Like the St. Croix, and even Kinni, the river of ICE rages on, and with it global scenarios that change powers-that-be almost by the day. So we made up a new one to take over the North Atlantic and then Europe, and next up is the rest of the western world, ‘making war just for fun. Treating people just like boards and chess. Wait ’till the judgment day comes.’

There is an obscure island nation, which many centuries ago snapped up and occupied a small piece of land at the upper end of a big ocean, now wielding massive missiles on its beach borders, and recently the envy of Trump.

As a recourse, they will acquire/join the much bigger and pissed off Greenland and in-between Iceland, forming a bold triad alliance, the North Atlantic Defense League. Trump is furious, and readies his own missiles, and Denmark refuses to be listed as a reference. But emboldened, the new alliance seeks to replace NATO – on our global stage that rapidly shifts powers – and acquire also what is left of bombed out Ukraine and Gaza and even the Twin Cities of Minnesota. (Trump responds by mobalizing a kinder, gentlier version of the SS.) The now vast wasteland attracting the most attention of the newly dubbed prime minister — no one dares vocalize his name or that of this new land, just say IAM and NADL — is the former Minneapolis, as they can rebuild it, make it better, stronger, faster, by following their bible, dubbed Buy Cheap Properties In Great Volume For Eventual Sale Using The Art Of The Deal. (Trump sues for copyright infringment, but falls asleep before penning the whole of the BCP IGV FES UTA OTD.) The scattered distance between all the various acquired countries, done haphazardly in quick response to US aggression, troubles the PM not, as they are used to melting ice and turning it into raging sci-fi rivers on which to ride at light-speed, carrying their missiles. Trump’s can’t be repositioned for everywhere, they reason, so there is a perceived safety. 

But then all the bombs suddenly go off and all that is left is China. The new and only remaining power in a suddenly Mad Max world.

— One of the Pink Barbie Houses still has a big Xmas tree set in the back payload of its full-frontal glowing pickup truck, er, out front, as to front the main street but still on the lawn, with the fully decked-out house that used to be black, set in back. As in with a heavenly host of pink, plinky Christmas lights. Blocks away, a second such house by the same owner hawks another holiday with Valentine’s Day offers on its sign out front. Bringing tidings of comfort and joy to lodgers. And across town, at the old market, the remnants of trees that go beyond what’s put out with the trash now, a month post-holiday …

What, these Christmas trees, big and small, are not German, like the original makers used by my such-ethnicity family, but Dutch by name? Don’t they stop spiraling upward with the windmills, like those across-county in Baldwin?

Some that have been on sale as Dutchman Trees could be a Dutch Treat, as in BOGO, (do the Dutch ever get tired of hearing this old reference?) I swear I saw some on my holiday bus trip to the down south, going past the Dutch Mills stop. —

OK, 99 percent or more that is BS, but that is allowed these days. Telling things factually has been discouraged since investigating the Death of the Good, or the Floyd, but you will see the world power sarcastic parallels.

But this is not Greenland …

Or even Iceland …

The feds obviously are not familiar with Minnesconsin, where throwing snowballs at someone almost constitutes a sign of love. After tossing snow at ICE as they got off at the Twin Cities (not international anymore) airport, (maybe on Trump’s jet), ICE responded to the (Minnesota Nice) welcoming with full-scale pepper ball firings — and this is well beyond what you get hit by at the blazin’ hot BWW or NH PepperFest. Now, quite a bit after that, the ICE presence has led to what have been called “wholesale” arrests. And deaths.

At this point, and it’s been at this point, everybody has an ICE story to tell. Like everyone used to have, as I write from close to the Twin Cities, a brush-with-Prince story, and shared them with each other back around the time of his death.

I Survived ICE, (usually), seen as a T-shirt, has fast become part of the (sometimes a bit urban myth) cultural ICE picture, or should I say winter landscape. Or detention center.

Tied in with that Prince reference, are those in nearby facilities who come to the aid of drug-addled people, with all the massive funding cuts for mental health service. Are they, too, victims of white-collar narcanist terrorists?

The killed woman – the first one done in – was married to another woman. So obviously she is going to be a target. And this isn’t even Russia, where it’s understood to be understood. I say one word to them and their marriage: Good.

Call it the Britney Griner syndrome, a cager put in a cage or worse, for political reasons, or for sexual preferences. And we hope Epstein has no more copycats.

But then, well past midnight  …

There I was, in the heat of it all. I stood up, face to face, spittin’ distance, with a nationalist ICE cold guy, and said to him about the child behind me, “you get to him through me.”

“But that was just a dream … just a dream.” REM song over ICE. Not nice. Call it a nightmare. Now mine.

At a favorite haunt, the oldest continuously running bar in Wisconsin, or so they say, I asked if there had been a raid yet. Yes, ICE agents had been in. Early in the month. But it sounded plural. Probably doing a walk-through, but with doing some lingering around, through the different rooms, to try to ascertain who was working in the kitchen?

After all, this is a dive bar in the truest and most favorable sense of the word, pure Americana. The black concrete floor gives it away. It doesn’t get much more American than at Dick’s Bar and Grill, but not even they are safe. Doesn’t ICE have other, better things to do, we discussed, as someone came up and said that they had been Jonesy’s Local too, which has long been owned by a bartender who got his stripes at Dick’s.

Across the alley, a sign: Doors must stay closed during all deliveries. (And to keep ICE out?) Despite the fact that it looks like there are some coolers setting outside.

Such as often seen downtown, big boots and bare belly, and legs and luscious lipstick, will it get you off? (Would this be the case with randy gung-ho-young-male-ICE-agents when in their “raids” they encounter strippers, ‘er models?) And no one gets shot, uhm, while there.

With all this said, Trump’s disaster relief response is often, literally, a day late and a dollar short. He just throws ICE at it.

Why is our country and world in such awful shape? The Charlie Kirk group has 20 times the number of followers as that for singer and lyricist Robert Plant. You’d think they were a killer band or something.

Certainly, there is a Republican somewhere who is not a mean asshole.

They’re just very hard to find. Or should I say “conservative.” That brings the hammer down and filters the question more, in the wrong direction.

But that’s what labels tend to do. And no one labels quite like a conservative.

Invoke Metallica, at the end of a song with many twists and turns in message. “I label you, you label me, so I dub thee unforgiven.” As part of a noteworthy trilogy that has gotten many comments — not all glowing.

But oh, our friend Oudi is safe from ICE because of Birthright. (Is that a pro-life term?) He was born here, well before accepting IT work, in Texas ming you. However, with the way things are going, don’t count your chickens before … you check to see if their eggs, by the dozen, were stolen. Oh wait. Just maybe that is yesterday’s news.

Today’s news, in the Hudson Star-Observer, details the tension at a River Falls trailer park when ICE showed up. But few people there would go on record and be quoted.

Separately, he was asked: Are you joking? Really? Or just hyperbole? His written post was brought into play, taking The Hunger Games and compared it to Epstein’s actions. As far as getting a group of just teenage girls and another of just teenage boys to fight to the death, in an arena. Or was it a bedroom …

It was a way of getting around to saying that the announcement of such an activity is so stupid, you wouldn’t believe it to be real under any normal circumstance.

A lot of that going around these days.

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