UPDATE Jan. 11, 2026: In my personal normal life in Minnesota, all is okay in my own “sphere”. But all is not okay for this state where I’ve lived for all but one of the last 63 years. Here’s an update on the last 72 or so hours. Take the time….
UPDATE: Jan. 12: I would first call your attention to the end of the comments section, the e-mail to all parents in my local school district SoWashCo #833. A particularly cogent column in this mornings e-mail from Just Above Sunset Doug Muder’s Weekly Sift, who has long standing credibility with me. At Church, yesterday, the Priest commented briefly on the tragedy not far away down Portland Avenue. Annunciation Catholic Church, where other recent killings took children’s lives, is only a few short miles away from the Portland site. I don’t need to mention the daily front page headlines. There is much more to be said. Get involved.
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Noon Wednesday: I just returned from car repair – an errant nail and resulting flat tire have occupied my morning.
In the waiting room at the shop came Breaking News – somebody was shot down between 33rd and 34th on Portland Avenue South, related to part of the massive presence of ICE descending on Minnesota. There are no confirmed details as yet. Here was a screen shot I took of the TV where I got the news.
January 7, 2026 Minneapolis MN
I have no confirmed details as yet. The TV will doubtless be filled, as it should be, with reporting, and I will weigh in more, as I know more.
The scene is well known to myself. Indeed, my first weeks in Minneapolis, in 1965, were about 4 blocks away, on Portland Avenue South. I will only say in addition, at this moment, that the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, which includes Minneapolis and St. Paul, is a city estimated population of over 3 million in a state with about 5.5 million residents.
Stay tuned. Check in at this site. I have other things to discuss as well. I will go by official facts released by local sources – Minneapolis and state. You can see the same on television.
POSTNOTE 5;15 a.m. Thursday Jan. 8: This is major international news, now. I can add a tiny but relevant note from personal experience. within the last 24 hours. Yesterday at 7 a.m. I was sitting at my coffee shop, making a call to Triple A (American Automobile Association). I’ve been a member for years, and I had a flat tire between home and the coffee shop about 4 miles away. Road service. Nail. This is the reason why I was at the repair shop when I saw the first news of the Portland Avenue incident which, if I recall correctly, did mention somebody had been shot with no details.
Cars are very familiar to me. Occasions interacting with police very rare, never serious, but always nerve-wracking “what did I do?”
To get Triple A road service is simple – if you are a member. But even with a membership, each. caller is vetted before a driver is assigned. In my recollection, they said they’d want identification; they had a description of my vehicle; they wanted to know if it had valid license plates, and, of course, what was the problem. When the AAA driver arrived, certainly not anonymous, I had to show my drivers license, and they photographed everything, including the vehicle identifier, and once concluded, the rest was simple. The spare was installed, and I drove the car to the repair place where I could drop off the tire and come back later to get it reinstalled. For me, this was a matter of three hours, zero issues. The repair guy was dressed for winter, no mask, of course. All cordial. Maybe a half hour on site. On went life….
FLASHBACK: Today I think back to the end of May, 2020, when the George Floyd murder aftermath dominated the news. I archive all of my posts, and here is the access to 4 of the posts from that week. The murder was on Monday, Memorial Day. It became news on Wednesday, and the aftermath basically was the rest of the week. It was a terrifying time, and I remember personal fear that outside agitators were coming to town from Chicago. It was misinformation, but I bit at the time. This time, no question there are outside agitators. They’re called ICE.
COMMENTS (also see below):
There are a few comments on Jan. 6 post, and doubtless there will be more content at the Venezuela post. I value comments as they all contribute to the conversation.
from Gramee: ICE related murder. And Noem MADE UP a whole pro-ICE story about what happened and shot her big mouth off (again) online. [At 2:29 p.m. Jan. 7 Gramee added the following, which I have held until Jan. 19 and now add unedited with her permission].
Happened on Portland Avenue between 33rd and 34th Street.
My take, based on a rookie’s observation:
Murdered woman was trying to navigate her way ouf of the chaos. Her car was going somewhat diagonally on Portland going south.
ICE approached her car and she took off. I probably would have done the same, thing being scared shitless.
Unclear at what point guns were fired. Two versions: two shots, three shots. Also which of the three closest ICEs shot her.
Will be important to see the angle/location of the bullets into the car.
Car veered somewhat east in final view. May or may not because she’d been shot.
Within minutes of the murder, Noem (dressed like Dale Evans) announced that an ICE car was trying to get out of snow because, dontcha know, Minnesota!
