Minnesotans cooperate to survive harsh winters: I shovel my sidewalk so my neighbor doesn’t slip and fall; my neighbor shovels his walk so I don’t get injured. These injuries happen every year anyway and can be deadly. There is mutual trust and giving each other benefit of doubt. This trust extends to political leaders who use our tax dollars to clear and maintain snowy/icy roads and repair potholes so that we can transport goods/services - again, necessary for surviving harsh winters. The Somali Fraud is a breach of trust that shatters our ability to cooperate and is an existential threat. Since as individuals we are helpless to extract the fraudsters, most Minnesotans would rather bury their heads in the sand rather than face this Crime against us.
Yes. I've stated repeatedly that Minnesota is a high-trust society; I myself have dug out my neighbors, along with the sidewalk on my entire block, using my handy 9HP snowblower. I get it. Unfortunately we cannot be so naive as to imagine that others are like us or that the DFL is somehow on our side. This is my great battle with the MNGOP here: they relentlessly project themselves onto the Twin Cities population, and so delusionally imagine that we are going to get hardcore socialists to vote for our gubernatorial candidate by presenting them with logical, conservative policy statements. I constantly advise them to forget this looney idea and instead work on CIRCUMVENTING the Twin Cities folk by focusing on reliably winning majorities in the state legislature. But it's to no avail. It seems to me that the fallacious notion that other people must be like us is endemic to the Minnesotan psyche.
I lived in Shakopee, MN from 1963 to summer of 1965. At the time, it was a very Catholic Community (my father was a Protestant Minister). I had no clue that the major part of MPLS/St Paul would turn so left. I am so sorry for the rest of the state, but as you say, the GOP there (and many other state GOP’s) need to learn how to wrest control from the D’s starting at local cities and towns. You can’t win unless you develop talent at the local level.
I've been trying to convince the MNGOP to do three things: 1) Focus on winning swing districts to cement our control of both state houses, by directing party resources away from hopeless districts and statewide races; 2) Use Nextdoor as a community engagement tool to organize Republicans everywhere locally on an ongoing basis [I actually demonstrated this in my own community], rather than relying on last-minute door-knocking; 3) Communicate using stories rather than policy statements (see "Open Letter to Republicans and their campaigns": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-republicans-and-their). I've seen zero interest in all three.
Absolutely. Half of the struggle of Right-Wing politics is sharing the stories. For every catastrophe of the month that the Left has, there are thousands of social media accounts and activist groups to share the story. The Right-Wing resources do not seem to pop up in my Instagram feed.
Minnesota Nice didn’t disappear—it was hijacked. What we’re watching isn’t grassroots outrage; it’s mass remote control. Ordinary Minnesotans don’t suddenly morph into ICE hunters while ignoring murdered children, gang rule, and cartel violence unless someone else is pulling the strings. Selective outrage is the tell. They mourn provocateurs but shrug at bodies. They chant scripts but forget history. This isn’t compassion—it’s programming. When citizens behave like NPCs, repeating slogans on cue while real crimes go untouched, you’re not seeing conscience in action. You’re seeing a parasitic ideology riding a passive host, burning cities while calling itself virtue.
I have not studied this much, but increasingly there are people here pointing out, for example, that Walz came from Nebraska and that Frey came from Virginia, and that these are just two of many. Which I find strange; I had presumed that in an insular culture like Minnesota, only multi-generational Minnesotans would have a chance of ascending the political ladder.
It seems that Renee Good and her partner (not wife) and Renee’s son moved from Kansas City about eight months ago. Alex Pretti moved there from Green Bay for college and stayed for his job. I found that easily online. As for the rest of the rioters, I have no clue. BTW, I looked at the web page for the school her six year old son attends (Southside Family Charter School) and it’s basically an activist training center for K-5.
Yeah. Apparently Renee spent some time in Canada too, probably to escape Trump's coming dictatorship, but then decided that the dictatorship was worth risking. There are far more loonies among us than we'd like to believe.
It strikes me that they don't even know what they're doing. Our two latest martyrs thought they were playing some sort of game. Being highly non-susceptible to engaging in irrational actions (regardless of perceived provocation), I can't grasp what it is to suddenly become insanely possessed of a purpose regarding which I actually have no real information or convictions.
I totally agree with you … I cannot comprehend what these people were thinking? It does seem like a game to them with their ICE watch. Perhaps it is exciting to them? It is sad that these people have died … it was however completely avoidable and what exactly was accomplished?
