which resulted in her being sex trafficked for the first five years of her life. We know little about those early years except that she produced a litter as often as the breeder could mate her with an appropriate male. As bulldogs are prone to complications during delivery, her belly showed the scars of multiple C-sections.

When Sweetie was past her prime for birthing puppies, she had the good fortune of finding her way to the home of Karen Boros. Karen, a pioneering female television reporter in Minnesota, and later with CBS News, gave Sweetie a home and loved her dearly. When Karen’s health took a turn and she died in 2023, the stars aligned for Sweetie to come live with Kevin and me.

As Karen’s life was coming to an end, my husband Kevin and I were talking about re-dogging after a long time without a four-legged one in our lives. By chance, we wanted to adopt an adult English Bulldog. At a memorial lunch for Karen, I was seated across from Karen’s friend and fellow pioneering journalist, Marcia Fluer. When I asked who had adopted Sweetie, I was surprised to learn that she was still with a dog sitter and hadn’t yet found a home. I excused myself and called my husband to tell him that there was an old English Bulldog in need of a new family. Kevin immediately said we should go meet her.

As we stood outside the home of Sweetie’s dogsitter the next morning, my husband insisted that if we didn’t connect with this dog, it wasn’t our responsibility to adopt her. He was certain that the softie, the one who would insist on taking a dog that no one else wanted, would be me.

Sixty seconds after entering the house, and Sweetie running past me to slobber my husband with love, it was Kevin’s heart that melted. “Do you want to come home with us?” was all he had to say. We walked Sweetie out to our car and into our lives.

The hardest time without Sweetie will be the evenings. Every night, when the sun started to set, she would start barking and jumping on us, letting us know that it was time for the three of us to go to bed. Sometimes we would make her stay with us on the sofa while we read, or join us in the TV room to watch a movie. Often, however, we gave in to her demand and went to bed early. Sweetie would immediately find her spot between us, and in no time would be snoring as only English Bulldogs can snore. For the past two and a half years, she has lulled us to sleep. We’re facing some sleepless nights.

Our hearts are broken, but we wouldn’t trade one second of this temporary grief for the tremendous joy and love that Sweetie brought us. We are so fortunate that she choose us as her dads.

Just when I was wondering where our senior U.S. Senator, Amy Klobuchar, has been lately, I got a text message from her, asking for a $5 or $15 donation to support her campaign to be a “transformative governor” for Minnesota. That got me wondering: has the prospective Democratic nominee for Minnesota governor been a “transformative” senator during her 19 years in the U.S. Senate?

Few senators are more effective in getting legislation passed than Amy Klobuchar. She is known for working across the aisle and making things happen. Kudos for her bipartisan approach to her work; I think we need more of that. Being efficient, however, is different from being transformative. Klobuchar served with Ted Kennedy and John McCain, two lions of the senate. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen in his vice-presidential debate against Dan Quayle, “Senator Klobuchar, you’re no John McCain.”

In her two decades in the “world’s most exclusive club,” Senator Klobuchar has risen to the number three spot in Democratic leadership. She ran a solid campaign for president in 2020. And she has passed landmark legislation, including the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, the Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Act, and the Seniors Fraud Prevention Act. These are certainly important pieces of legislation, and in some cases have no doubt saved lives, but who is opposed to the prevention of carbon monoxide poisoning? Klobuchar is one of the most powerful leaders in the country, yet we need to ask the hard question — could we have expected more from her?

I have long wondered if Klobuchar would be stronger in the executive branch of government than in the legislative one. She strikes me as a “buck stops here” kind of person. We now have an opportunity to find out. But if our senior senator is going to claim the “transformative” mantel, she must tell us what that means. How will she be more effective in passing common sense gun laws in St. Paul than she was in Washington? Will her economic agenda attract workers to the state and provide everyone with a livable wage? How will she protect our environment when it’s under attack from the federal government? And, yes, how will she distance herself from the legitimate concerns of fraud, on an epic scale, while ensuring that protections are in place to prevent such fraud from happening again?

I believe that Amy Klobuchar can be a transformative governor. Saying the “T” word in a fundraising appeal, however, doesn’t make her one. Despite her landslide victories in the past, Senator Klobuchar still needs to make the case as to why we should hire her for this new job. If we are to give her the honor of being our next governor, she must explicitly tell us how she will transform our state, and then follow through.

Senator Klobuchar, it’s time to hit the campaign trail, lest the pillow guy steal your thunder while you’re dozing on your laurels.