Category: Free the Jackson Five

What do the Episcopal Church and Kobe Bryant have in common? Both are being forced to face the consequences of earlier moral commitments that may take them to places they never wanted to go. For the Episcopal Church, the initial commitment was to social equality. For Kobe, it was marital fidelity. Next year at this…

“Equal justice under law.” These words, emblazoned over the entrance to the United States Supreme Court in Washington, really represent the “bottom line” of our court system. No matter who you are—Joe Blow or Joe Biernat—if you do the crime, you should get the same time. In unguarded moments, however, lawyers will tell you what…

Pitching great Satchel Paige used to tell his teammates to never look back, “because something may be gaining on you.” This is great advice, especially if you are R.T. Rybak and Don Samuels is the guy gaining on you. Why? Because key Minneapolis political insiders increasingly view Mayor Rybak as a “sound bite” schmoozer and…

On March 20, 2003, Quinn Keating Collins made his grand entrance on planet Earth. On April 29, 2003, his grandfather, Clinton Clarence Collins, Sr., took his final bow. My two oldest sons, Joseph and Alexander, knew their grandfather and heard, probably more times than they wanted to, the stories of Mississippi cross-burnings and ducking bullets…

When I moved to north Minneapolis in October 2001, my “posse,” with perhaps one or two exceptions, was, shall we say, perplexed. Oh, everyone liked the house, a recently renovated five-bedroom house with Birdseye maple hardwood floors and leaded glass windows. The neighborhood—that was a different matter. My former wife warned my two oldest sons…

The most important decision most people will ever make is picking the person who owns the last face they see at night and the first face they see in the morning. My mother used to warn my sisters and me to avoid being “unevenly yoked” as we shopped for spouses. For me in particular, that…