Im sorry, but I do have more empathy, though, for the victims you mentioned…
I read this piece with much interest and great sadness, especially with respect to the section about local gang activity and the 'blind eye' paid to such nightmares. I am trying to piece together all the threads in the current Minnesota flash point, but it is extremely difficult to do so, and there is a lot of partisan misrepresentations in play.
For context, I am a British citizen who is a US resident (my wife and kids are dual citizens), and I dislike and distrust both of the US political parties, while maintaining a love for the citizens of the US, who I feel are far more noble than their reporters and politicians. For more than twenty years now, I have been engaged in 'cultural diplomacy'. For some time I was trying to diffuse tensions between Christians and atheists, when that appeared to be the cultural flash point. These days I'm trying to hold together an extremely fragile political centre, which is an immense challenge, and I'm doing it by writing philosophy, which must constitute some kind of insanity! 🙂
The blue team, as seems to be their media strategy, remove some of the information from each story in order to spin it to their political benefit. The red team, on the other hand, put in extra information but with very weak quality control - such that their versions of events have 'more of the facts' but also 'more of the speculation'. The only way to assemble the truth is to navigate between the two extremes. This used to be the job of journalists. We don't seem to have many of those any more.
I had a go at tracking down your sci-fi story, but I could not source it. It does sound like something that would have run in New Worlds in the 1990s, or possibly Analog. The former never produced book anthologies, per se, but were published in a form that resembled thin books and were sold in book shops. If it was a thin paperback (about half an inch thick), I would suspect New Worlds. However, if it's thicker it will be a set of repurposed stories, and there were so many of these it can be a nightmare to track down the volumes, let alone the individual stories!
Anyway, forgive the length of this comment, which is really just to thank you for writing. I found your perspective helpful in understanding the situation in Minneapolis.
Thanks much! With regards to bridging the Christian/atheist gap: The older I get, the more I realize how deeply our societal structures are based on Christian principles. There are in my opinion two strands of human society today: tribal and non-tribal. Tribal societies tend to have religions that reinforce tribalism; these include Islam, Judaism, and probably most pagan religions. Tribal religions tend to have little or no absolute concept of "right" or "wrong"; rather "rightness" or "wrongness" has mostly to do with whatever benefits your tribe or clan. This is discussed wonderfully in this brief video: "Somali Immigrant Reveals the Truth About Minnesota Fraud | Ayaan Hirsi Ali: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF383LJHIvs. This philosophy also relates to people who in our society we call "psychopaths" or "sociopaths" (read “Without Conscience”: A Book That Changed My Life: https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/without-conscience-a-book-that-changed). In contrast, Christianity strikes me as the world's most successful anti-tribal social experiment. I keep wondering why European history is so full of stories of pagan cultures throughout Europe being "Christianized" - why did these cultures adopt a new religion whose concepts were so utterly foreign? My idea is that we, having lived in Christian culture all our lives, cannot understand the downside of living in a tribal society. I'd guess that some of these societies switched willingly, seeing the affluence and power of Christian societies, whereas others succumbed because they could not compete against the technological superiority that is created only by large-scale, non-tribal, high-trust Christian societies. So atheists, who do not buy into the mystical aspects of religion, tend to fail to understand the implications of the non-mystical parts, and consequently do not appreciate the effects of the religion in their lives and the necessity of the mystical parts in convincing most of their populations to adopt the whole package. Anyway, this is probably the subject of another article, if not a book.
Thanks for this detailed ramble! I have some sympathy for the thread you are pulling out here, and it resonates with Kant's remarks about Christianity in Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. The high trust aspect of Christian society is certainly relevant to this issue at large. However, I would caution that 'tribal versus non-tribal' may be too restrictive a way of looking at the issues.
The universality of Christianity, transcending ties of family and clan, has led to the contemporary post-Christian 'mass society' that characterises the prevailing mythos of both the US blue team and the European Union's governing powers. This global belief system is non-tribal in terms of your split... but it is hard to view its refusal to tolerate disagreement (or even to listen to different points of view) as something positive. Perhaps, as with so many things, there is a balance here that can go too far on either path...
In the end, I did include this piece of yours in today's Bazaar at Stranger Worlds, albeit with caveats as my readership spans the political spectrum (a rarity these days!) and blue-team allies will struggle with much of what you say in this piece. I shall try to remember to pop back later this morning and share a link.