Portland Avenue was clear and Jacob Frey Said Noem’s description was bullshit.
A final comment by Frey, directed at ICE: “Get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”
Tim Walz doing a 3:15ish TV appearance.
A situation still not totally clear.
I now love fearless Jacob Frey!
Stand by for breaking news.
from Remi: Horrifying news from Minneapolis, so near the site where George Floyd was murdered.
from Jeff Jan 8 (other comment from Jeff at end of post): Noem just parrots what her master, Stephen Miller, tells her what to say. So its essentially propaganda, voiced forcefully and loudly with a bully’s bravado.
Slowed down video this morning clearly shows the shooter was not really in mortal danger and he shot 2 times point blank from the side while the car was moving away, therefore he was executing the driver, not acting in self defense.
I remain convinced that Justice Dept will take this investigation over as a Federal matter. They will keep to the script. It will take courage from Hennepin County and the State of Minnesota to bring appropriate charges, but I suspect this will take a while as the Feds will keep them at a distance from the investigation until the FBI is done. It is hard to believe the Trump=Patel FBI will act ethically.
I don’t watch Fox, but on CNN and MSNOW the law enforcement experts repeated that the officer did not follow current guidelines when working with a suspect in a vehicle. They contradicted the actual rules of engagement of the CBP/DHS for officers. And as noted, several police experts stated an officer NEVER stands in front of a car.
from Christine in France: I feel horrified by what is happening in Mnpls and also Oregon etc. We see all of it on television….
from SAK Jan. 9:
It is such a sad & needless loss of life & I am sure even the ICE agent who fired the bullets will suffer for the rest of his life for that momentary loss of control. Tragic all round. May she rest in eternal peace.
You provided some links which I followed & found moving and, in the case of Heather Cox-Richardson, detailed and informative as usual.
In logic we studied about syllogism and how one can reach a conclusion based on 2 premises. Well here’s my attempt!
- Heather Cox Richardson, Jan 6 2026:
Today, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
- Add that to something Marco Rubio said: “I don’t care what the UN says. The UN doesn’t know what they’re talking about …”
And one can easily reach a conclusion that agrees with Robert Reich: civilization is under threat.
Robert Reich, Jan 6 2026 :
“They threaten what we mean by civilization.
The moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we’d be permanently immersed in a brutish war in which only the fittest and most powerful could survive.
This principle lies at the center of America’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It’s also the core of the post- World War II international order championed by the United States, including the UN Charter — emphasizing multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.”
“Civilisation” & how it can be lost also features in this article from a neurologist. It caught my immediate attention because there is mention of a book that has stayed with me ever since it was required reading at school when we were young teens, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Interestingly many of the boys stranded on an island become savages & actual murderers. However, when saved by a British naval ship, they break down & cry – I assume because they recovered their civility & childishness after suffering from something like mass hysteria without their realizing it.
from Huffpost Jan 9, here. by Jennifer Friedman MD
Trump Hurled A 2-Word Insult. It Revealed Something Deeply Troubling About Him — And Our Country.
“It is not a passing insult but an alarm bell, reverberating against barriers I have spent my career trying to overcome.”
As a neurologist, I care for some of society’s most vulnerable individuals — children with severe disabilities who are often mocked, dismissed or misunderstood. My career is rooted in supporting people with physical and cognitive differences, educating about empathy and respect for human diversity, and applying the principles of science and medicine to improve the lives of those facing challenges of one kind or another.
From that perspective, President Donald Trump’s public admonition of a female reporter in November — “Quiet, piggy” — was gut-wrenching and continues to resonate weeks later. To some, it was an offhand, albeit misogynistic, fat-shaming insult. To me, the remark instantly evoked Piggy, the vulnerable and marginalized character in William Golding’s novel “Lord of the Flies” and revealed something far more troubling: a display of dominance, denigration and the subjugation of those deemed less worthy.
The rapid spread of the phrase across media platforms underscored a deeper danger — one that has only grown more unsettling as public displays of intimidation and condemnation increase. It is not just the cruelty of the words but the authority of the speaker, and the delight of many in his audience, that makes them so corrosive.
“Quiet, piggy” is not a joke. It is an illustration of how normalized bullying has become, and an affront to the people I care for and the values that guide my work.
Others have drawn parallels between “Lord of the Flies” and our political moment. In 2020, The New York Times published Jennifer Finney Boylan’s essay “President of the Flies,” in which she described feeling cast onto “some cruel and hostile strand … where people with disabilities were mocked, immigrants … were reviled, and grabbing women by their private parts was … A-OK.”
