Here's a real story from a true Minnesotan

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/09/06/rnc_guard/view/index2.html?show=all

As much as I appreciate the media attention to events outside the Excel Center, I feel compelled to share an encounter I experienced while waiting for a bus in downtown St. Paul.

I was approached by an agitated young man demanding to know "where the protesters were." I saw his buzz cut and USMC tattoo on his forearm so I was a little hesitant to encourage any further confrontations in our normally polite and reasonable Capitol city.

But then he explained that he was trying to locate the police officer that had just Mace'd his eight-month pregnant sister, forcing her into early labor.

He further explained that he had just returned from Iraq and that he could not believe such a thing could happen not only in the country he defended but in Minnesota.

I am truly sick at heart at how the RNC managed to totally obliterate the Minnesotan ethic of decency and tolerance in St. Paul.