Tag Archives: Minneapolis

Fear of Crime Always Sells

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[UPDATED] I take very little pleasure in correctly predicting the ignominious defeat of Minneapolis’ “police reform” amendment. A couple weeks ago, when I wrote, “Bold Prediction: Police Reform (i.e. “Question Two”) Will Lose by at Least 10%” all the signs pointed to the same conclusion. Since no one knew — really — what came next after “reforming” the cops, the only safe choice was sticking with what we’ve got.

Were I a Minneapolis resident I would have voted in favor of “Question Two”. But that decision would be based on:

1: Having had (way more than) enough of a clearly diseased cop culture. (And judging by the number of Minneapolis cops willing to slap on an ugly t-shirt and howl approval for Donald Trump, the case is closed on whether “diseased” is fair judgment.)

Trump hates us': President's Minneapolis visit gets no welcome from Minnesota Somalis | MPR News

2: A belief that the city’s generally well-educated activist community would have had impact on the creation and function of … what would come next.

And 3: I’m a white guy in the “safe” quadrant of town. Stories of car jackings and catalytic converter thefts are frequent, but I give next to no thought of getting caught in gang-banger crossfire.

I haven’t yet seen a precinct-by-precinct break down of the vote, but my guess is that Question Two’s 57%-43% thrashing was heavily influenced by northside residents saying, “Hell no.”

[UPDATE: Well, well, well. It seems the area of Minneapolis most heavily opposed to Question Two was my neighboring hood. Comfortably middle to upper class, predominantly white, liberal, safe-as-it-gets southwest Minneapolis. This opens another interesting line for ranting … but not right now.]

That said, Democrats and progressives justifiably horrified by what (again) is fair to describe as constant cop thuggery/racism/sexism/neanderthalism, are going to have to take a painful reality check before the next election.

Department of Justice opens investigation into Minneapolis Police Department | News | insightnews.com

Fear of crime — heavily and cynically hyped by conservative media and candidates — is Issue #1 for the forseeable future. And it’s the easiest sell imaginable.

The progressive version of law and order doesn’t play on a bumper sticker.

Even comfy, otherwise liberal-minded whites, people who accept that the cop culture is such an entrenched tumor, capable of aggravating (if not generating) so much fear and hysteria through “blue flu” work slowdowns and the shivving of any politician who crosses their union, are here to stay. The slightest attempt to reform or “correct” (as Delbert Grady says to Jack Torrance in “The Shining”) will set off a new, more intense round of fear-stoking by the usual suspects.

Perhaps someone can offer a scenario where the newly powered-up Mayor’s office can end an era of cop impunity (Derek Chauvin and Mohamed Noor withstanding) and restock the department with ethical, composed professionals instead of ex-telemarketers and mall cops waving their fresh-issued police revolvers in the face every black guy with a broken tail light.

But someone else is going to have spin up that scenario, because I sure as hell can’t.

Two Statues for George Floyd Square

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I am not a sculptor, nor do I play one on YouTube. But I have a recommendation for a statue — actually two of them — at George Floyd Square.

Along with all the imagery and signage about George himself, what that corner needs are statues of Darnella Frazier holding up her cellphone and the little girl next to her in her “Love” t-shirt. Why them? Because those two images encapsulate for me the brute motivation for the murder and how we evolve out of this violent, racist “enforcement” syndrome.

Let me explain: Reasonable minds may disagree, but the turning point of the incident, the precise, in-the-moment influence that turned just another episode of over-aggressive policing into murder was the crowd admonishing and taunting Chauvin to stop what he was doing. As Frazier’s video shows, his response was to, in effect, double down the pressure on a dying man.

Regarded as an alpha male by his rookie cohorts and by himself, (I’m guessing), Chauvin’s reaction in that moment was raw king (or at least prince) of the jungle. “I am The Man here.” “I am in charge.” “I do as I please.” “No one challenges my supremacy.” And so, rather than lift off Floyd’s neck as the crowd was pleading, he sustained force for long minutes … after Floyd was already dead.

“Anyone else want a piece of this?”

Throughout his trial, Chauvin’s defense attempted to create a picture of a tense, threatening situation — for Chauvin. It was yet another run at the classic, invariable and inevitable defense for every violent/freaked-out cop. “He/she feared for his life.”

