Friday, September 25, 2020

"Minnesota Nice" fails!

This is not, as I remember, the kind of Minnesota I moved to almost half a century ago. In fact, this is a Minnesota to which I wouldn't consider moving today, if I weren't already here. All of the following articles are from today's Star-Tribune:

The world, including the State of Minnesota, is facing too many critical issues for everyone to not be pulling in the same direction. Not that I expect everyone to agree on what to do, but the difficulties of getting compromises worked out is reminiscent of the stupidity, during the Viet Nam war, of the amount of time and energy expended debating the size, shapes and arrangements of the tables at which peace would be negotiated. Meanwhile, people were killing each other for lack of any sort of consensus. Sort of like the world is currently doing with COVID-19 and climate weirding and loss of biodiversity. Some places and some people are pulling their weight, but not enough of either to make the kind of differences we all need. Perhaps too many think we are like the phoenix and look for enough ashes for us to arise. It's not a wager I'd want to take.


must ashes precede renewal?
must ashes precede renewal?
Photo by J. Harrington




When They Die We Change Our Minds About Them



When they die we change our minds 
about them. While they live we see 
the plenty hard they’re trying,
to be a star, or nice, or wise, 
and so we do not quite believe them. 

When they die, suddenly they are 
what they claimed. Turns out, 
that’s what one of those looks like. 

The cold war over manner of manly 
or mission is over. Same person, 
same facts and acts, just now 
a quiet brain stem. We no longer 
begrudge his or her stupid luck.

When they die we change our minds 
about them. I will try to believe 
while you yet breathe.


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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

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