David: I have given up trying to reason with Democrats. The majority of them are all emotion, including hate, with very little reasoning ability. This first slapped me upside the head in January 2017 when so-called educated women were bawling because Queen Hillary lost. Allow me to remind you: the Democrat riots in 2020 lasted for FIVE months in Portland, and only 3-4 days in Minneapolis which created this excuse for domestic terrorism. Thanks a lot! Diane https://dianelgruber.substack.com/p/living-behind-enemy-lines-tale-13?utm_source=publication-search
I am sympathetic, but we cannot afford to simply ignore Democrats; they get to vote, and because there are so many of them they have much control over our future. I am personally astounded at how many people from so many chapters of my life - people whom I formerly regarded as perfectly rational - are now stooges for this Democrat lunacy. Good grief, some of them are proudly posting videos of the anti-ICE rallies they're attending.
Rational people mustn't give up; rather we must understand the psyche of the masses and learn how to manipulate it. We don't need to do much research in this regard - all we need to do is adopt the successful strategies of the Democrats. I've been preaching this to the Minnesota GOP for years, to no avail. They believe firmly that the residents of Minnesota must all somehow be rational folks like ourselves, and that we will win them over by appealing to them with the same sorts of rational policy arguments that appeal to us. Nothing could be further from the truth, but Republicans just keep on believin', and that is not rational. One of my three strategies that I want our party to adopt is to TELL STORIES rather than discuss policy. I illustrate this in the following article, which I sent to all of Minnesota's Republican caucus and got not a single response: "Open Letter to Republicans and their campaigns: Stories will win more voters than policy discussions": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-republicans-and-their
part of the problem is the viking mentality of "don't rock the boat".
It's fine when crossing deep water in rickety craft, but not fine when your leaders are corrupt.
as an import myself, I find it baffling and maddening; native minnesotans will lay down to be k*lled before they'll challenge any authority figure, even the ones who got in authority by crooked means! smh
Most police departments would have a Gang unit full of hard-charging Detectives, gang photo mug books, tattoo mug books for gang affiliation, coupled with a conservative legislature that passes sentencing enhancement laws that have elements- like tattoos, colors, hand signals, initiation ceremonies, etc. and yes, prior to 1990 California’s legislature had all of these indicators of “gang” membership. Over the last 35 years, there has been a backlash there as crooks, their lawyers & legislators have chipped away at the elements that make up a “gang” member. In ‘89-95, I was interviewed on TV and major newspapers and reporters tried to get me to use the term “gangs.” I refused. I called the Vietnamese untethered former refugees that committed crimes against their fellow-countrymen as “Parasitic Groups” and the Jewelry Store owners & nightclub/restauranteurs as their “Hosts.” So it was interesting today that I read your Host/Parasite fiction.
More power to you in continuing to live there. At the 140 merchant Asian Center which housed the good immigrant merchants, on my watch, we had no deaths there. I would tell friends, family & reporters that someone will ultimately die of “lead” poisoning. That came to the Eden Center on Super Bowl Sunday, 1997 & has been followed by six or seven more. As you observed one block away, the lead was flying there. You may find recourse with the Justice Department which has taken-over corrupt Police Departments for more than 35 years. Blessings to the clear-eyed people of Minnesota.
Thanks for this! I'll take a look, but your book here seems like nonfiction, whereas the story I recall was definitely a whimsical fiction, and I'm pretty sure it was in a sci-fi anthology.
I've had that perspective for quite awhile, but these days I prefer to think of it as "Minnesota Irrational". We must come to understand that most of the human race is not rational. That's not an insult, it's just a statement of reality. I am personally aghast at how many people from so many chapters of my life - people whom I formerly regarded as perfectly reasonable - are now stooges for Democrat lunacy. Good grief, some of them are proudly posting videos of the anti-ICE rallies they're attending. But our way forward must not be to insult them; rather we must understand that we must use the same mechanisms that Democrats use to appeal to them. I've been preaching this to Republicans for years, to no avail; they keep insisting on using strategies that appeal only to us. So then, we "based" people are not that rational either, are we?
