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Expat wanderer

Streets of Minneapolis: Sing it Loud!

Thank you, Bruce Springsteen. Protests need an anthem, and just in time, you recorded Streets of Minneapolis, the number one song in 19 countries this weekend. That’s powerful. Listen for yourself on YouTube.

Here are the lyrics. Singing is non-violent and unifying; Sing it LOUD. If you can’t remember all the words, memorize the chorus 😊.

Streets of Minneapolis

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so this story goes


Against smoke and rubber bullets
In the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good


(chorus)
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis


Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies


Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis


Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown, my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In our chants of “ICE out now”
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis


Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis


source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/bruce_springsteen/streets_of_minneapolis

Thank YOU Bruce Springsteen!

February 1, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , , | Leave a comment

Sunset on the Coldest Night of the Year

What you can’t see is the wind blowing, and the white caps on the bayou. We had to re-cover and re-clothespin the roses and plumbago, and the ice on our water tubs was an inch thick. No problems with the running water freezing – so far. We have some cold days yet to come, but this is likely to be the coldest day of the year.

We saw One Battle After Another yesterday at the theater downtown that shows art films, foreign films and award nominees. The tickets are $10, the venue is provided free and the guy that runs the show does it for the love of film. Not only do we watch the films, but there are also great discussions.

Friends told me I probably wouldn’t like the movie, but I loved it. Going to Uni on the West Coast, I felt like I knew those people, on both sides. And dark as it was, it held a mirror up to current themes. I love actors who choose challenging roles, and even roles in which they play people who make bad decisions, or aren’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Leonardo diCaprio had his work cut out for him in this role, and I think he nailed it. Yes, it is wacky and violent. We are living in wacky and violent times. Who would have thought we would elect a liar, cheat, and felon to be President of the United States, and that we would stand by, helpless, as he gutted our Constitution? Wacko. It’s all wacko.

Today is a Full Moon, a new month and God willing, a time to turn things around. Bruce Springsteen has the number one song in 19 countries, with The Streets of Minneapolis, a roaring anthem fit for the times, and Minneapolis has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their activism and self-restraing in the face of the goons of ICE.

Atlantic Monthly has a new article on how the Proud Boys aren’t coming in the counter the hundreds of demonstrators; that the Homeland Security and ICE squads are doing a fine job – and they have photos to show how an organization theoretically doing customs enforcement now looks just like the Proud Boys. When did Customs Enforcement dress like troops going into villages in Afghanistan? What legitimate law enforcement officers wear masks? Who in their right minds arrests little children?:

Proud Boys in Washington, DC

ICE agents in Minneapolis

Law Enforcement officers, in civilized countries with laws protecting the innocent (and who are innocent until the system determines them guilty), are TRAINED to operate with restraint. Trained personnel do not fire on civilian bystanders.

I’ve watched the Minneapolis tapes, especially the one filmed by officer Jonathan Ross. I listened to him as, just after the shooting, he said “F@#king B!tch” and I don’t think he was even thinking about Good; I think he was angry that Good’s wife had called him “Big Boy” and told him to go get a sandwich. Most of the guys we see in those uniforms are hefty, and slow, and clumsy. And they do not respond to mockery with self-restraint – as we have seen. They need training. And it wouldn’t hurt if they had grown-up leadership. The kinds of vague, unconstitutional and inciting instructions they have received seem designed to be incendiary.

February 1, 2026 Posted by | Afghanistan, Aging, Bureaucracy, Character, corruption, Counter-terrorism, Cultural, Law and Order, Leadership, Living Conditions, Sunsets, Weather | , , , , | Leave a comment