Report from Minneapolis

[LAS14]

9. More from my friend in Minneapolis today.

We were just ordered by the city to put all our garbage, recycle and compost bins in the garage, put our hoses out front so people can access them if there is a fire, remove our propane tanks from our grills and store them somewhere safe, remove any rocks, bricks or pavers that could be thrown and fill up our cars gas tanks in cars parked outside garages ( I guess if you drop a match into a full gas tank it just extinguishes the match, unlike when you have only a little bit of gas but lots of fumes. Then the fumes ignite and explode. Little did I know! ). Everyone has been asked to keep our outside and inside lights on all night.

I will stay up tonight to watch and listen for trouble. But I am hoping for a quiet night with the overwhelming force of many State Police, 2500 National Guard, local police and sheriffs and now 500 federal troops. We have been warned that anyone, absolutely anyone, on the street after 8pm will be arrested and held in our convention center for 72 hours. Now I am taking a nap to get ready for a long night. Plus I am just tired of talking about this, worrying about this, preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. I have a meeting in 20 minutes with our block club to do further planning for tonight. BTW, the reason for all these preparations is that we are worried that if the instigators are kept away from our business strips they might move into the neighborhoods to seed their chaos. The police and National Guard have warned us about this, based apparently on come communications they have had access to between instigators. So, prepare we will. I just wish it would all end. But I have no control over that.