paul wellstone died today.

and while i know it's not fashionable to mourn politicians as if we knew them, wellstone was a hero of mine. his presence in the senate gave me hope. the fact that he was from minnesota made me proud. this summer, driving through st. cloud one day, i caught sight of the Big Green Bus, and felt like maybe there was a point to being involved in american politics after all. so now he's gone, and his two surviving children are orphans, and i want to cry for this man i've never met, who marched in the minneapolis pride parade and was proud to be a friend of organized labor and went to latin america to protest the coca war and voted against the iraq craziness and was, yes, a hero. not just "of mine."

now is the time to pray that the people of minnesota, like the people of missouri, have the courage and sense to elect the dead guy.