After reading Wm. Steven Humphrey, I find it strange that you published in a Twin Cities magazine an article by a columnist based in Portland who is writing about his Portland cable system. Not all cable systems are alike! If Mr. Humphrey lived in Minneapolis and had Time Warner Cable he would find a service called DVR, a cable box that has a TiVo-type device built in which enables the viewer to tape two programs while watching another without the need for videotape.
Jerry Blizen, Minneapolis
Blog
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A Cable Apologist Weighs In
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Are We Not Men?
Wm.™ Steven Humphrey’s article extolling the virtues of TiVo floored me [“Jennifer Garner’s Underpants,” April]. I’ve not laughed so hard since my TiVo started recording “Big Joe’s Polka Party” for me just on the off chance I wanted it. I, er, applaud Mr. Humphrey for his sense of humor!
Matt Drury, Orlando, FL -
The Proof Is in the Profit
Isn’t it ironic that President Bush can invade Iraq without definitive proof it possesses weapons of mass destruction, but refuses to accept global warming [“Feeling Minnesota, Looking Nebraska,” April] because, he says, there isn’t definitive proof it exists, despite overwhelming scientific opinion that it is indeed occurring? If Halliburton, Inc., saw there was money to be made in global warming, Bush would likely believe in it.
Doug Seitz, Stillwater
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What , Me Worry?
The war with Iraq, combined with the SARS epidemic and the release of a pretty tough 2003 Vikings schedule, has left us all a bit weary. Thankfully, in the true American spirit of making fun of inappropriate situations, we’ve found a comedic port in the sandstorm, thanks to Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. He’s the guy who resembles that actor whose name you can’t think of, only without the mustache, whose job during the three-week campaign was to put the best possible spin on an old-fashioned butt-whuppin’. Notable quotes (many delivered with the muffled sound of U.S. artillery fire in the background) included, “Today I have visited whole Baghdad city, no invaders found. They are crying outside and waiting to receive bullets. They will be killed shortly.” And our personal favorite, “They think we are retarded—they are retarded.” If he’s not already working for the Republican National Committee, al-Sahaf is most likely polishing up that resume. We thought in the true spirit of global kinship, we’d assist the minister in his quest for new employment in a field best suited to his talents: marketing.
Spokesman, Northwest Airlines
“The Wall Street always depends on a method what I call stupid. They are stupid and condemned. NWA stock up 3 points next quarter!”Color commentary, the Minnesota Twins
“We are not afraid of the Yankees! The bases are loaded, but I am not scared and neither should you be. My initial assessment is that the devils will all strike out … and are all condemned, Allah willing.”Customer service, Orkin
“I have visited the Johnson residence. No invaders found. You go and see how we have ousted the cockroaches from this Johnson home. Our estimates are that none of the infidels will come out alive unless they surrender to us quickly.”Pitchman, Famous Dave’s
“We’ve thrown our ribs in a quagmire, a quagmire of delicious honey-barbecue sauce, from which they can only emerge … delicious!”Eddie Murphy’s agent
“I can assure you that ‘Daddy Day Care’ will be the subject of laughter around the world. I always ask you to verify what I say, and I say ‘Daddy Day Care’ opens on May 9th. Heavy doesn’t accurately describe the level of comedy Eddie will inflict.”Host, QVC
“I would like to clarify a simple fact here: I triple guarantee you, these earrings are 18 carat gold! Those who do not buy them will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place.” -
Shandy is Dandy
Our first spring in Minnesota came late. It had not been much of a winter, in fact we felt fairly blasé about our capacity to survive Minnesota’s fabled frigidity. (But oh, how we have learned since!) The torrents pouring over St. Antony Falls inspired no particular shock nor awe, unlike the ceaseless roar of Spring 2001. There was road-grit, weak sunshine, and windblown tulips. Surprising then to hear accordion music outside, and the clash of small bells. But it was true—this music came by me on the waters. Rounding a corner we saw a white sleeve rhythmically waving a handkerchief, and were promptly transported from the shore of the Mississippi to the banks of the Thames at Oxford.
England, God knows, is full of odd customs. The unwise think they are vestiges of primeval paganism, but most of them seem to have started in the High Middle Ages, the most Christian era of English history. If you don’t believe me, read a book called The Stations of the Sun by a learned bloke called Hutton. These calendar customs began not as gnarled substitutes for child sacrifice but as the secular entertainments of Christian civilization.
