Category: Blog Post

News came at the end of this week that the Gopher football stadium was going to cost more than originally thought because it’s being built on mushy ground. Boy, if that isn’t an opportunity for a metaphor, I don’t know my Aristotle.

It’s been suggested by more than one wag that the reason the Minneapolis Library system is in such tough shape is that the city’s and state’s priorities are pretty mushy as well. Another, an unpaid advisor to a Library support group, has suggested that what the libraries need to do is drop the name “Library” and replace it with “Book Stadium”.

Think of the possibilities. As part of the U stadium finance plan, the University is charging each of its students $25 per year, whether they like football or not. (Whether or not you appreciate the irony that real students are being charged to pay for the playground of the pseudo students hired by the university to play football, you have to admire the University’s boldness in charging impoverished students 25 bucks on top of the rampant tuition increases and large increase to President Bruinink’s salary.) It’s also ironic that the Friends of the Minneapolis Library is currently running a campaign to raise funds to buy books for the Minneapolis Library that the city of Minneapolis seems unable to fund. The cost to buy a book for the whole city? $25 per book, and that includes a Friends membership.

Think of a similar program at the U. There will be about 51,000 students contributing to the stadium. That’s $1.275 million per year going to pay off the stadium–money that could be buying 51,000 books for a library, or making up the shortfall that Minneapolis needs to keep the three libraries open that are facing closing–and that’s just this year.

Thanks to some wise Hennepin County Commissioners, a tiny amount of the money from the sales tax which will fund the Twins stadium will be coming to Minneapolis and Hennepin County libraries. Here’s some more irony. The citizens of Minneapolis voted to tax themselves $125 million to build the new library and renovate the community libraries, but didn’t get to vote on whether they’d be taxed about $500 million to build the Twins stadium and, by the way, throw a small bone to the libraries.

Then there’s the Target Center, for which the city had to pony up a couple of million this year to cover operating losses so we’d have a spot to not watch NBA games in increasing numbers. When that expenditure was questioned by an executive of the Friends of the Library, a certain city council member nearly blew a gasket.

So, in the past year, we’ve been able to commit to three quarters of a billion dollars from various sources to build a couple of stadiums and a couple of million more from the city to keep one open that we should have never bought. The smart money says there will be a new Vikings stadium in our future soon, too. God knows what that will cost, but any conservative estimate is that it will be about thirty times the annual operating budget of the Minneapolis Library system.

I’m beginning to agree we indeed have gone about the funding of the libraries in the totally wrong way. “The (Insert Corporate Naming Rights Purchaser Here) Book Stadium” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Addenda: More on this today at MNspeak and the Strib edit page, and Nick Coleman’s column.

Machismo is integtral to Latin culture. I am no expert on either Latin culture nor, neccessarily, pure manliness. On the other hand, I know about cars. I also know that very small utility vehicles are popular in many Latin countries. There is something macho about purpose-built vehicles, particularly when they can be purchased at a bargain. One’s standard of living has little to do with it.

To waste money, in other words, is not macho but stupido.

With this in mind, a good friend recently sent me a list of cars written up by a reuptable journalist on current automotive “best buys.” My friend gently implied that I should sometimes measure the value of a vehicle by metrics other than quarter mile performance.

The good news here is that this list featured a few vehicles that will allow anyone to have his or her cake and eat it too (while accelerating fairly rapidly). For example, Subaru has recently released a visually toned down version of its STi Imprezza (around 29k). Mazda makes a fine Mazdaspeed 6 (overstocked and selling a little slowly at 28k).

However…and this is a big however….

If you want to look sexy, like real JLo Marc Antony in their heyday (JLo never had one but that’s another story) here is the car you will deal on today: The Pontiac G6 coupe retractable in black on black with a six speed.

Its time to buy this American vehicle. It is the least expensive and most sexy retractable vehicle currently on the market (in black on black.) It is also a sea and ski car perfect for all weather conditions.

Don’t thank me for this recommendation. Thank my friend. He is from the Latin hotbed of Iowa.

All kinds of promising rock shows are scheduled for this evening: Curtiss A’s Tribute to John Lenon is at First Ave, this being the anniversary of Lenon’s murder; The Alarmists are at the Turf Club; Beatifics are at the Uptown–which reminds me that the beatific Mr. Chris Dorn left me a message a while back, in which he said he quit his job at the Hex. What’s up with that? As for tomorrow evening: the Free Range Pickin’ Holiday Show is at the Cedar; my favorite band to encounter at an outdoor concert series, Low, is at First Ave; the Hopefuls, Friends Like These are at the Nomad.

Give me snow. I want it. I want to play in it. I want to see it. I’ll shovel. I’ll get wet shoes. I’ll let my boss give me whitewashes.

Much to my suprise while doing some research this weekend, I realized that we have actually been getting more inches of snow per year in the past ten years than our average over the last hundred. Why does is seem like we haven’t then?

Here are monthly averages for snow and temperature .

I took these tables and put them in excel and then did ten year averages. Turns out in the last ten years we have averaged 52 inches of snow while in the last 100 years it was 45. However in November it has been right around an average 6 inches.

It looks like the snow has not been sticking around though because (suprise) the big difference in temperature. The average median temp in November over the last 10 years is 36. Meaning snow melts. The 10 years before that the average in November was 31.53. Meaning it could stick around.

This will get really boring if I go into stats about global warming so I’ve linked to the excel files below. But damn I want snow. I associate my childhood years with playing in snow. My favorite days in Northern Minnesota were waking up with a fresh coat and walking in complete silence through the woods to the bus stop. We are 10 years removed from the last time I used snowshoes.

Disclaimer: I’m not a meteorologist – but I could play one on T.V.

Ok. Here are links to the files. Note that the snowfall seasons actually END in the year on the left of the column. So the 2006 season was 2005-2006 winter.

Temperatures: Download file

Snowfall: Download file

For a lot more climate info go to: http://climate.umn.edu/

I’m writing about secrets in two sections today, since the first will probably offend the tastes of some readers. Section one: Today, folks from the Rochester Art Center (yes, all the way down in Rochester) are talking about the influence of graffiti and skateboard culture on contemporary art. Scott Sulen, a young artist and, if my memory serves, a U of M graduate, is organizing many of the Art Center’s educational events these days. And he seems to have a nose for trends. One of the most interesting (I wouldn’t say beautiful) pieces of public art I’ve seen in recent weeks was on a utility box along the Cedar Bike Trail–a colorful spray-painting of a ghoul.

Section two: Otherwise, it’s Thursday, which is always a great night for theater since the tickets are cheaper. Plus, it’s the holiday season. My picks for the best Christmas shows are still Black Nativity, for the singing, and the unfortunately named Lutefisk Champ, for the laughs. Both play tonight.

An art dialogue worth noting: A collection of artists, critics, and administrators are gathering tonight at the Minnesota Museum of Art to discuss the life and work of George Morrison, a Minnesota-born American Indian artist most famous for his abstracted “North Shore” style. (If you need a primer, go look at the sidewalk mosaic outside the downtown Minneapolis public library; this used to be out front of IDS Center.) Joining in the discussion will be colleagues and former art students of Morrison’s, as well as Evan Maurer, Director Emeritus of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, a museum that boasts an impressive archive of Morrison’s work. Hear the talk tonight at 7 p.m., at the Minnesota Museum of Art. George Morrison: Finding Abstraction runs at the MMA (not to be confused with the MIA) through December 31. 651-266-1030; www.mma.org.