Except that there there was no physically intimidating, much less threatening mob. There was Darnella and the little girl standing there in her “Love” t-shirt. Those two — and an older guy cussing him out — were what Chauvin the alpha dog was afraid of? No jury in the world, (with the exception maybe of some in Alabama or South Dakota), was going to believe that, and Chauvin’s didn’t.

The little girl in the “Love” shirt then represents unthreatening, life-affirming innocence affronted by the spectacle of hypocrisy — an authorized authority figure abusing his authority — committing a public murder. (When Judge Cahill assess the “aggravating circumstances” in Chauvin’s guilt, the fact that he — a cop, slowly, methodically and remorselessly murdered a man in plain view of children, should qualify Chauvin for another five to ten years.)

But superseding all other influences in Chauvin’s conviction is young Darnella’s camera.

You and I both know the situation this morning would be a lot different if Chauvin’s slow-mo murder hadn’t been recorded from start to finish. A statue of Darnella then represents the first and most powerful solution to reflexive cop racism and violence. Namely, an alert citizen with a camera and a potential audience of millions.

Not being particularly optimistic about political solutions to cop criminality, I expect little to nothing of significance from the usual clash of metropolitan liberals and their terrified, conservative, race-baiting rural colleagues.

But the public at large can’t help but have taken away from the conviction of an otherwise ordinary brute cop the searing power of video. The number of cameras (including cop body cams) recording the Floyd encounter was startling. And that level of “coverage” as they say in Hollywood is only going to increase as millions more citizen on-lookers hit “record” whenever they see cops (six of them in this case, in rabid response to that possibly counterfeit $20) go all pack-wolves on anyone, particularly another Black person.

It’s as though sinister, all-present, all-seeing Big Brother has molted into a sea of shocked and horrified teenagers and grade schoolers, all equipped with the ability to provide damning testimony against The Man.

If cities aren’t chastened by the $47 million Minneapolis has paid out in the Mohammed Noor and Derek Chauvin crimes, cops themselves have to be chilled by the sight of the brass and suits above them reacting to indefensible video evidence and cutting loose one of their own a veteran alpha. How they behave off public streets, or on lonesome stretches of road, is another matter. But even the average, fresh out of cop school rookie has to be smart enough to understand that each new Floyd v. Three Cars and Six Cops incident on a city thoroughfare is going to draw video coverage like the last quarter of the Super Bowl.

So yeah, two statues. Darnella and her camera: Alert citizen witnesses and their power of “testimony”. Alongside pint-sized “Love”: emblematic of the sick myth of mortal fear (of citizens!) among armed authority, plus a reminder of the scarring effect of police thuggery on innocents.

I’ll throw in $100 to Kickstart whatever real sculptor wants to take a run at that.

Police Reform, if I Were King.

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Someone, back in the civil rights fight of the mid-Sixties said, “The American attention span is ten days.” After that, lacking any fresh excitement, we get bored and gravitate to new stimulation. Today, in our digital age, there are studies saying goldfish have a longer attention span than the average human.

The context is of course the remarkable clamor for radical police reform in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. As a wizened creature of the Sixties, who saw months/years of angry anti-war street protests elect Richard Nixon … twice, I am skeptical anything seriously “reformative” is going to come out of any level of government, certainly not the Republican-controlled federal end of things.

The one wild card in this Debbie Downer thinking is the absolute certainty that as this summer goes on and leads into what is certain to be an absurdly chaotic autumn campaign season, American cops will continue to kill black men and women with appalling regularity.

Watching the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, I was flasbbergasted that the two cops involved clearly has no sense of the large cultural moment. They had no presence of mind or impulse cntrol to consider that everyone in that Wendy’s parking lot was aiming a video camera at them and that they were poised to be the next poster-boys for panicked, racist cops. (The guy’s drunk and he’s running away. You’ve got his car. Go pick him up later. FFS.)

This past weekend The New York Times hosted an unusually good roundtable discussion of what “police reform” should include. It ran the gamut of everything currently on the table. Dissolving or neutering police unions. Reallocating/restoring money for armed cops to basic social services like mental health. The tricky transition period between dissolving a police department and replacing it with something better trained in de-escalation. Reassuring white suburbanites that they’re not going to be collateral damage in “defunding” the police. It’s worth the read.

For me, as I’ve ranted before many times, the bottom line begins with a better class of person hired to be an armed cop. Time after time the curriculum vitae of cops involved in these killings plays along the lines of: high school drop out, GED diploma, junior college drop out, odd assortment of “security jobs”, maybe a hitch in the Army then on to four months at police academy where they get eight times as many hours of gun and “defensive” training as de-escalation education. After that they’re handed a badge, a loaded gun and assigned to a “senior officer”, think Derek Chauvin, who shows them how the game is really played.