Boylan compared the “Flies” boys’ descent into savagery with a society in which democratic norms erode, expertise is dismissed and cruelty is sanctioned. Her metaphor captured profound moral decay and warned of the danger of unchecked power divorced from reason, science and shared truth.
Yet even as Boylan wrote, darker chapters still lay ahead: the attack on the U.S. Capitol; the dismantling of asylum protections; and the normalization of aggressive immigration enforcement tactics stripping primarily people of color of due process. What began as boasts about grabbing women’s bodies metastasized into a broader posture of possession — an expanding sense of what can be seized without consequence: democratic institutions, marginalized populations beyond our borders and — most recently — entire territories and nations framed as objects to be claimed. Golding captured this descent in “Lord of the Flies,” where casual cruelty gradually hardens into loss of restraint and hunger for control.
These events raise a troubling question: What has become of a society that greets such assertions of entitlement with indifference — or even approval? When the targets are distant, vulnerable or politically inconvenient, outrage seems to dissipate. Increasingly, the United States feels less like a democratic exemplar than a cautionary tale of how quickly ethical bearings can be lost.
In Golding’s novel, Piggy is intelligent, physically fragile and socially marginalized. He is mocked — and ultimately killed — for the very qualities that make him indispensable. When his glasses, the symbol of knowledge and reason, are shattered, civilization collapses into savagery.
The parallels today are difficult to ignore. Scientific expertise is ridiculed. Anti-vaccine rhetoric is elevated. Universities are portrayed as threats. Books are banned, history sanitized and facts themselves rendered suspect. Like Piggy’s broken glasses, our collective means of illumination is being smashed.
As a physician, I see the consequences of this erosion. Public health experts are harassed. Families distrust lifesaving medical advice. Vulnerable children absorb a cultural message that intellect and difference make them contemptible. What makes this moment especially dangerous is not merely who initiates the cruelty but who echoes it.
In “Lord of the Flies,” it is not Jack, the overt villain, who says “Quiet, Piggy,” but Ralph, the boy aligned with order and conscience. This is the moral creep Boylan warned about: the moment when those who believe themselves principled begin to accommodate degradation. That is what made the aftermath of this remark so disturbing. Piggy memes spread widely — not only among Trump supporters, but among critics and political leaders who claim to reject his politics. The very behaviors we teach children to avoid — mockery, humiliation, ridicule — have become entertainment, modeled by adults in positions of authority.
This casual embrace of cruelty — and the willingness to look away as acts of intimidation, coercion and lawlessness accumulate — reveals something deeper. “Quiet, piggy” conveys that bullying is acceptable, vulnerability is shameful, intellect is unwelcome and force — not dialogue — is the currency of public life. It is not a passing insult but an alarm bell, reverberating against barriers I have spent my career trying to overcome.
In Golding’s novel, the Beast is an imagined external threat, but it is Simon who speaks the most unsettling truth before he, too, is murdered: “Maybe there is a beast. Maybe it’s only us.”
That is the real warning.
The greatest danger is not a single leader, but a collective moral drift — a human capacity for dehumanization when norms collapse. Leaders do not invent this darkness; they unlock it.
We are not innocent bystanders. History shows where dehumanization leads — not through lone tyrants, but through ordinary people who acclimate to the erosion of decency. Like Golding’s boys, we have shown ourselves willing to normalize cruelty, relish humiliation and allow the expanding reach of those in power to go unchallenged. We cannot reclaim innocence, but as professionals, parents, educators and voters, we can resist the further unraveling of our civic soul.
As we start a new year, the question remains, more urgently now than ever:
Who will save us, if not ourselves?
Jennifer Lederman Friedman, M.D., is a physician in San Diego and a Clinical Professor in the Departments of Neurosciences and Pediatrics at the University of California San Diego. She has devoted her career to supporting individuals with severe neurological and developmental conditions and to advancing public understanding of disability. Outside of medicine, she co‑created and directed the Understanding Differences Program, a California Golden Bell award‑winning curriculum that fosters compassion and teaches students to approach differences with curiosity, empathy, and respect.
from Brad: So many horror stories coing out of Minneapolis. Please stay safe: it seems no one is safe now with fascists controlling our nation. TheAdvocate Jan 11, 2026
This SoWashCo833 ICE was sent to all families with children in South Washington County ISD 833 (MN) O/a Jan 8, 2026. Sowashco is a large suburban St. Paul School District.:
from Frank:
