Senator Klobuchar: Is torture a legal issue?

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Senator Amy Klobuchar, a former County Attorney, a current member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a possible future Supreme Court nominee, is adept at avoiding legal categories when it suits her purpose. Last month the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the Executive Summary of its report on U.S.-committed torture in the post-9/11 era. A friend of mine wrote several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggesting that now, if ever, it was time to push for justice and accountability. Senator Klobuchar responded with a carefully crafted form letter that ignored all legal concepts. Here was my subsequent reply to Sen. Klobuchar: Dear Senator Klobuchar, Reverend Sonja Johnson shared with me a copy of your response to her recent letter to you about holding those responsible for torture accountable. It scared me. It scared me because you may well be on future Supreme Court nominee “short lists,” and while Rev. Johnson’s letter focused on law and justice, your response used totally different categories and terminology. I appreciate that this was a form letter, not written to respond directly to Rev. Johnson, but your response dealt with none of the issues she raised. You wrote of “the troubling interrogation techniques,” that “torture is unacceptable,” and that “the values that define our nation…[were] intentionally disregarded” (emphasis added). The words “crime,” “law,” “justice,” and “accountability” were absent. The interrogation techniques were not “troubling”; they were criminal. Continue Reading

Loring Park Winter Fest builds community outdoors in December

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On December 11, resident and friends of Loring Park gathered for the Loring Park Winter Fest. The event, put on by Citizens for a Loring Park Community, Friends of Loring Park, the Loring Park staff, and many others, featured horse drawn carriage rides, a bonfire, balloon art, a community dance hall by Kairos Alive! and a sing-a-long led by Dan Chouinard. Here’s a look at this year’s event. Continue Reading

Don’t Let the Fools Drag You Down

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I took the title of this post from Detective Harry Bosch in Michael Connolly’s, The Burning Room.Bosch, one of my favorite fictional detectives, was encouraging his young partner to stay true to her potential and excel despite the pressures she will encounter from other detectives who excel at the “conform, comply, mediocre–don’t rock the boat” culture. Bosch might not be around to support her because he had just been suspended by the bureaucrats who don’t care about people: they care about statistics and going along to get along and they just can’t stand Bosch–I love the guy.Each of us has fools in our lives determined to drag us down to their particular level of mediocrity. Then they won’t feel uncomfortable seeing in us what they don’t see in themselves because they choose ordinariness over excellence. Bosch spoke in the work context so I will limit my thoughts to my work experience.I worked at the Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis and had many management jobs. The first fool I encountered was the smarmy union steward who, on my first day, taught me how to cheat on my expense account and warned me to not make other union members look bad. I didn’t pay any attention to him and set out to excel. Continue Reading

The Continuous Work

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I am a laborer.  I worked the land for thousands of years with little more than my hands and a few simple tools for plowing and tilling the earth and planting crops into the earth.  If mo Continue Reading

Who are heroes and to whom? An Indigenous perspective on Columbus

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Last month, October 13, 2014, it was my pleasure to participate in a celebration at the Minneapolis American Indian Center. The occasion was the resolution passed by the Minneapolis City Council to have as a co-name, “Indigenous Peoples Day,” for what white U.S. society has celebrated as Columbus Day. Why do I rejoice at this name change? Columbus may have been a hero to U.S. Euro-Americans, particularly to Italian-Americans, however, Columbus is not a hero to not only the Indigenous Peoples of the U.S., but also to the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. Columbus used dogs trained to disembowel Native peoples when they fled. Continue Reading