That is nuts.

Add up the property damage, over-time for ensuing protests, impact on reputation and legal pay-outs (when rarely convicted) and you’re talking the most expensive employees any city puts out on the streets. Drop-outs and semi-deadenders with guns? Jesus.

Is it too much to ask and wonder how many of these characters ever took a humanities course? Ever read a novel, other than “The Turner Diaries” or some Vince Flynn pulp? Shouldn’t an education in human psychology, the roots of rage and depression and a broad depth of understanding of dissimilar cultures be primary criteria for graduation from police academy if not acceptance into cop school to begin with?

Were I allowed to play king, (feel free to bend the knee), I’d coordinate a temporary force of the State Patrol, county sheriff’s department and National Guard as needed, (deal with them later), simultaneous with the dissolution of the Minneapolis police department (and its “union” — not that the AFL-CIO wants anything to do with Bob Kroll et al). The dissolution would come with a promise that all current officers would be allowed to immediately re-apply for the new Minneapolis Peace Force (or whatever). This would be conditioned on them proving they have not been a repeat violent offender, have not participated in one of Betsy DeVos’ brother’s paranoid “Bulletproof Warrior” trainings (or the like) and pass a dramatically upgraded and aggressive psychological examination designed to thoroughly assess their worst authoritarian impulses.

The carrot to all this would haver to be — have to be — a substantial increase in pay and benefits. Day to day policing is miserable work, (made worse by the cast of alpha dog Derek Chauvins you have to kowtow to). If you want better people, you’re going to have to lure them away from jobs that don’t require them to get in between raging spouses, chase around gang-bangers, piss off average citizens with nuisance, revenue-enhancing traffic tickets and write up minor car accident reports.

The savings would come with — picking a number here — 35-40% fewer armed cops. And significantly more mental health counselors, accident investigation personnel and similar non-uniformed, unarmed civilian staff to respond to things like, well for example, suspicion a guy tried to pass a counterfeit $20.

“Over-policing” is a real thing. It’s expensive to sustain, and catastrophically expensive when it goes bad. How much better off would George Floyd and the city of Minneapolis be if two MPD plus a Park Police squad, totalling six officers didn’t show up to “investigate” that bogus $20?

But I’m not holding my breath for anything of the sort. The old Cold War mentality that any “cuts”, any changes, anything other than more firepower would leave us “nekkid before the Rooskies” applies in this case as well.

When 40,000 Dead ISN’T the National Emergency

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Who said “national emergency”?

Among the horrifying, doomsday scenarios tossed up by — Republicans — over why Donny should not set a precedent over this “invasion” across the southern border was the possibility that in the future some (deranged, fanatical, Constitution-hating, tyrannical) Democrat would, you know, declare a national emergency and  … you’re sitting down, right? … demand … background checks … on guns.

The unspeakable horror! Talk about Nazi-style overreach! What would be next, gummint-mandated castration for all real American males? Might as well. It’d be the same dang thing!

With Trump at long last declaring his national emergency, which, as we now know, he “didn’t have to do”, he jumped on Air Force One for Mar-a-Lago and a long President’s Day weekend of intense, hands-on management of the invasion emergency. Excuse me, not “emergency”. I meant, “golf”. Hands-on the putter, not on the “emergency.”

Simultaneous with Donny-in-the Garden yesterday we had news of yet another disgruntled citizen settling scores at his former place of employment. How? In the time-honored ‘Murican tradition of shooting up the place, killing five co-workers and wounding a bunch of cops.

Meanwhile, Minnesota peace officers up in tiny Nevis were dealing with something of the same. A family dispute at an in-home day-care center that erupted into Hollywood-style gunplay, including a chase with the totally legal conceal/carry perp shooting back and wounding a cop in a pursuing squad car. Grand total: three dead.

Also, still in the news, the rent-a-cop dude who shot up a school bus on the freeway here in Minneapolis because, wait for it, he “feared for his life”*.

This misplaced cowboy/too-many “action movies” bravado is so standard we’ve pretty much stopped asking any more questions about any of these incidents. But I’ve got a couple about the two here in Minnesota.

Specifically, this detail from Dan Browning’s Strib story on the Nevis shoot-out.