Whatever the history, every May 1, thousands of Oxford people creep out of bed in the wee small hours of the morning. The crowds converge on Magdalen Bridge, where the main London road crosses the river. There they hear, generally in silence, the choir of Magdalen College, grouped on top of the college tower, sing a Latin hymn and a few madrigals, no louder at ground level than birdsong. Then the crowds head back into the city where the purveyors of greasy breakfasts do land-office business and “sides” of Morris dancers, dressed in white shirts and trousers, with colored cross-belts, bells strapped to their legs, and substantial boots perform with a vigor remarkable for the earliness of the hour.
It was Morris dancers we ran into that evening in Minneapolis, one of four sides in the city (two men’s, one women’s, one—from the village of Uptown-on-Calhoun—mixed). They say they are often asked if their art is Irish, but no, it is firmly in the tradition of Thames Valley Morris dancing. This art form was “discovered” in 1899 just in time to prevent its disappearance by a remarkable musicologist named Cecil Sharp (did anyone dare to call him D Flat, one wonders), and it’s now more popular than ever before. Like their Oxford fellows, the Minneapolis dancers also take May Morning exercise early, clashing batons, fiddling, leaping, whirling hankies, but they also meet at a more sociable hour in the evening and come together from the four points of the compass to dance in front of the IDS Tower. (Isn’t there something a bit Freudian about that name?)
So much leaping and clashing (even watching it) naturally works up a thirst, and it is indeed as much with Saturday evenings at Cotswold country pubs as with May Morning in the city that one associates the Morris. How good those white outfits look seen through a pint of Hook Norton Best Bitter, pulled by a shapely forearm from a proper draught-beer engine. Hook Norton promise an on-line shop for their bottled products, but who knows if they will be able to ship to the United States.
Until they do, I recommend a refreshing summer beverage called “ginger beer shandy,” described as “new-fangled” in 1888. One simply adds one of the ordinary bitters (Bass, say, or McEwans Export) to an equal quantity of ginger beer. Not ginger ale, a clear brown cisatlantic drink, but ginger beer as my mother used to make it—with live yeast in the family’s heated linen cupboard (until it exploded), a sweet cloudy non-alcoholic drink now conveniently available from superior Minnesota grocers. The mixture brings out a healthy sweat. Let’s hope the summer is hot enough to warrant drinking plenty of it.
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Daughter of the Revolution
My 12-year-old daughter has come down with something. I think it’s called puberty. It’s certainly called annoying. This brilliant, gorgeous child who only weeks ago was full of hugs and kisses and admiration for me has suddenly been replaced by an alien beast.
“Mom?” she says with that tone. “Are you wearing eyeliner? Because you don’t usually wear eyeliner. It’s interesting.” Or yesterday, her eyes hardened with anger, a dark scowl across her forehead, one hand jauntily on her hip and the other brandishing a metal dustpan: “Just so you know, I’m relegated to using this as an implement for cleaning the guinea pig’s cage, since you have utterly neglected to provide me with a litter scoop.” I glance at my son and he glances back, both of us clearly wondering how we are so thick as to not see the urgency of her problem. And as for the mustache my daughter thinks I’m growing—in a certain light of course—well, I’d just as soon not discuss it. To think I used to consider her broad vocabulary an asset.
Now, before we go further, don’t worry that I’ll embarrass her by telling you all of this—I always get her permission before I put her into print. The thing is, I’m never likely to say anything she hasn’t already heard, even if she happens to insist with smug nonchalance on humming Chopsticks to drown me out.
But she can’t fool me, no matter how hard she tries. Because at the end of the day, the alien departs and my daughter, under cloak of darkness, returns. “Mom,” she calls, “come put me to bed.” And so I trudge up the stairs and crawl under her pretty embroidered comforter, settling in for the stories that are about to come. Stories about friends, boys, and teachers, but even moreso stories about her: what she is thinking, what she believes, what she loves and hates most in the whole wide world. If I listen closely enough, I get to hear a great deal about who my daughter thinks she is and who she plans to become. It’s fascinating and deeply reassuring.
By the time I was her age I didn’t tell anybody anything anymore. My stories imploded and collapsed on themselves until I no longer recognized them as having once been a part of me. I can clearly see seventh grade as the year when I lost all sense of myself, when I wandered deep into the cold dark woods—wild animals all around, red eyes glowing and mouths frothing—and the bread crumbs I left to mark my trail just scattered like dust. I had no idea how to find my way back to myself and it scared me damn near to death.
