Reposted by Rana Awdish MD
Jeesh, I wish I had known about this book when I finished 18 mos of treatment for breast cancer. It was so hard going through this on my own. Having cancer was awful but recovering from treatment was not anticipated. I thought I could just jump back into my life and I felt shame because I couldn't.
![Letter to the Editor format:
Midwestern Nice
We have submitted a formal
entry seconding The Nation’s
nomination of the people of
Minneapolis for the Nobel
Peace Prize [“The Nation
Nominates Minneapolis
for the Nobel Peace Prize,”
March 2026]. With six decades of Midwestern living
between us, we recognized a
distinctly regional thing amid
all the chaos wreaked by ICE:
neighborliness. Midwestern
Nice takes care of your neighbors. The skills honed across
parent-teacher associations,
potlucks, and sports boosters became a contemporary
barn-raising of sustained
peaceful action by the people
of Minneapolis. Minnesotans
distributed hand warmers
and whistles in
the face of ICE’s
repeated provocations, thereby
reasserting care,
mutual support,
and nonviolent
norms in their community.
They even turned potential
weaknesses into distinctive
effectiveness: In 2026, backfence whispering detected
masked federal agents willing
to snatch neighbors’ children
or shoot unarmed mothers
and nurses. With the initial
victory of drawing down thousands of federal agents, the
power of neighborliness as a
basis for action is clear. Those
of us not in Minnesota need
to collectively imagine: How
can we protect our own neighbors, in a way that uses the
distinctive strength and flavor
of where we are from?
Theodore J. Iwashyna
baltimore, md
Amanda Uhle
ann arbor, mi](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kf7xrcveixz3q7vlk3r2wxpw/bafkreiadkwlyzyooawccys2cyly3iycnrfep6boqfcwa2h4lvqk2ktl3fa)