“Bryce Bellomo [the shooter] was well known in Nevis, a city of 400 residents. He was an award-winning taxidermist, volunteer firefighter, Boy Scout leader and baseball coach, the source said. Court records show that he had a permit to carry a firearm and was known to do so. Last March, he was charged with misdemeanor domestic assault and interfering with a 911 call in an incident involving his wife. According to court records, the couple had an argument and Bryce Bellomo forcibly took his wife’s cellphone and pushed her toward his vehicle, then drove her into the Paul Bunyan State Forest, where they got stuck. A SWAT team found them by pinging her cellphone and convinced Bryce Bellomo to walk out.”

Put another way, the constantly gun-toting Boy Scout leader had … a SWAT team … pull him out of a forest where he had essentially kidnapped and terrified his soon-to-be ex-wife … but months later, he was still packing his gun . Just in case, you know, he could defend himself against two women [the ex-wife’s sisters] messing with him outside a day-care center.

God forbid we have any kind of law that requires cops in a town of 400 to A: Take away the nutjob’s guns after a SWAT team has to track him down, and B: Stop him anytime they see him and shake him down to make sure he hasn’t re-armed.

Next, the school bus shooter, 31-year old automatic weapon-toting “security guard” Kenneth Lilly. The school bus episode is bonkers enough. (*”Feared for his life” is by now boilerplate law enforcement bullshit for every time they gun someone down in the line of duty. E.g. Philandro Castile.) But did you catch the story of Lilly’s previous gunfight?

This from a Libor Jany story in the Strib:

“According to a police report, Lilly said he was checking on his parents’ home while they were out of town and decided to drive to Shadow Falls Park at Summit Avenue and Mississippi River Boulevard late that night to view the blue moon. He met a woman sitting on the bluff and they began chatting. About 15 minutes later, they were approached by a man who asked to use Lilly’s phone, Lilly told police. He was reaching for it when Broadbent intervened, pointed a handgun at Lilly and the woman and demanded that he empty his pockets. Lilly “feared for his life and immediately lifted up his shirt which concealed a Glock 23 loaded with hollow point bullets on his right hip,” then fired four to five rounds at Broadbent. Broadbent was declared dead at the scene. Police seized the gun from Lilly at the scene. Upon searching him, they also found three Glock 40 magazines in his left front pocket, along with pepper spray, two pocket knives, a wallet, flashlight, cellphone and a set of car keys.”

Besides wondering how Lilly managed to whip out his Glock and pump four or five slugs into a guy who he says was already holding a gun on him, do any of you think it just a wee bit odd that a guy who wanders over to the riverbank to enjoy the moonlight and maybe meet a nice gal … is also packing three clips of ammo and two knives … in addition to the loaded Glock with hollow point bullets? I mean, that scenario gives a fresh luster to the old line about, “Is that your weapon officer, or are you just happy to see me?”

As I say these kinds of stories with these kinds of plainly unstable men (always) are so routine in the great and free US of A no one explores where these characters came from, or what explains their rage and paranoia? It’d be useful for some local feature writer to occasionally take a full dive into the back story of characters like the award-winning taxidermist/Boy Scout leader or young Mr. Lilly, the heavily armed rent-a-cop repeatedly “fearing for his life”. What were mom and dad like? What were theirsocial views when they talked with their friends, if they had any? What were their media influences?

But never mind. Our real national emergency isn’t the 350 million guns floating around this country, way too many in the hands of whack job solid citizens like the Boy Scout leader and the rent-a-cop. Or the 40,000 gun deaths every year. Uh uh. It’s the “invasion” of “millions” of rapists pouring across the Mexican border. Sean Hannity tells us so.

It’s an emergency so total and terrifying a guy needs a weekend of golf just to get his head around it.

 

 

The Public Deserves All Available Information in the Justine Damond Shooting … Now.

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While no more outrageous and appalling than the police killing of Philando Castile and the nearly 600 others (many unarmed minorities) gunned down by American law enforcement officers this year alone, my reaction shifted slightly from the moment I first heard that two young Minneapolis cops were involved in the death of a 40 year-old white woman in her pajamas.

Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted in Castile’s death despite clear evidence he panicked, purely and simply, at a seat-belted black man with a woman and child in the car. So my reaction to Saturday’s night’s events was that yet again the city and the shaky reputation of the police will suffer as a result of a very poorly vetted and trained officer sent out on the streets with a license not just to enforce the law but to act as summary executioner should he feel “a threat to his life.”