In my twin bed in the basement of my dad’s suburban split level, I’d lie awake nights staring into the pitch black, afraid to go to sleep because in the quagmire of unconsciousness I’d find myself in the white cinderblock tunnel that led to the girls’ locker room at school, fluorescent lights glaring overhead, my legs leaden and paralyzed as the throngs of kids pushed past me.
I’m so thankful my daughter has a clearing in the woods into which bright sunlight streams (or moonlight, as the case may be), a place where tame songbirds congregate, and wildflowers nod in the breeze. This is a place where she can throw off the accoutrement of adolescence and be something truer—at least for a moment or two in the hush of bedtime. “Don’t go,” she pleads when I try to slip away. “Stay, Mama, you can’t go.” “But it’s late,” I tell her.
I have so much to do is what I’m really thinking. Lessons to plan, stories to write, schedules to iron out before the new day pummels me. How many phone calls did I blow off today? How many chores have gone undone? And what in God’s name am I going to wear to work tomorrow? I’m so tired, the weight of the comforter lulls me into sleepiness. My daughter is warm beside me, chattering on, and I can feel myself drifting off as her guinea pig chirps softly in the background. But I can’t lie in her bed all night. I snap myself awake and sit up. “I have to get up, I have to.”
“No,” she says firmly. “All you have to do is stay with me forever.”
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Off the Wall
Fucci is the nom de plume of Peter Bue, whose signature paintings can be found inside and outside stores, coffee haunts, and restaurants all over the Twin Cities, with the highest count in Uptown and Lyn-Lake. That painting of Pee-Wee on his cruiser outside Penn Cycle? That’s a Fucci. Woody Allen moping on the side of Specs, the glasses shop at 22nd and Hennepin? Fucci. The party scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s on Via’s Vintage Wear? Fucci again. And there are many more. He’s been painting around town for 15 years, but only within the past few years has he been selling paintings and murals faster than you can say Holly Golightly.
I went to see Bue last month at his studio in the Calhoun Arts Building on Lyndale and Lake. When I knocked on his door, the loud rock music that had been blasting was turned down and Bue, a forty-something guy with a long grey ponytail and a quick smile, appeared in the doorway. He waved me inside his dimly lit workspace, where a crowded jumble of paint cans dripped various shades of gray. In-progress paintings leaned seven-deep against the baseboards. There was a second-hand Victorian couch that’s been worked over by more than a few cats, and a fireplace Bue painted to look like marble. Among the finished paintings crowding the upper walls, Marlon Brando and Barbara “Jeannie” Eden smoldered and smirked down at us.
This is the think-tank where Bue plans his big murals, and where he paints small stuff, like the “off-the-rack” 4×6-footers he’s been showing lately in the 34th and Hennepin Dunn Bros. “So what’s with the ‘Fucci’?” I asked. “Well, when I was getting started with the murals, I wanted to have a name that would go with my work. It was the 80s, and both Ferrucci jeans and Gucci were real popular, so I combined the two and got Fucci.” Even if you’re not close enough to see the distinctive signature, you can tell his work by the confident, heavy brushstrokes and pop-culture subject matter. Bue definitely has a thing for movie stars, particularly from the 1950s and 60s.
He remembers watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s, James Bond movies, films by the Rat Pack, and Marlon Brando’s The Wild One on TV as a teen. “Painting this stuff is how I feel young again,” Bue said. He also sticks to the pop-culture material because he likes being able to pay rent every month. “I needed to make something that was saleable, and subject matter from film and television made sense because it’s already in people’s heads. It’s stuff people like, so they buy it.” And why are most of his paintings colorless? “I paint these people in black and white because that was how I first saw them, on my black-and-white TV. Plus it gives me my own niche,” he says. “Who else do you know who’s painting murals in black-and-white?”
Typically, Bue’s work begins by taking snapshots of the film or TV moment he wishes to paint—he jogs the DVD in slow-mo until he gets the frame he wants, then takes a picture with a 35mm camera. Bue says that the great thing about taking stills out of films is that “the scene has already been set up and balanced, and the models are professional actors.” He blows up the picture at Kinko’s and has it color transparencied. He then projects this onto a large masonry board, traces the projection onto the surface, and begins painting in the details. Toward the end of the painting process, Bue stops looking at the original snapshot and focuses exclusively on the painting. “Nobody sees the original that I work from,” he said. “They only see the painting, so it needs to make sense on its own.” He then installs the Fuccified masonry board outside the store or restaurant that commissioned the work. (With some older work, Bue painted directly onto the brick or stucco.)
