The Back Room: 15 things that need to change in Washington

From April 2015, The National Press Club

(National Press Club, April 2015)

When I heard back in December that the president was opening up the door to Cuba, it was very exciting, like when spring comes to Minnesota in early June. The embargo of Cuba has been in place since I was a college freshman and writing poetry in all lower case with titles like “soliloquy for a broken piano,” and now I’m …