The twist in this incident that places the responsibility on a Somali cop, a two-year veteran of the force, sets the sadly normal racial dynamic askew. As of today, Tuesday, the public — which is vast considering the international attention the story has received — is waiting for even the most basic explanation from city officials.

The delay in explaining what happened, if not why, is inexcusable. There are only two witnesses, Officer Mohammed Noor and his partner, Matthew Harrity. Where is their version of the event? We’re told from early reports that Harrity was “stunned” by the gunfire and that Noor has issued his condolences to the family of the dead woman, Justine Damond.

We’re told Damond, who made the 911 call had run out to speak to the cops and was in some kind of conversation with Harrity, the driver, when Noor shot her. For me, the “conversation” part is critical. If she said anything to Harrity it should have been obvious she was not the suspected attacker, which suggests Noor shot her for some reason other than panicked fear, as in Yanez’ case.

If there is “some other reason” this thing is going to get very, very weird.

My assumption is that there was no actual conversation between Damond and Harrity, other than perhaps Damond running out from the darkness into the alley trying to get their attention … at which point Noor panicked and began shooting out the patrol car across his partner’s face.

The fact that Damond was killed by a shot to the abdomen suggests she was still several feet from Harrity’s side window when Noor opened fire. Up against the door in “conversation” with Harrity she would have been struck in the chest or face.

The point being, this element of the incident can and should be explained now, not days and weeks from now. Even if Harrity and Noor are telling conflicting stories, an event this high-profile involving — to understate the obvious — critical public employees, requires extraordinary expeditiousness and transparency.

It’s hard to imagine a scenario that dampens down the already burgeoning racist demonizing of the on-line alt-right. That disease will spread even if there isn’t a whiff of affirmative action, racial quotas or special “outreach” in Noor’s hiring. The alt-right crowd isn’t exactly in the facts game, as we know.

Getting expeditious with bureaucratic formalities may not spare the local Somali community a fresh round of venom from racists, but it will provide responsible citizens a foundation of fact upon which to assess the hows of a cop who shoots a pajama-clad woman in one of the safest, quietest neighborhoods of the city.

 

Nostalgic for Nye’s.

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Lambert_to_the_SlaughterNot being all that big on nostalgia, I’m conflicted about the closing of Nye’s Polonaise. Like pretty much everyone who ever walked in, I love the place. If it was in New Jersey you could easily imagine a couple Joe Pesci-wannabes and their gumars hunkered in one of the banquettes. Slickly pompadoured dudes casually discussing whose skull was going next into the vise, while tapping their ring fingers to the polka music.

The vibe at Nye’s was/is “real”, as in earned, acquired and self-created. It exudes an emphatically male persona, which in itself is pretty nostalgic concept. There is no taint of being manicured, color and aroma-coordinated by some chirpy fashionista. What’s there, the red leather, the paneling, the carpeting and the bar was there before there “themes” were a prerequisite for opening for business. Nye’s pre-dates Irish-Asian fusion.

You walk in and the overwhelming impression is “authentic”. A sense that applies to the staff as well. Guys like bartender Dan (never learned his last name, nor he mine) make it feel like you were the guy he’s been looking forward to seeing for weeks, which worked well when you dragged in friends from out of town, or even a complete stranger, like the businessman from Phoenix we hauled over after a couple hours at Brit’s one deep January night.

I can’t make it sound like I live there. But the mere mention sparks a flood of memories. Christmas parties, mid-winter happy hours, going away cocktails, “business lunches”, (love the steak salad). The pleasantly boozed up sing-a-longs with Nordeast geezers and delighted U of M under-grads, half with fake IDs I’m convinced.

I actually believe the “authentic” vibe led to a better quality of conservation. Bullshit befits a bullshit theme watering hole. And it jars in a place that feels so genuine. But that’s just a theory. I’m still work-shopping that one.

It so happens Nye’s is currently owned by a shirtsleeve relative of mine, Rob Jacobs. He’s married to my cousin’s daughter. Nice guy. Only met him a few times, but I get his dilemma. The supper club era is over. The physical structure is kind of a mess and … there’s a fortune to be made in leveling it for a 30-story condo complex.