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The Minnesota Model—Unglued
After more than 50 years at center stage in American politics and government, Minnesota has been relegated to the supporting cast in the nation’s capitol at the beginning of the 21st century. The North Star State’s once-impressive Washington presence has dwindled. A host of nationally prominent figures of both parties who have played leading roles in all three branches of government pass from the scene.
Consider: Since 1948, Minnesota has given the nation two vice presidents and two Democratic presidential nominees; two other serious presidential hopefuls, including the standard bearer of the Vietnam anti-war movement; two secretaries of Agriculture, a secretary of Commerce and a secretary of Labor; a Chief Justice of the United States and an Associate Justice; a Director of Central Intelligence; a White House economic adviser, an executive editor of the Washington Post who became U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; a host of powerful Congressmen and top federal bureaucrats; and, more recently, the nation’s most visible governor.
Minnesota’s disproportionate influence on American politics and government is a thing of the past, and not likely to be restored soon. This realization was underscored by several events in recent months: Paul Wellstone’s death, Walter Mondale’s defeat, and the passing of two other legends of Minnesota politics.
For Mondale, who followed his mentor Hubert Humphrey into the vice presidency in 1976, eight years after Humphrey had left it, his failed attempt to return to the Senate in 2002 was a stinging defeat that marked not only the end of his long and distinguished political career, but the end of an era for the once-dominant Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
It all began with Humphrey’s electrifying civil rights speech at the 1948 Democratic National Convention, in which he urged his party “to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.” Humphrey’s speech helped Harry Truman achieve one of the greatest upsets in American political history in the 1948 presidential election, and launched Humphrey on a path that took him from the Senate to the vice presidency and ultimately to an agonizingly narrow loss to Richard Nixon 20 years later.
If Humphrey’s defeat and Mondale’s landslide loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential campaign, and again to Coleman last year, were signs of Minnesota’s declining influence in national Democratic politics, other recent events show that it’s not just Minnesota’s Democrats whose national influence has declined in recent years: Witness the retirement in January of iconoclastic Independent Gov. Jesse Ventura; the deaths in February of former Governor and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, and Republican Congressman Clark MacGregor; and the outbreak of public protests against the war in Iraq in March without the open support of a single elected official. (Never mind Wellstone as the sole opponent of the Gulf War in ’91. Anyone remember Eugene McCarthy? In fact, when McCarthy returned in late March to his alma mater, Saint John’s University in Collegeville, most students had no idea who he was.)
The names of those who held Minnesota’s banner high and helped shape contemporary American history are legion. In addition to Humphrey, Mondale, McCarthy, Freeman, MacGregor, and Wellstone, they include Congressman and Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland; House Public Works Committee Chairman John Blatnik, Congressman and Gov. Albert Quie; House Ways and Means Committee member William Frenzel, and Congressman and Minneapolis Mayor Donald Fraser; U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger and Associate Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the landmark 1973 abortion decision that still roils the political waters; White House economic adviser Walter Heller; CIA Director William Colby; Assistant Secretary of State and Carnegie Endowment President Thomas Hughes; State Department Inspector General Howard Haugerud; U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (and former executive editor of the Washington Post) Russell Wiggins. Each of these political giants is either dead, or fully retired from public service.
No other state, except perhaps California, Texas, and Massachusetts, had a higher profile during this period. Can Minnesota regain its national prominence? Not likely. I offer that judgment from the perspective of a native son who has reported on all these Minnesotans, and worked for one of them—Vice President Mondale—during 38 years in Washington. In October 1965, the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press assigned me to its Washington bureau. Since then, I have served as a Washington correspondent for the St. Paul and Duluth newspapers, press secretary for Vice President Mondale, adviser to the founder of Control Data Corporation, William C. Norris, and as founding editor of The Hill, a newspaper that has covered Congress since 1994.
Although it is tempting to focus on the contributions of Minnesota’s name-brand DFL power brokers, the state has had its fair share of influential Republicans and Independents. In fact, getting past party affiliations helps explain what, exactly, made Minnesota the player it was for half a century.
Although each of our great public servants was vastly different from the others in political outlook and personal style, all embodied the essential elements of what has been called “the Minnesota model,” a kind of political franchise that has played well on the national stage and has served to reinforce the positive image of Minnesota’s political system in the minds of many Americans dating back to at least 1947.
