Monday of this week I was about to leave for a conversation group I’m part of.  I caught the first part of the 6:00 local news on WCCO-TV, and one of the first stories was about the arrest of my State Senator in a town 220 miles from here.  By Tuesday, the opposition party was “shocked”. By Wednesday, it was front-page news.  Thursday, one of my fellow citizens, in a letter to the editor, demanded that the Senator resign, probably based on no more information than I had.  This morning, another long article in the STrib again was based only on currently available information.

At this writing, Friday morning, I know nothing more than anybody else about my Senator and the incident.  So goes life in the local world.

I am keeping whatever I see in writing (from the Minneapolis Star Tribune paper edition), and at some point in the future, whenever there is some finality, I will write more.  I will also pdf the articles for  use at this space.

But you will see no pre-judgement from me.  Except to say that in my opinion, she has been an excellent Senator.  I didn’t know her when she announced her candidacy two years ago.  She met with me on my request back then, and to my knowledge I’ve been to all of her several back-home citizen update meetings, simply as a constituent.  Those are my only contacts with her, and they have all been positive.

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Meanwhile: As it happens, much of this week has been engaged in following assorted court hearings in New York City, Washington DC and Phoenix, regarding someone else we all know, about events which happened between 2015 and 2021.  Yesterday was oral argument at the Supreme Court about Presidential immunity; today, as I write, David Pecker, formerly head honcho of the National Enquirer, is testifying.  I tend to follow these kinds of things.

I have no more to say about this either.

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I’ll return to all of this sometime later.

POSTNOTE April 30, 2024: The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports this morning that Sen. Nicole Mitchell was back at the Capitol yesterday.  In the same issue, on page B1, is a long column by Laura Yuen, very well worth your time.  There was also a short letter to the editor, basically anti-DFL.  It was the last letter today.

I was thinking of an old saying, probably shared with me by my Dad, about being careful about judging if you haven’t “walked in the other persons moccasins”.  I did a search, and found a 2017 blog reprinting an 1895 poem by Mary Lathrap titled “Judge Softly”.  You can read the poem here.