rakemag To serve and protect Not that anyone who has an ounce of time or a brain cell to spare is reading Katherine Kersten’s column, but in case you’ve already been to the dentist as much as you can afford because listening to the high pitched squeal of your dentist’s drill is more pleasurable than reading … Read more
Poor Michele Bachmann. Put upon again and again by the twin evils of gays and liberals. Thanks be to God she has Katherine Kersten to stick up for her. Now let’s put aside the easy target of Kersten herself (and the Star Tribune, who gives such a right wing lapdog a column,) and talk about … Read more
Ok, this is one of those times when a press release actually came to our office and didn’t go into the junk mail folder. It seems the local radio arm of Clear Channel, those whipping boys of the alternative press, are giving $93,000 this week to the School Arts Project to provide funding for music, … Read more
I wouldn’t want to pay taxes to any state that would have me as a resident. Got an urgent email alert from The Taxpayers League of Minnesota today urging me to call my legislator and let them know I was against the proposed increase in the cigarette tax. The rationale given was that, according to … Read more
My cousin was in the Army, stationed in Germany during the cold war. His duty for a while was commanding an anti-aircraft battery. He described it like this: “I commanded a $58 million missile launching system. I had a lifer sergeant, who really knew his stuff, but the men who actually had to aim and … Read more
Watch out for the gay married terrorists Bad news today in the NY Times for all the religious nut cases. It seems there are gay fruit flies, and they may be after your sons and daughters. Ok, I’m kidding about your sons and daughters. But, scientists have discovered that they can implant a certain gene … Read more
A friend of mine told me over the weekend that she missed my poetry posts. (If you are nostalgic, you can go back to any posts from April for the pedantry.) But that comment, and today’s news from Iraq made me think of one of my favorites: Horace’s Ode 3.2–the famous “Dulce et decorum est … Read more
There’s another article in today’s Miami Herald about Luis Posada Carriles. (Search their archives for a long list of more stories on this jerk.) Here’s the basic deal: Posada blew up a Cuban airliner that was on its way to Venezuela. He blew up some hotels in Havana. He tortured leftist prisoners in Venezuela. Even … Read more
Lowriding isn’t about how close your Impala sits to the concrete. It’s about flexing your muscles, gritting your teeth, and shining your wheel covers. At least that’s what we came away thinking after the “Hydraulic Showdown” event, which was part of last month’s Cinco de Mayo festival in St. Paul. But the art of lowriding … Read more
It would be hard to find a more alluring summer show than these luminous, glittering waterscapes. Painter May Stevens first came to prominence in the sixties with pop-inspired, politically charged works, but the expansive canvases here couldn’t be more different. They hang freely, like tapestries, to envelop viewers; trickling across them are gilded words, often … Read more