That’s the year author and historian John Gunther, in his classic book Inside USA, devoted an entire chapter to former Governor Harold Stassen and described the origins of Minnesota’s social, political, and economic system. Stassen, a moderate Republican who was only 31 when elected in 1938, wasn’t destined for the White House as Gunther anticipated (in a chapter entitled “Stassen—Young Man Going Somewhere”). Instead, “the boy governor” resigned in 1943 to join the Navy, then served on the U.S. delegation to the 1945 San Francisco conference that created the United Nations.
Hoping to parlay that prestigious appointment into even greater things, Stassen undertook a series of futile campaigns for the presidency in 1948 and 1952—and well into the 1980s—that made his name synonymous with unbridled and unrealistic political ambition. Stassen turned out to be too liberal for the party that would soon be dominated by Southern and Western conservatives. Nevertheless, the reform-minded politician left a legacy of good government and corruption-free politics with which Minnesota is still widely identified. In 1947, Gunther knew something was going on here. “Minnesota is a state spectacularly varied, proud, handsome and progressive,” he wrote. “It is a state pulled toward East and West both, and one always eager to turn the world upside down.”
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King of Fish
There’s nothing quite like a Door County Fish Boil to kick off the summer. Up on the sandy Wisconsin peninsula that’s known as the Martha’s Vineyard of the Midwest, a warm Friday night is nothing without a cold can of beer and a steaming kettle of fish. It’s a steadfast tradition and comforting and safe. But if you’re not a careful non-coastal Northerner, you might end up eating fish boil and breaded walleye sticks your whole life. If you never get beyond our Great or 10,000 other lakes, you might not realize that on this little blue planet, the world’s stock of fish is our largest and most diverse wild food supply. The number of edible species of fish is so great that no one has tasted them all.
It’s odd to think of fish as “wild.” Beyond sharks and movie piranha you rarely think of fish as being toothy and predatory. For the most part, they are thought of as docile—swimming, genteel creatures which aren’t even considered “meat” by many. Thai Buddhists, for whom vegetarianism has to do with reincarnation, will eat fish because the view is that they aren’t killed, but merely harvested from the water, like potatoes of the sea. The truth is, most fish will happily gobble up smaller fish as they have been doing since the time of the coelacanth. And ever since humans have been around, we have been gobbling them up.
Fish skeletons have been found at stone-age excavation sites and in Danish peat bogs along with bone arrows. The works of ancient Chinese and Greek authors contain detailed accounts of fishing techniques which remain the world’s favorites: line and hook, spear, and net. Fish, in all its forms and glories, has meant a great deal to many cultures. Easterners have recognized the benefits of fish for thousands of years; in China the fish is a symbol of regeneration and marital bliss, as well as abundance and prosperity. Witness, too, how Christians here at home value fish during Lent, and as an icon to be displayed on the back of the minivan.
There may be no more powerful emblem of fishy issues than the cod.
Also known as bacalao, cabillaud, dorsz, kabeljau, merluzzo bianco, torsk, and scrod, cod has been fished throughout the North Atlantic for hundreds of years. Initially thought of as “penitential” food because of its great availability and sad appearance when salted and dried, cod’s true destiny would prove to have a global impact. Because the fish breed prodigiously, large stocks have existed in the waters from the Bay of Biscay to the Arctic and back down to Cape Hatteras. “Icelandic cod” refers to the plentiful stocks in the areas around Iceland and the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. It is precisely these stocks that have tempted fishermen with the promise of greatness.
Mark Kurlansky, who wrote Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed The World, believes that the Vikings were pursuing these very stocks of fish when they stumbled upon a new land—America. The Pilgrims believed they could live off the wealth of cod in the New World, despite having no idea how, nor the equipment to do it. From Clarence Birdseye, who founded the frozen-fish industry with cod in the 1930s, to the present-day cod wars, Kurlanky details the rise and decline of the fish whose now-threatened status is still shaping world politics.
In fact, cod isn’t the only fish to swim in troubled waters. There are many who feel that the world’s fish supply in general is being overfished into extinction. Chilean sea bass is currently on the hit list among activists who boycot chefs and restaurants who carry endngered fish on their menus. Still others believe that boycotts are uninformed, not founded on real data, and can hurt or cripple small fishing communities. (Remember the swordfish scare in the late 90s?) All because a fish is fashionable.
