Seven days ago I was waiting for my flat tire issue to be resolved, and saw the first report of 34th and Portland on the local Fox News channel.  The post is here, as added to with numerous comments since publication.

This post is a few musings about today and the past seven in the metropolitan area at the scene of the crime.  Your comments are solicited.

The city I live in is 83,000, about 20 miles from 34th and Portland in Minneapolis, the site of the shooting one week ago, and the ICE assault of Minneapolis and environs of course is that distance from us.  If I were to judge the actor only by local evidence (no media) I would not know that anything was going on, and I’m not a hermit in this town.

Media is a different story, of course.  It depends on what media you follow.  Media likes ‘war’.

I know that the local school district sent a letter to all parents of students in the local schools (you can read it at the end of the previous post).  But I’m not a parent or employee of the local schools, so, if I didn’t know somebody in that entity, I would know nothing.  And while I don’t have exact numbers, probably two-thirds of the households in the school district have no school age children or occupants who work in the local schools.  Here is the public school position: SoWashCo833 ICE

In short, if I want to be ignorant, or totally biased, it is an easy task, living in the suburb.  I choose to be uninformed or to be informed solely by my choice of media.  There used to be a local newspaper, but that is long gone.  The alternative, on-line, has not taken root well, and at any rate has chosen not to entertain local debate like letters to the editor on political topics.

As I note often, I am a Catholic and I’ve been an active part of Basilica Parish in Minneapolis for 28 years which gives another point of conversation in this tense time.

Basilica had the funeral Mass for prominent Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband.  It was a full house, including President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.  Melissa was raised Catholic but apparently was not a practicing Catholic at the time of her death (she was described as a Christian) so there was a delicate dance with this issue, I’m sure.  To this day I don’t know where or even if she went to Church; when she grew up she was part of the Catholic Parish I once was part of.  After the assassination, Basilica had the space, and of course, the publicity was not to be ignored.  The latter would be denied vigorously, but non-practicing Catholics do not normally have Catholic funerals.  It is just not the normal protocol.  Rep. Hortman was not a normal deceased – she was a very prominent and highly respected legislator.

Basilica is about 3 -4 miles from Portland and 34th, and 6 1/2 miles from Annunciation, and Annunciation is 3 1/2 miles from Portland and 34th.  Annunciation faced its own tragic shooting in recent history.  So these major tragedies were in the same part of Minneapolis.  The victims and perpetrators in all the cases were white.  On and on.

Today, at my coffee shop, and on my daily walk, both in Woodbury, with plenty of local citizens, I heard not a single word, nor did I see a single piece of evidence that anything out of normal was happening in my metropolitan area.  The Minnesota Star Tribune front page today talked about Native Americans being targeted by ICE, and of course, turn on the TV news and your computer and you know what you get, the perspective from whatever side you’re on.

We are in a crisis in this country, and best we come to grips with this.  But the odds are we won’t until it’s too late.  The TV is reporting as I write on a Supreme Court hearing on Transgender….

On we go.  Don’t sit this out.  We know more than enough.