Again? Again.

"When you deal with men of ice / You can't deal with ways so nice."

                                —Malvina Reynolds

I'll get to what I was originally intending to write about in a bit, what epiphany I woke up to, but America had to shit on itself all over again today.

Another Minneapolis murder by ICE. This one was Alex Pretti: a a 37-year-old intensive care nurse for a local veterans administration hospital. His crime? Helping to support a woman who had been pushed down by ICE agents by a sidewalk. They left her aside and went after him. Sprayed him with tear gas. Pushed him on the ground. He did have a gun, legal by permit in the state of Minnesota. Arguably it was taken from him. He was pistol-whipped multiple times in the head. Then one officer shot a single round. Nine more followed in the ensuing five seconds. And in the end, he laid dead on the cold, sunny street, surrounded by protesters blowing whistles, videoing the murder, and screaming to the skies, "Oh my God, what did you do?"

It makes me wonder. If there were such a thing as a country invading one of its own states, I'd imagine this is what it looks like. Is our country truly declaring war on itself?

One thing that brings this home to me is that this is Minneapolis—a city I lived in for two years, in a state I lived in for six. This is where I came out. My BFF from college Gloria works at the hospital that sits less than one mile away from where both murders took place. She lives a mile away from the federal center where ICE is headquartered. My college roommate John lives in Woodbury, a St. Paul suburb, and he recently attended a town hall where they debated hosting another ICE facility in the city limits. His daughter, a high school senior, is an advanced Spanish student who was caught at at Spanish speaking school invaded by ICE; it had to go into shutdown as if it were dealing with a school shooter. (I hate that we have shorthand language for that.)

Another thing: Minneapolis is, really, the first city to deal with such major issues. It's not a reach to say Denver may be next. Colorado is, thanks to Denver, a pretty reliable blue state, having passed purple status a while back. But our governor has made some appeasing actions lately that...may or may not work to keep things more secure. On the other hand, it looks as though ICE has built a more prevalent presence along Federal and Sheridan Boulevards.

So...that's where we stand right now. More in a bit.

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This morning's epiphany

I woke this morning thinking about my dream of being put in a position of power, or (nearly) being elected to some position or other, then knocking it down by freely admitting to something I've done that would disqualify me. Like talking about the time a college woman told me about how having her butt felt up was basically assault...then me doing it not five minutes later and laughing in her face about it, thinking that since I was a gay man, I'd get a pass. (I've obviously since learned otherwise, but that's pretty disqualifying, right?)

But while slowly rising to consciousness, I realized...I've been doing this quite often throughout my life. Like the time I was up for becoming senior patrol leader of my Boy Scout troop, then when posed the question, "Why do you want to become SPL?", I freely admitted that I didn't want to be...and successfully torpedoed my chance at that post. Or me leaving the school newspaper staff a year and a half into my time with them, forcing my girlfriend (who already had way too much on her plate) to become the editor-in-chief her senior year. Or me disparaging the Order of the Arrow as a popularity contest, when it could have been a great way to lead to more leadership roles, responsibilities, and better chances for advancement. Who knows what opportunities might have opened up from all those? I shot them all down.

A paper I wrote on Jack Kerouac in high school really revealed my position and ambition in life: that of a wise but not-so-hard worker who placed little importance on titles and roles. A glorified bum, really. There was some quote from The Dharma Bums that I used there that really made the point; it might be worth picking the book up and finding it again.

So...I needn't dream about shooting myself down in glory, because I've already done it multiple times. That dream has come to pass. Time to move on to something else. Possibly something more worthwhile and better. But we'll see if it comes to pass.

RIP Alex Pretti.