Apparently thought is being given to holding on to some aspect of Nye’s as the gilded tower rises on the site and fills with the sort of people who, well, advise developers and restaurateurs on what cultural imitation to ape next, what colors to paint it, what “active” music to pie in, how to dress the staff and where to stash cash flow to avoid taxes. But I doubt much will come of whatever they’re thinking other than a plaque in the lobby next to the condo concierge.

For a moment I thought it’d be worth trying the Manhattan trick of building over the joint. They pulled it off with a similar old bar, Reidy’s on 54th St in New York. And you figure it wouldn’t be so tough to yank out the banquettes and bar(s) and all the old photos and slap ’em back into a new space, that wasn’t a firetrap. But really, that’s nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It wouldn’t be Nye’s. It’d be a calculated impression of Nye’s with as much visceral linkage to the Nye’s I love as a Six Flags arcade has to Dodge City of the Old West.

Not that nostalgia doesn’t sell. What is modern country music but a calculated nostalgia act? Simple guys. Simple gals. Simple truths. Ditto “classic rock”: Music to remind us of when we were young and on the prowl.

Likewise, what is the ceaseless stream of inane sit-coms on network TV but an appeal to nostalgia for an era (what era?) of uncomplicated, easily-sustained relationships? Or the dramas? Impossibly good-looking guys and gals solving twisty Arthur Conan Doyle mysteries in 42 minutes or less. And let’s not get too deep into politics, where every viable candidate is required to play a variation on June or Ward Cleaver. Or, God help us, organized religion, where nostalgia is cultivated and monetized by way of tribal fables two and three millennia old.

Point being, we’re practically drowning in nostalgia for things that either never were or were only briefly, and even then with little or no reality attached.

Still, a great bar is a kind of environmental device for pushing away the most intractable realities, if only for as long as it takes to knock back two or three drinks. And in that way I’ll celebrate Nye’s over the next few months, and then remember it with great fondness.

 

 

 

 

Minneapolis Stepping On It’s Applause Line

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Betsy_Hodges_begs_for_applauseSo Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges is directing Minneapolitan social media mavens to tweet on over to #bragmpls to brag about Minneapolis, and run down other cities.

 “When you go to their cities,” she joked, “talk about how disappointing they are compared to Minneapolis.”

I can hear it now.

“Yeah, New York City is nice and all, but frankly Central Park is a little disappointing compared to The Yard.”

“Chicago? I hate to be mean, but I was a little disappointed that the architecture was all so old, kind of like Minneapolis had before we had the good sense to demolish it, and replace with a fresh 1970s look.”

“San Francisco, meh. I looked everywhere to find a Culver’s, but was sooooo disappointed to learn that they haven’t arrived there yet. I couldn’t wait to get home.”

Okay, I acknowledge Mayor Hodges was making a joke when she talked about expressing disappointment in other cities.  Still, the hashtag cheerleading campaign is no joke to Mayor Hodges and her public relations team.   And to me, her public begging for hashtags is a wee bit #pathetic.

Of all of the contrived things about contemporary professional sports stage management, nothing is more inauthentic than the Jumbotron exhortations for fans to “Make Some Noise!” The piped-in artificial rhythmic clapping and the mind-numbingly chirpy D.J. Casper song “Everybody Clap Your Hands” fall into the same category.   Inevitably these perky little pick-me-ups come when the bats are silent, the defense is porous, and the hometown ownership is starting to worry about meeting its beer sales targets.

But here’s the thing: Minneapolis’s bats are not silent.

rainbow_all_star_gameIn fact, Minneapolis is kicking some serious ass right now. Two new mega-expensive LRT lines are flowing through Minneapolis, and a third appears to be on the way. An iconic billion dollar football palace is rising out of the ground to replace the embarrassing  Metrodome. The metro area has the lowest unemployment of any metro area in the nation. Minnesota has the second lowest uninsured rate in the nation. The city’s population is growing, driven by a remarkable residential housing boom in the downtown area.  The Super Bowl, the most visible sporting event in America, is coming.  And baseball fans from around the world are watching professional baseball’s All Star Game in one of the best ballparks in the world, with a rainbow framing it, right here in our Minnie Apple.

The applause is happening organically. So turning on the flashing “Applause!” sign and publicly waving the mayoral pom poms in the midst of genuine, unprompted applause constitutes stepping on your own applause line.   Methinks we’re trying just a little too hard.

– Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured on MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

Super Bowl Bid Bust: Why Are We Destroying The Yard With The Pole Building?

