Month: January 2006
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Cord Wood
A slightly earlier, tongue-twistier version of last night’s MPR commentary: Probably many Minnesotans have been happy that, so far, it’s been a pretty mild winter. My family is on one of those stabilized payment plans where we pay the same amount for heat each month of the year, even in the summer months–not because I’m…
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Stating the obvious
The Minnetonka police officer who gave U of M student Nick Stremer a ticket for underage drinking, it could be argued, was just doing his job. It could be argued, I said. But, arguing with a fool is always a bad idea. Like a lot of the people quoted in today’s Strib story and on…
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Night Stand
We are contemptuous of transient well-being, as if there were any other kind. Routinely discounting the preponderance of evidence is not the behavior of reasonable people, nor is devaluing present experience because it may be overtaken by something worse…. Powerless people can hardly demand coherency of themselves, since they must always react to forces they…
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Klobuchar the Elder
Klobuchar Pere: “l’etoile c’etait moi” For those of you who remember afternoon newspapers, you know that one of the best things about the Minneapolis Star was columnist Jim Klobuchar. When it came to homespun humor, he was Garrison Keillor before there was a Prairie Home Companion. Characteristic, often, of his portraits of typical Minnesotans, was…
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This Business, This Project
Hardening your heart is difficult, stressful, and taxing work. You’ve never been much good at it. You’re getting better, though, as you learn to accept how necessary this work is to your survival in a world where the heart is mostly useless anymore beyond its function as pump and plumbing. The heart, you recognize, has…
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This Post More Interesting & To-The-Point Than The Next
New issue is up. Print edition–the real thing–will hit the streets on Monday. This is what we’re doing most of the time.