With today’s obsession with protein and good fats, fish aren’t about to go out of fashion any time soon. When categorized by their fat content, they fall into three groups: Lean fish with less than 2.5 percent fat (cod, perch, sole), moderate-fat fish with less than 6 percent (trout, swordfish, bonito), and high-fat fish that can go as high as 30 percent but usually hover around 12 (yellowtail, bluefish, some salmon). The fish that are especially good for you are the ones packed with lots of Omega-3 oils—or “polyunsaturated oils” in Zone-speak. Good choices include pompano, tuna, herring, mackerel, sardines, Atlantic bluefish, or butterfish. As for protein, fish have a greater advantage over land animals because water supports their weight, leading to a less elaborate skeletal system and a higher flesh-to-weight ratio.
If you’re sold on international fish, but don’t have your schooner polished and ready to go, the best local source has long been Coastal Seafoods. They provide much of the seafood used by local chefs, and have a few well-stocked retail locations where they even teach classes about scary things like de-boning and wine pairing (newsflash: it’s not all about white). The key is to be open to new fish and new flavors—after all, it’s supposed to be brain food. If you’re wondering how much you need to consume for a positive effect, Mark Twain suggested “Perhaps a couple of whales would be enough.” But that’s a whole other kettle of fish.
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Their Just Dessert
“ST. PAUL — A lawmaker who had hoped to stop Minnesota prisoners from getting desserts met with an unexpected problem this week: Turns out it would cost the state an extra half million dollars to stop.” —Associated Press, April 5
I’m kind of sorry that Rep. Marty Seiferts’ no-dessert proposal for state prisoners wasn’t taken more seriously. I mean, hey — you can see where he was going with it. Just trying to save a few bucks here and there. Even though our hoosegows are closer to Super 8s than Hiltons, you can always squeeze another few pennies out of the budget. Put the money to better use than tossing chocolate parfaits down the necks of evildoers.
And if it weren’t for those outdated feel-good nutritional guidelines gumming up the process, we might have had something here. But no, if we deny our prisoners dessert ($), we then have to replace it with an item of comparable caloric value. Like fruit or cheese ($$$).
I say we get rid of the guidelines and just send them to bed without any supper. I mean, they’ve been bad, right? And instead of rehabilitation programs, let’s just get my mom to go over there, and she’ll give ’em a good talking to. Hey, it worked for me. Well, mostly, anyway. And, for the super tough cases, I’ve got a friend who’d love to go over there on Saturday nights to dole out spankings, free of charge, just because he’s into that kind of thing.
Another scheme that got the kibosh before the House Judiciary Committee was a plan to hire private companies to house state prisoners. Jury’s still out on that one, and considering the troubling number of Minnesota-based businesses wallowing in red ink, perhaps this is one proposal we should think about carefully. Do you think Musicland could re-organize in time? They could put Lifers in the Oldies section. Assault and Battery convicts in World Beat? All they have to do is snap those magnetic shoplifting tags on the prisoners and they’ll never get past the Cinnabon before the guards open fire.
And how about Northwest Airlines? They’ve got some awfully big hangars out at the airport, and loads of high visibility zip-up jumpsuits. Plus, the staff is already adept at maintaining the discipline of large unruly groups, performing cavity searches, and dishing up cheap food.
My favorite recommendation for thrifty incarceration, however—even better than Gov. Pawlenty’s brainwave of charging political protesters for their luxurious accommodations in the klink—is Rep. Seifert’s plan to serve brunch on weekends and holidays. By adopting the program already in place at St. Cloud State Prison, the state will save almost $250,000 each year. And brunch sounds so festive! I can just see the inmates rioting if there’s not enough whipped almond butter for their scones. Since Martha Stewart may soon be joining the ranks of Cellblock H, perhaps she can lend her special touch to planning the repast. It’s a different kind of state dinner than she’s used to, but I’m sure her classic good taste is appropriate for any occasion. And I imagine we’ll have far fewer escape attempts with Martha designing the Big House menu. Instead of The Shawshank Redemption, it’ll be The Lamb Shank Reduction. (Slice thinly with shiv and serve warm.)
Still, maybe we don’t need to get rid of the nutritional guidelines altogether to make this thing work. I mean, if ketchup is a vegetable why couldn’t water be classified as a thin soup? We haven’t exhausted our options. What about road kill? Make it into jerky and nobody’d know the difference. How about putting all the prisoners whose height/weight ratio doesn’t match up on Slim Fast? A delicious shake for breakfast, a delicious shake for lunch … a case of the shakes by dinnertime. Like I said, I don’t blame Seifert for trying. He wanted the money saved to go into funding areas of public service that are doomed to be cut this year. Meals on Wheels for one. And if that gets cut, maybe we can just serve the inmates a new Hormel product… Soylent Green!