Minnesota has a long history of celebrating ICE OUT!

 It's Superb owl Sunday. The sun is shining. Temperature may reach 32℉ for a short time today, more time at higher temperatures later this week. Mother Nature is providing more ice-melting heat early this season than the Democrats have all year.

some years ice out comes early

Photo by J. Harrington

We didn't have ICE agents until about 25 years ago. Twenty-five years is about ten percent of the time there's been an US. The Department of Homeland Security was created in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. As I recall, we attacked the wrong folks in response to the attacks and did little, if anything punitive toward the country that was the home of the vast majority of attackers. Looking at the track record of ICE and DHS since their creation, a case could be made that the creation of DHS was as effective a response to 9/11 as our attacks on the Taliban.

We are overdue for a major overhaul of our democracy. Remember the old saying of "use it or lose it?" That seems to me to explain much of what happened in the election of 2024. If a significant number of those who usually vote for Democrats hadn't stayed home, most likely we wouldn't have a convicted felon in the White House. And yet, Minnesota Democrats are on their way to provide an echo, not a choice, once again. The leading candidate for governor is a committed centrist who may cause a number of progressive voters to stay home come November. Might that be enough to enable a Republican win?

I spent decades as a regional/systems/urban/environmental planner. One piece of guidance I found to be consistently useful: "More of the same never solved a problem." I'm not sure what the solutions to our dysfunctional political, economic and social systems may be, but I'm pretty sure that (re)electing politicians focused more on emphasizing our differences instead of creating solutions to our common problems won't get US where we need to go.

Last year actual ice out dates in Minnesota stretched out over two months plus, from mid-March to after mid-May. Ice houses must be off lakes by the end of February in a "normal" year. Perhaps the Minnesota legislature could feel enough heat from citizens concerned about those who abuse our laws to violate our Constitution that that can enact bipartisan solutions to our current icing problems. Else our democracy may slip and break its neck.

Democracy 

Dorianne Laux
1952 –

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass
homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—
someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

spewing winter’s germs, swollen lipped, face chapped, making the last
tired connection of the day. You keep walking to keep the cold
at bay, too cold to wait for the bus, too depressing the thought

of entering that blue light, the chilled eyes watching you decide
which seat to take: the man with one leg, his crutches bumping
the smudged window glass, the woman with her purse clutched

to her breasts like a dead child, the boy, pimpled, morose, his head
shorn, a swastika carved into the stubble, staring you down.
So you walk into the cold you know: the wind, indifferent blade,

familiar, the gold leaves heaped along the gutters. You have
a home, a house with gas heat, a toilet that flushes. You have
a credit card, cash. You could take a taxi if one would show up.

You can feel it now: why people become Republicans: Get that dog
off the street. Remove that spit and graffiti. Arrest those people huddled 
on the steps of the church. If it weren’t for them you could believe in god,

in freedom, the bus would appear and open its doors, the driver dressed
in his tan uniform, pants legs creased, dapper hat: Hello Miss, watch
your step now. But you’re not a Republican. You’re only tired, hungry,

you want out of the cold. So you give up, walk back, step into line behind
the grubby vet who hides a bag of wine under his pea coat, holds out
his grimy 85 cents, takes each step slow as he pleases, releases his coins

into the box and waits as they chink down the chute, stakes out a seat
in the back and eases his body into the stained vinyl to dream
as the chips of shrapnel in his knee warm up and his good leg

flops into the aisle. And you’ll doze off, too, in a while, next to the girl
who can’t sit still, who listens to her Walkman and taps her boots
to a rhythm you can’t hear, but you can see it—when she bops

her head and her hands do a jive in the air—you can feel it
as the bus rolls on, stopping at each red light in a long wheeze,
jerking and idling, rumbling up and lurching off again.

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