Minnesotans cooperate to survive harsh winters: I shovel my sidewalk so my neighbor doesn’t slip and fall; my neighbor shovels his walk so I don’t get injured. These injuries happen every year anyway and can be deadly. There is mutual trust and giving each other benefit of doubt. This trust extends to political leaders who use our tax dollars to clear and maintain snowy/icy roads and repair potholes so that we can transport goods/services - again, necessary for surviving harsh winters. The Somali Fraud is a breach of trust that shatters our ability to cooperate and is an existential threat. Since as individuals we are helpless to extract the fraudsters, most Minnesotans would rather bury their heads in the sand rather than face this Crime against us.
Yes. I've stated repeatedly that Minnesota is a high-trust society; I myself have dug out my neighbors, along with the sidewalk on my entire block, using my handy 9HP snowblower. I get it. Unfortunately we cannot be so naive as to imagine that others are like us or that the DFL is somehow on our side. This is my great battle with the MNGOP here: they relentlessly project themselves onto the Twin Cities population, and so delusionally imagine that we are going to get hardcore socialists to vote for our gubernatorial candidate by presenting them with logical, conservative policy statements. I constantly advise them to forget this looney idea and instead work on CIRCUMVENTING the Twin Cities folk by focusing on reliably winning majorities in the state legislature. But it's to no avail. It seems to me that the fallacious notion that other people must be like us is endemic to the Minnesotan psyche.
I lived in Shakopee, MN from 1963 to summer of 1965. At the time, it was a very Catholic Community (my father was a Protestant Minister). I had no clue that the major part of MPLS/St Paul would turn so left. I am so sorry for the rest of the state, but as you say, the GOP there (and many other state GOP’s) need to learn how to wrest control from the D’s starting at local cities and towns. You can’t win unless you develop talent at the local level.
I've been trying to convince the MNGOP to do three things: 1) Focus on winning swing districts to cement our control of both state houses, by directing party resources away from hopeless districts and statewide races; 2) Use Nextdoor as a community engagement tool to organize Republicans everywhere locally on an ongoing basis [I actually demonstrated this in my own community], rather than relying on last-minute door-knocking; 3) Communicate using stories rather than policy statements (see "Open Letter to Republicans and their campaigns": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-republicans-and-their). I've seen zero interest in all three.
Absolutely. Half of the struggle of Right-Wing politics is sharing the stories. For every catastrophe of the month that the Left has, there are thousands of social media accounts and activist groups to share the story. The Right-Wing resources do not seem to pop up in my Instagram feed.
Minnesota Nice didn’t disappear—it was hijacked. What we’re watching isn’t grassroots outrage; it’s mass remote control. Ordinary Minnesotans don’t suddenly morph into ICE hunters while ignoring murdered children, gang rule, and cartel violence unless someone else is pulling the strings. Selective outrage is the tell. They mourn provocateurs but shrug at bodies. They chant scripts but forget history. This isn’t compassion—it’s programming. When citizens behave like NPCs, repeating slogans on cue while real crimes go untouched, you’re not seeing conscience in action. You’re seeing a parasitic ideology riding a passive host, burning cities while calling itself virtue.
How many of these social justice Rambos are actually from Minnesota and how many have been imported for just the purpose we’re seeing?
I have not studied this much, but increasingly there are people here pointing out, for example, that Walz came from Nebraska and that Frey came from Virginia, and that these are just two of many. Which I find strange; I had presumed that in an insular culture like Minnesota, only multi-generational Minnesotans would have a chance of ascending the political ladder.
It seems that Renee Good and her partner (not wife) and Renee’s son moved from Kansas City about eight months ago. Alex Pretti moved there from Green Bay for college and stayed for his job. I found that easily online. As for the rest of the rioters, I have no clue. BTW, I looked at the web page for the school her six year old son attends (Southside Family Charter School) and it’s basically an activist training center for K-5.
Yeah. Apparently Renee spent some time in Canada too, probably to escape Trump's coming dictatorship, but then decided that the dictatorship was worth risking. There are far more loonies among us than we'd like to believe.
Minnesotans seem particularly prone to a directed two minutes hate
It strikes me that they don't even know what they're doing. Our two latest martyrs thought they were playing some sort of game. Being highly non-susceptible to engaging in irrational actions (regardless of perceived provocation), I can't grasp what it is to suddenly become insanely possessed of a purpose regarding which I actually have no real information or convictions.
I totally agree with you … I cannot comprehend what these people were thinking? It does seem like a game to them with their ICE watch. Perhaps it is exciting to them? It is sad that these people have died … it was however completely avoidable and what exactly was accomplished?