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Minneapolis_The_Yard_winterYou may have seen the artist renderings.  The drawings lay out a vision for The Yard, the planned four-acre urban park adjacent to the mammoth new Vikings Stadium.  In the winter versions, the park is shown populated by happy, hearty Minnesota families  skating, admiring ice sculptures, making snow angels and generally laughing in the face of Old Man Winter.

Minneapolis_skating_outdoorsWhen I look at that rendering, I can clearly hear the soundtrack.

“When it snows,
ain’t it thrilling?  
Though your nose
gets a chilling. 
We’ll frolic and play
the Eskimo way. 
Walking in a winter wonderland.”

That, my friends, is us.  Minneapolis has the best park system in the nation, because Minneapolitans loves them some outdoor activities in all seasons.  That’s why this little outdoor space has emerged as one of the more intriguing, unifying and endearing elements of the Minneapolis stadium area vision.   It is a quintessential Minnesota kind of space being built on Minnesota’s most visible stage.

But the corporate types dreaming up the Super Bowl bid don’t see it that way.  They  promised the NFL muckety-mucks that they would replace The Yard with, well, The Pole Barn.

Minneapolis_super_bowl_-_Google_SearchWell, technically, I guess it’s going to be a tent, but in the artist’s renderings, the ginormous grad party tent looks more like a poultry pole barn to me.  To be fair, it does have a very snazzy Super Bowl LII logo on the roof, making it one of the more swank pole barns I’ve ever seen.

I understand what the Vikings owner Zygi Wilf and his merry band of corporate boosters are shooting for with this idea.  They wanted to reassure delicate NFL billionaire owners who have heard nasty rumors about Minnesota weather that we are in possession of heat, and are prepared to pipe it in wherever the partying swells desire it.

But making The Yard into the The Pole Building is going too far.  We don’t want the Goodyear blimp’s panoramic shots of  Super Bowl LII to portray a generic Super Bowl scene.   We want those  shots to portray a uniquely Minnesota Super Bowl scene.  We want to show the world happy, hearty Minnesotans laughing in the face of Old Man Winter.

After all, we are who we are, and we should be proud of who we are.  We want to show the world that Minnesotans don’t just survive winter weather; we find ways to have fun in winter weather.  Showing everyone skulking into an ugly heated tent paints quite the opposite picture.

To be clear, I’m strongly in favor of heat in February.  By all means, heat the airport, taxis, buses, trains, transit stations, skyways, hotels, convention center, shopping centers, restaurants, bars, strip joints, water parks, indoor skating rinks, theaters, museum and, of course, stadium.  Heck, I’d even be okay cranking it up a few extra degrees for those couple of weeks.

But don’t, repeat don’t heat, sterilize and corporatize the outdoor space that we are building to frolick and play the Eskimo way on the national stage.  Super Bowl week or not, let’s let Minneapolis be Minneapolis.

Loveland

Note:  This post also appeared on streets.mn.

Snobbyapolis

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News flash:  Minneapolis is a snobby city.  This from Travel and Leisure:

In the annual America’s Favorite Cities survey, we asked readers to rank 35 major metropolitan areas for features such as trendy food trucks or good-looking locals.

To determine which city has the biggest nose in the air, we factored in some traditional staples of snobbery: a reputation for aloof and smarty-pants residents, along with high-end shopping and highbrow cultural offerings like classical music and theater.

But we also considered 21st-century definitions of elitism: tech-savviness, artisanal coffeehouses, and a conspicuous eco-consciousness (say, the kind of city where you get a dirty look for throwing your coffee cup in the wrong bin).

Minneapolis ranked 4th, trailing San Francisco, New York City and Boston, but edging out Seattle, Santa Fe and Chicago.  The Travelers’ and Leisurers’ take on us:

Perhaps readers felt intimidated by these bookish, indie-music-loving, craft-beer-drinking hipsters, who also ranked highly for being exceptionally tidy. If these Minnesotans feel self-satisfied, is it any wonder? They also scored well for being fit and outdoorsy; you can join them at the Chain of Lakes, where, depending on the season, folks are hiking, paddling, or even ice-surfing.

Snobby?  Really?  Isn’t having interesting stuff in your community a desirable thing?

Of course it is.  Having the option of experiencing something new and different that isn’t available just anywhere is a huge advantage of living in a great city like Minneapolis.

But T and L got it right.  Minneapolis is a snobby city, because having new and different things is not enough for many Minneapolitans.  They feel obliged to look down  from their lofts and rooftop cafes judging people who don’t worship at the altar of all that is new and different.

