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from the Chicago Tribune;

published in the Star Tribune July 25, 2023

When I was 7 years old, Barbie was my first doll that might have needed a job instead of a diaper change. I imagined my Barbie as an archaeologist or a veterinarian or, a few years later when the space race began, as an astronaut. Her future was unfettered.

In 1961, Mattel released the first Ken doll. For one year only, the debut Ken had flocked felt hair. Woe is me, my Ken doll started going bald.

At age 10, I wrote a complaint letter to Mattel — and got action. They sent me a new Ken head with blond plastic hair. By popping the heads on and off, my Barbie could have two boyfriends — a wise, balding older guy or a somewhat clueless but hunky surfer dude.

That experience could have inspired me to be a bigamist. Instead, my successful complaint letter led me to consumer advocacy.

Teen Talk Barbie, released in 1992, uttered the phrase, “Math class is tough.” Way to discourage girls from considering careers in STEM! Activists calling themselves the Barbie Liberation Organization visited stores, bought talking Barbies and G.I. Joes and switched the voice boxes. Then they put the dolls back on the shelf.

Customers who unwittingly bought the altered dolls found themselves with G.I. Joes that said, “Let’s plan our dream wedding” and Barbies that shouted, “Eat lead, Cobra.”

Within a few months, Mattel dropped that phrase — and even offered to replace the dolls that claimed they were math-deficient with math-savvy versions.

written for the New York Times;

published in the Star Tribune December 9, 2008

The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. [...]

Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends.

I cannot imagine engaging in actions of that kind today.

The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other’s behavior. There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in our political culture, and at crucial times we’ve been unable to rise above it.

[...]

Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let’s hope they never will again. And let’s hope we might now assert that in our wildly diverse society, talking and listening to the widest range of people is not a sin, but a virtue.

from
The New York Times

published in
The Minnesota Star Tribune
January 21, 2026

It seems safe to assume that when Harry Truman forged NATO at the dawn of the Cold War, he never imagined that over the course of nearly eight decades the only country that would wage economic war and threaten actual war against the allies for the purpose of territorial conquest would be the United States itself.

And yet, that is the reality of this upside-down, might-makes-right world of President Donald Trump’s creation as he slaps tariffs on U.S. treaty partners and holds out the possibility of using military force to strong-arm Denmark and its European friends into giving up Greenland, a territory whose citizens do not want to become part of the United States.

Never in the past century has the United States gone forth to seize other coutries’ land and subjugate its citizens against their will.

[...] it is a measure of how much Trump has changed the definition of normal that his appetite for seizing land that does not belong to him is debated as a serious proposition rather than dismissed out of hand as a brazen violation of U.S. treaty obligations and international law.

Not the the United States has always respected other nations’ sovereignty. There have been plenty of times in its history when the U.S. has toppled governments or occupied countries it considered hostile. But never has it done so against a longtime ally that posed no threat.

Star Tribune Commentary page, August 15, 2012

The modern presidency is somewhat of a confidence game. A candidate seeks to gain trust not only for the chance to steer high-profile initiatives through a narcissistic Congress but also to control numerous less visible but equally consequential outcomes. The impacts are nearly countless.

If you’re playing any sport with a ball, you know to pass not to where your teammate is, but to where he or she is going to be. Campaigns being what they are, a similar concept applies to passing responsibility to candidates. Where might they really be headed? Do they have the credibility to get there?

Discuss.

Star Tribune Commentary page, May 20, 2003

This year’s legislative session came down to a tussle between the two dominant sets of interest groups at the Capitol: those for whom raising taxes one cent is anathema and those who believe that spending on government services automatically accomplishes fine results. No one in either the executive or the legislative branch of government took a public stance that both those silly positions are silly.

Star Tribune, April 3, 2011

Fixating on meat as the malady is a good example of the tail wagging the dog. The root problem isn’t that we cover our continent with grain to eat more red meat than we need. The problem is that we grow so much grain we hardly know what to do with it. So we feed it to cattle, put it in soft dringks, and even force ourselves to burn it in our cars. And why do we produce such an abundance of grain? Because we rig the market to make it so.

The real environmental problem is not that we eat meat; it’s that we insist on subsidizing inefficient and destructive grain production.

Star Tribune, October 30, 2011

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

You knew that.

But you may not have known that according to a mathematical model developed at the University of Minnesota, the fabulously rich get as rich as they do by chance alone. In a capitalist society, extreme concentration of wealth does not arise from extreme differences in work ethic, skills, investment smarts or other virtues. Nor does it come from connections, cronyism or crookedness.

Well, it does, but only some.

Mostly, extreme wealth comes from luck. In a laissez faire economy, within a few generations, a handful of players walk away with all the marbles. Because they’re lucky.

The policy implications should be alarming, especially if you’re a Paul Ryan conservative or Ron Paul libertarian who has been saying that economic liberty gives everyone a chance to grab the golden ring. It’s a vanishingly small chance. Indeed, if the model is accurate, the inevitable outcome of unfettered capitalism is oligarchy.

Extreme wealth is not a reward for virtue. Nor is it the ill-gotten gains of collusion. It is the inexorable outcome of dumb luck, the giant cardboard check of a national lotto.

As beneficiaries of a system that paid them way out of proportion to any effort or virtue of their own, the superrich are entitled to some of their wealth, but not all.

They should give a lot of it back.

Star Tribune, July 30, 2024

If you were one of the weird kids who got bullied on the playground, you might grow up to wear weird as a badge of honor. But weird hits differently if you were one of the bullies. Weird was their word for the weak. That might be why a party that shrugged off racism, sexism, school shootings, Nazi tiki torch parades, an attempted coup and a 78-year-old presidential candidate with 34 felony convictions absolutely melted down when Walz called them weird.