Im sorry, but I do have more empathy, though, for the victims you mentioned…
Dear David,
I read this piece with much interest and great sadness, especially with respect to the section about local gang activity and the 'blind eye' paid to such nightmares. I am trying to piece together all the threads in the current Minnesota flash point, but it is extremely difficult to do so, and there is a lot of partisan misrepresentations in play.
For context, I am a British citizen who is a US resident (my wife and kids are dual citizens), and I dislike and distrust both of the US political parties, while maintaining a love for the citizens of the US, who I feel are far more noble than their reporters and politicians. For more than twenty years now, I have been engaged in 'cultural diplomacy'. For some time I was trying to diffuse tensions between Christians and atheists, when that appeared to be the cultural flash point. These days I'm trying to hold together an extremely fragile political centre, which is an immense challenge, and I'm doing it by writing philosophy, which must constitute some kind of insanity! 🙂
The blue team, as seems to be their media strategy, remove some of the information from each story in order to spin it to their political benefit. The red team, on the other hand, put in extra information but with very weak quality control - such that their versions of events have 'more of the facts' but also 'more of the speculation'. The only way to assemble the truth is to navigate between the two extremes. This used to be the job of journalists. We don't seem to have many of those any more.
I had a go at tracking down your sci-fi story, but I could not source it. It does sound like something that would have run in New Worlds in the 1990s, or possibly Analog. The former never produced book anthologies, per se, but were published in a form that resembled thin books and were sold in book shops. If it was a thin paperback (about half an inch thick), I would suspect New Worlds. However, if it's thicker it will be a set of repurposed stories, and there were so many of these it can be a nightmare to track down the volumes, let alone the individual stories!
Anyway, forgive the length of this comment, which is really just to thank you for writing. I found your perspective helpful in understanding the situation in Minneapolis.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Thanks much! With regards to bridging the Christian/atheist gap: The older I get, the more I realize how deeply our societal structures are based on Christian principles. There are in my opinion two strands of human society today: tribal and non-tribal. Tribal societies tend to have religions that reinforce tribalism; these include Islam, Judaism, and probably most pagan religions. Tribal religions tend to have little or no absolute concept of "right" or "wrong"; rather "rightness" or "wrongness" has mostly to do with whatever benefits your tribe or clan. This is discussed wonderfully in this brief video: "Somali Immigrant Reveals the Truth About Minnesota Fraud | Ayaan Hirsi Ali: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF383LJHIvs. This philosophy also relates to people who in our society we call "psychopaths" or "sociopaths" (read “Without Conscience”: A Book That Changed My Life: https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/without-conscience-a-book-that-changed). In contrast, Christianity strikes me as the world's most successful anti-tribal social experiment. I keep wondering why European history is so full of stories of pagan cultures throughout Europe being "Christianized" - why did these cultures adopt a new religion whose concepts were so utterly foreign? My idea is that we, having lived in Christian culture all our lives, cannot understand the downside of living in a tribal society. I'd guess that some of these societies switched willingly, seeing the affluence and power of Christian societies, whereas others succumbed because they could not compete against the technological superiority that is created only by large-scale, non-tribal, high-trust Christian societies. So atheists, who do not buy into the mystical aspects of religion, tend to fail to understand the implications of the non-mystical parts, and consequently do not appreciate the effects of the religion in their lives and the necessity of the mystical parts in convincing most of their populations to adopt the whole package. Anyway, this is probably the subject of another article, if not a book.
Dear David,
Thanks for this detailed ramble! I have some sympathy for the thread you are pulling out here, and it resonates with Kant's remarks about Christianity in Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. The high trust aspect of Christian society is certainly relevant to this issue at large. However, I would caution that 'tribal versus non-tribal' may be too restrictive a way of looking at the issues.
The universality of Christianity, transcending ties of family and clan, has led to the contemporary post-Christian 'mass society' that characterises the prevailing mythos of both the US blue team and the European Union's governing powers. This global belief system is non-tribal in terms of your split... but it is hard to view its refusal to tolerate disagreement (or even to listen to different points of view) as something positive. Perhaps, as with so many things, there is a balance here that can go too far on either path...
In the end, I did include this piece of yours in today's Bazaar at Stranger Worlds, albeit with caveats as my readership spans the political spectrum (a rarity these days!) and blue-team allies will struggle with much of what you say in this piece. I shall try to remember to pop back later this morning and share a link.
Stay wonderful!
Chris.
