OPINION | With Republicans in the Heart of the Beast

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I saw the Emmer for Governor signs as I walked up Eighteenth Avenue to the south edge of the park, three, or maybe five of them, leaning against a picnic table.  Nearby stood a guy in a hockey jersey with Emmer in three-inch letters.  Atop the table a woman in a pink Emmer t-shirt surveyed the scene with all the sobriety of General Robert E. Lee before Pickett’s charge.  Campaign signs were no surprise. Each year the free speech section of the May Day parade assembles in Cedar Avenue Park in Minneapolis. It’s one square block of people who are delighted to be called liberal. I couldn’t see any mention of political party in any of the Emmer paraphernalia.  The signs had white letters against a background of blue-state blue.  Nonetheless, I was pretty sure the Minnesota GOP had endorsed the fellow just a few days back, and that the candidate had promised an Arizona-style immigration policy. I admire those who test the boundaries of their welcome.  I admire many kinds of chutzpah.  Proudly supporting a tea-partier type in the midst of this rainbow rabble marching through the Phillips neighborhood –  most certainly a brown town – that was a form of ballsy, which begged for further inquiry. Continue Reading

Meeting the challenge of immigrant health care

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Last spring, a woman, probably just shy of her sixtieth birthday, came into a Minneapolis clinic looking for low-cost health care.  She wore a headscarf, a flowing skirt and used two canes to walk. Around the grip of one cane she clasped a zip-lock with her medications. As she hobbled, the colorful pill bottles jounced like candy in a trick-or-treat bag. 

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