By the weekend, you couldn’t turn on a Sunday talk show without finding a Democrat pointing to some weird thing happening over in the Trump campaign.

Walz, now on the vice presidential shortlist, was in the thick of it. When, he wondered, was the last time America heard Trump laugh? If Trump has ever laughed, Walz said, it was probably at someone, not with them.

Former President Donald Trump cannot stop singing the praises of fictional and criminally insane cannibal Hannibal Lecter. The man took a detour in the middle of his own nomination acceptance speech to eulogize the “late, great Hannibal Lecter” to an approving crowd at the Republican National Convention. When he’s not talking about cannibals or sharks or winning elections that he resoundingly lost, Trump’s weirdness takes an uglier turn.

For years, Trump has rhapsodized about iron-fisted dictators overseas. Last week, at the Turning Point Believers Summit in Florida, he suggested that the 2024 election might be the last one America ever needs if he wins. No more voting necessary.

National weirdness begets state-level weirdness. For years, one of the biggest draws at the Minnesota Republican Party’s State Fair booth has been a cutout of Hillary Clinton in prison stripes. The party’s endorsed candidate for the U.S. Senate is extremely online reply guy Royce White, who spent campaign funds at strip clubs and begins and ends most online interactions with some variation of “shut up” followed by an expletive. The “only conservative” running for the Hennepin County Board allegedly threw a tarantula at a woman to settle an argument and posted selfies after her weekend in jail.

If that sounds weird, it’s because it is.

The Minnesota Star Tribune,
January 12, 2026

Fraudsters should be prosecuted and systems should be improved. Mistakes merit correction, not destruction.

When it comes to the suspension of federal child care funding, Trump’s team can’t even properly explain what it’s asking for. Child care facilities already take attendance and observe reporting requirements to receive federal funding.

Sending armed federal agents into Minnesota to “root out” the fraud, with unclear purpose and no information for the public, is pure political theater at best. In the last week, Minnesota has already seen the worst, as needless death and trauma punctuate ineffectual policy.

Let’s look at how this approach affects the child care crisis.

Businesses need employees? The problem gets worse.

Families need to pay for housing, food and insurance? The problem gets worse.

Students returning to college after semester break? They don’t know if they’ll finish school if no one can watch their kids. That will keep them out of the workforce even longer, costing everyone more in the long run.

In fact, this move will create an entirely avoidable economic disaster.

The Trump administration is built largely on a foundation of grievance. It has shown a capacity to punish, but no ability to fix anything. Furthermore, it’s difficult to take lectures on fraud from a president whose net worth almost doubled since taking office less than a year ago.

I know hating the government is popular, even bipartisan, but once we end state and federal programs to help working people, there will be nothing to take their place. Fantasies of tax cuts somehow filling the gap overlook the fact that the people who need the help will receive the least. The money is flowing up. The hardship is flowing down.

We are rightly offended by fraud because it deprives taxpayers of the necessary services they deserve. But the existence of bad actors requires improved safeguards and focused prosecutions, not spiteful disruption of our entire economy.

Parents and early childhood staff don’t want to play politics. The just want to go to work and know the kids will be safe and well cared for. We should listen to them.

The Minnesota Star Tribune,
January 27, 2026

Oppression can be found anywhere it’s allowed to stomp. Meantime, the hope of freedom endures everywhere, even in the darkest times.

As federal forces ignore due process and embrace violent tactics in Minnesota today, we see that America isn’t always the land of the free. At the same time, some Russians yearn for the same freedoms many Americans now take for granted.

One of them is Igor Yakovlev.

“There is the state and the government, and there is the country,” said Yakovlev. “For me, these are different things. I love my country and my people and wish them only the best. That is why I criticize what, in my view, the state does to the detriment of my country and my people.”

Different histories and influences explain why Russia and the United States felt like such different places during the Cold War, but new forces in the 21st century seem to be making them more similar. To this, Yakovlev sees a shared cure.

“What I also see in common is that in Russia, in the United States, in Europe, and in many other countries, the human being is ceasing to be the center of politics,” said Yakovlev. “Money, some abstract notion of greatness, and state power are placed at the forefront. Such a policy is fraught with the advance of authoritarianism, totalitarianism and their extreme forms, such as fascism. We need to return the human being to the center of politics.”

He said when a government no longer follows laws in favor of a political regime, everyone pays the price.

“In that case, the human being – their life, dignity, rights and freedoms – becomes not a goal but a means for the state,” said Yakovlev. “Human life then becomes worthless: The life of any person can easily be destroyed for the sake of abstract goals, because nothing protects it. Ultimately, this is bad for the state itself as well, because it becomes drawn into various adventures that, in the long run, only weaken it.”

Yakovlev said that Americans have enviable tools at their disposal, including “street demonstrations, the press, representative institutions, elections and the courts.“

“Unlike Russia, where these institutions essentially never existed, in the United States they have existed for centuries,” said Yakovlev. “Cherish them.”

Star Tribune, February 18, 2021

What Americans call “hump day” is known as “Little Saturday” (lillördag or lille lørdag) in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, where there’s a history of finding a small indulgence to make the middle of the week special.

“My friends and relatives in Sweden say it’s a way to raise up Wednesday, to do something cheerful or luxurious that’s usually reserved for the weekend,” said Ingela-Eilert Haaland, who moved to Minnesota from her native Sweden in 1994, married a Minnesotan and now teaches Swedish at the American Swedish Institute.

The tradition, Haaland said, came from the time when servants, who often worked on the weekend, had Wednesday night off.