If a draw on his slow-burning Macanudo and a sip of his Beaujolais Nouveau doesn’t get your blood moving, his in-your-face pragmatism towards politics definitely will. Rick McCluhan, 42, born of a full-blooded Sicilian mother and Scotch-Irish father, carries a zest for life, business and politics that few southern Minnesotans can match.
From his Sicilian mother’s genes he seems to have inherited a blunt pragmatism and a fondness for pasta, cigars, and wine. It was the Sicilians’ neighbors, the Romans, after all, who coined the phrase II vino veritas: In wine there is truth.
On his Dad’s side, his heritage extends back to the feisty Protestants of Northern Ireland, who bred such Revolutionary War patriots as Patrick Henry of “Give me Liberty or give me death!” fame. All three U.S. Presidents with a Scotch-Irish past began or greatly inflamed wars: Polk (Mexican), McKinley (Spanish-American), and Johnson (Vietnam).

With his sinewy hands touching together at the fingertips, Dr. Doug Wood, president at Immanuel St. Joseph’s- Mayo Health System, and cardiologist, tried clearing up some of the confusion about recent changes in healthcare. But it seemed, to this writer at least, a futile task. A state-of-the-art knowledge of healthcare, like that of computer technology, often lasts only a few months before becoming outdated.