What good does it do to “speak out”?

I’ll cut right to the chase today and save the meandering for another day. On this cold Monday morning I typed “stand with Minnesota” into my Internet search bar and found a site with exactly that name, so here it is. Within the site you will find various other links, so do a little exploring and see where you want to put your two cents—or more, I hope.

 

I STAND WITH 

MINNESOTA.

 

I STAND FOR 

THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

 

 

A group of stalwart Northporters gathers on the sidewalk every Thursday morning, and on Monday morning, casting about with that agonizing question, “What can I do?” I thought, I can do that. 

 

Former presidents Obama and Clinton have spoken out. (I’m still waiting to hear from President Bush.) They, of course, are famous people, former presidents, historic personages. What possible difference can it possibly make for one “tiny bookseller” (as I was once called) in a tiny Up North village to hold a sign and add her aged voice to the resistance? I was told by one political opponent that my “rants” don’t do any good and was asked how I can possibly expect anything I write or say to change the course of history.

 

Let me turn that question around: How do you expect to turn our national tragedy around by remaining silent? I shouldn’t say “you” there but “anyone.” How does anyone hope to do good by crossing to the other side of the street and looking away? “How many times can a man turn his head/and pretend that he just doesn’t see?”

Protests in the Sixties (1960s, that is) were not always peaceful, and they were not always effective, and there are plenty of Sixties sayings that aren’t worth printing on a t-shirt, but one I stand by today: 

IF YOU’RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION, YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM. One voice is not one alone when voices join together in a chorus.

 

Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse murdered—shot in the back—by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday (they “scattered” after firing their guns), was the classic good Samaritan. On Nicollet Avenue to observe ICE and film activities to protect his community, he stopped to help a woman pushed to the ground by federal—I want to call them “storm troopers,” but let’s use the more neutral term—“agents.” He wanted to make sure she was all right. Because of that, after his legally permitted firearm was taken from him (he did not have it in his hand), and while he was lying on the ground (already “subdued” by multiple agents), he was executed in cold blood.

 

With whom do you stand? For what do you stand? If not now, when?

Postscript: I strongly recommend this video statement by Adam Kinzinger. Watch and listen to the end. Good arguments, strong background. 

May or June? Lake Superior or Lake Michigan? Both and Both!

The wildflowers in the woods are at their peak in the merry month of May, and there is always a single magical day in May when I would give anything for a PAUSE button. It’s that day when the smallest flush of first leaf and bloom takes the winter nakedness away from trees, that perfect Impressionist moment of light and color after months of winter and early spring drab. When May arrives, it is the best time of the year. It’s a miracle, time after time. Then along comes June and steals my heart, for what is so rare as a day in June? June is the culmination of spring and the beginning of summer. If May is the courtship, June is the wedding. The days are not all sunny (in either month), but the season rushes on, relentlessly filling and greening.

This year June is extra-special for me, "Lake Superior Month" at Dog Ears Books, so to introduce the theme, below is a photograph of Lake Superior at Hurricane River, west of Grand Marais, from our last September's all-too-brief getaway.


A week from now, on Friday, June 17, we will be hosting the Leelanau launch of Ellen Airgood's South of Superior. I've written about this book before and about Ellen and about my love affair with the Upper Peninsula and particularly with the little town of Grand Marais, the model for Airgood's fictional McAllaster. As wonderful coincidence would have it, the following Monday we will have a visit from another author whose novel is set on Lake Superior. Danielle Sosin, from St. Paul, Minnesota, will come to Northport to sign copies of her book, The Long-Shining Waters, at 1 p.m. on June 20. I hope some of you will be able to meet both of these talented authors and welcome them along with me to Lake Michigan country.

I'll end today's post with an image of Lake Michigan at Peterson Park. I could have chosen a sandier beach, perhaps a dramatic sunset over Good Harbor, but Leelanau Township is my home grounds, and this cool, morning-shaded, rocky strand is a favorite summer haunt. Besides that, I feel rich to have it all--May and June, Lakes Superior and Michigan, the rocks and the sand and the Michigan authors and their books.