Minneapolis_hipster

For instance, God help you if you express dislike for Surly Furious beer inside the Minneapolis city limits.  It’s perfectly reasonable that some people would enjoy the bitter taste of the hop-heavy local brew, and some would not.  Preferences are preferences.  But to hipster Minneapolitans, a distaste for the hops in IPAs is a clear sign that one is not sufficiently evolved.

The same thing applies to food and wine.  If my God-given tastebuds just can’t distinguish between a ten buck meal and a fifty buck meal, does that really mean that I’m a closed-minded rube?  Maybe it just means that I’d rather hold onto the extra forty bucks to buy four extra ten buck meals.  Saffron and truffle oil?  Can’t taste it dude.  Hints of oak barrel?  Even if I could taste it, why would I necessarily desire it?

I also plead guilty to wearing khakis and not possessing a single pair of skinny jeans.  Why?  One, BECAUSE I’M NOT SKINNY.  (Neither, by the way, are many of you.)  Two, because I still have khakis in my closet from the 90s that have more miles on them.

And then there are bicyclists.  Minneapolis is thick with them these days, and I’m all for them.  I support more bike lanes, bike racks, and people out of cars, if that’s what works well for them.   But just because I prefer not to arrive at meetings drenched in sweat and expect bicyclists to obey traffic laws doesn’t make me a Neanderthal bike hater who doesn’t understand the profound awesomeness of Amsterdam.

The fact that many Minneapolitan hipsters equate rejection of a trend with inferiority is what makes them snobby. Trends are fine.  Enforcement of trends is snobby.

It’s difficult for me to understand when snobbery happens in a city populated with folks who are largely transplants from small towns, suburbs and rural areas.  Even most of the free spirits in Uptown and downtown lofts did not grow up in Soho or Greenwich Village.  They are only a few short years removed from enjoying Folgers, Mogen David, Buckhorn and IHOP.

If those folks find that  Peets, Pétrus, Surly, and Café Lurcat brings them more joy, enjoy already.  But really, there is no need to evangelize and snigger.   We hayseeds are perfectly comfortable, in all our glorious frumpyness.

– Loveland

Note:  This post also appeared in The Same Rowdy Crowd blog.

What Exactly Do Minnesota Republicans Have Against Minneapolis?

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There is something about Minneapolis that disproportionately irks Minnesota Republicans.   A recent Public Policy Polling survey found that a strong majority of Minnesota Republicans loves them some Duluth, and are fine with St. Paul and Rochester.

But a majority of them just don’t approve of Minneapolis.

At first, I thought the obvious explanation is that Minneapolis is a DFL stronghold.  After all, Hennepin County gave Barack Obama 65% of the vote in 2008, and I could see how that wouldn’t go over well at the country club or Tea Party rally.

But that explanation doesn’t really hold up especially well, because Duluth’s St. Louis County and St. Paul’s Ramsey County are as about blue as Minneapolis’s Hennepin.  In fact, St. Louis and Ramsey gave Obama 67% in 2008, slightly more than Hennepin’s 65%.  Moreover, Republicans didn’t express strong preference for GOP-friendly Rochester (Olmstead: 52% for Obama in 2008) over the DFL strongholds of Duluth or St. Paul.

So I don’t get it.  Maybe it’s all of those descendants of Sweden, what with that nation’s despicable insistence on providing comprehensive access to education and health care to all its citizens.  What a cancer that would be if it spread across the Minnesota motherland.

I’d sure like to think that it’s not because Minneapolis was named the Gayest City in America by The Advocate, or that it has the largest Somali and Hmong population in the nation, and the second largest Vietnamese and Ethiopian populations in America.

On paper, it would seem like there might be a lot Republicans would love about the City of Lakes.  CNBC named Minneapolis one of its “Top Places for Business.” Forbes calls it one of the most innovative cities in America.  Many rankers have listed Minneapolis as one of the best places to find a job and make a living, or start a small business.

Holy free market felicity, Minneapolis sounds like a Republican nirvana.  What’s not to love?

I honestly don’t know what it is.  But if you’re new to Minnesota and are planning a get together with a Republican friend, here’s a little tip:  DO NOT SUGGEST MINNEAPOLIS.

– Loveland

 

Note:  This post also was featured as a “best of the best” on Minnpost’s Blog Cabin feature.