PS: Here's the Winter Bazaar, for completeness:
https://strangerworlds.substack.com/p/winter-bazaar-199
Thanks for this. I posted a comment on it.
David: I have given up trying to reason with Democrats. The majority of them are all emotion, including hate, with very little reasoning ability. This first slapped me upside the head in January 2017 when so-called educated women were bawling because Queen Hillary lost. Allow me to remind you: the Democrat riots in 2020 lasted for FIVE months in Portland, and only 3-4 days in Minneapolis which created this excuse for domestic terrorism. Thanks a lot! Diane https://dianelgruber.substack.com/p/living-behind-enemy-lines-tale-13?utm_source=publication-search
https://dianelgruber.substack.com/p/living-behind-enemy-lines-tale-2?utm_source=publication-search
I am sympathetic, but we cannot afford to simply ignore Democrats; they get to vote, and because there are so many of them they have much control over our future. I am personally astounded at how many people from so many chapters of my life - people whom I formerly regarded as perfectly rational - are now stooges for this Democrat lunacy. Good grief, some of them are proudly posting videos of the anti-ICE rallies they're attending.
Rational people mustn't give up; rather we must understand the psyche of the masses and learn how to manipulate it. We don't need to do much research in this regard - all we need to do is adopt the successful strategies of the Democrats. I've been preaching this to the Minnesota GOP for years, to no avail. They believe firmly that the residents of Minnesota must all somehow be rational folks like ourselves, and that we will win them over by appealing to them with the same sorts of rational policy arguments that appeal to us. Nothing could be further from the truth, but Republicans just keep on believin', and that is not rational. One of my three strategies that I want our party to adopt is to TELL STORIES rather than discuss policy. I illustrate this in the following article, which I sent to all of Minnesota's Republican caucus and got not a single response: "Open Letter to Republicans and their campaigns: Stories will win more voters than policy discussions": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-republicans-and-their
part of the problem is the viking mentality of "don't rock the boat".
It's fine when crossing deep water in rickety craft, but not fine when your leaders are corrupt.
as an import myself, I find it baffling and maddening; native minnesotans will lay down to be k*lled before they'll challenge any authority figure, even the ones who got in authority by crooked means! smh
Most police departments would have a Gang unit full of hard-charging Detectives, gang photo mug books, tattoo mug books for gang affiliation, coupled with a conservative legislature that passes sentencing enhancement laws that have elements- like tattoos, colors, hand signals, initiation ceremonies, etc. and yes, prior to 1990 California’s legislature had all of these indicators of “gang” membership. Over the last 35 years, there has been a backlash there as crooks, their lawyers & legislators have chipped away at the elements that make up a “gang” member. In ‘89-95, I was interviewed on TV and major newspapers and reporters tried to get me to use the term “gangs.” I refused. I called the Vietnamese untethered former refugees that committed crimes against their fellow-countrymen as “Parasitic Groups” and the Jewelry Store owners & nightclub/restauranteurs as their “Hosts.” So it was interesting today that I read your Host/Parasite fiction.
More power to you in continuing to live there. At the 140 merchant Asian Center which housed the good immigrant merchants, on my watch, we had no deaths there. I would tell friends, family & reporters that someone will ultimately die of “lead” poisoning. That came to the Eden Center on Super Bowl Sunday, 1997 & has been followed by six or seven more. As you observed one block away, the lead was flying there. You may find recourse with the Justice Department which has taken-over corrupt Police Departments for more than 35 years. Blessings to the clear-eyed people of Minnesota.
Might the book be "Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures" by Carl Zimmer published in 2000
Thanks for this! I'll take a look, but your book here seems like nonfiction, whereas the story I recall was definitely a whimsical fiction, and I'm pretty sure it was in a sci-fi anthology.
Minnesota nice is actually code, for Minnesota stupid.
I've had that perspective for quite awhile, but these days I prefer to think of it as "Minnesota Irrational". We must come to understand that most of the human race is not rational. That's not an insult, it's just a statement of reality. I am personally aghast at how many people from so many chapters of my life - people whom I formerly regarded as perfectly reasonable - are now stooges for Democrat lunacy. Good grief, some of them are proudly posting videos of the anti-ICE rallies they're attending. But our way forward must not be to insult them; rather we must understand that we must use the same mechanisms that Democrats use to appeal to them. I've been preaching this to Republicans for years, to no avail; they keep insisting on using strategies that appeal only to us. So then, we "based" people are not that rational either, are we?