Inside the Mess

Website down

2010-03-16T10:49:00.002-05:00

We had a security breach on our website and are working on getting it resolved.

Some hacker started a "phishing" scam by uploading fake PayPal pages to our server.

I'll post breaking news here if necessary.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Hopefully things will be back to normal by the end of the day Tuesday.

Brett

Candide blog, chapter 1: | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-07-01T14:30:00.001-05:00

Candide blog, chapter 1: | Mille Lacs Messenger

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Phooey | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-06-28T12:06:00.001-05:00

Phooey | Mille Lacs Messenger

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Dogs vs. deer

2009-04-05T11:57:00.000-05:00

I was out jogging with my dogs this morning when a big pickup pulls up and a guy rolls down the window and says, "You gotta keep them dogs chained up. There's a big deer herd right over there, and my deer are gonna freak out."

First instinct: Swear at him.

Second instinct: "YOUR deer? Do they have brands on them? Do you feed them and take them to the vet? Do they stay on YOUR land or trespass on the neighbors' property? If they're YOUR deer, why not put up a fence to keep them in and keep my dogs out?"

Third instinct: This mighty hunter apparently wants his prey to be so docile that come November, he can walk right up to them, pick out the 10-point buck he wants for his next mount, and drop it from point-blank range. What kind of hunter wouldn't want deer to be accustomed to running from canines, as deer have been doing since the beginning of deer-time?

I said, "Okay," and went on running. I don't run that road often anyway and would prefer to stick to friendlier neighborhoods.

I've lived in the sticks for close to 20 years, and I'm well aware of the unwritten rules about dogs "runnin' deer," and the law of the jungle that allows hunters to kill dogs caught chasing them. I've learned to control my dogs or suffer the consequences.

I'm also aware that in many jurisdictions, including Mille Lacs County, where I live, there are dog ordinances that require dogs to be on a leash or continuously within range of and responsive to voice commands. I routinely violate that ordinance, as do most people in this neck of the woods, judging by all the dogs (friendly and otherwise) that come out to greet me as I jog down public roadways — including the Norwegian elkhound that took a bite out of my neighbor and had to be pulled off her by its owners — a dog that still runs freely into the road when I jog by.

But come on, there are extremes when it comes to violating laws (written or unwritten) and when it comes to enforcing them. Yeah, if a dog or pack of dogs develops a habit of chasing deer, the owners should do something about it or face the possibility that their dogs will be "disappeared." But when you feel the right or the obligation to protect "your" deer from even an occasional encounter with relatively well-trained and under-control dogs, then you've got a problem.

Maybe my first instinct was the right one.

Bill Moyers brilliant again

2009-04-01T14:52:00.002-05:00

I've subscribed to podcasts from Bill Moyers' PBS show, which I listen to while driving to work or jogging. The latest was a union organizer named James Thindwa and William Greider. More great stuff that the so-called "liberal media" never touches.

Studies have been done about how many CEOs are interviewed on the major networks vs. rank-and-file workers, middle management, union reps, etc. The bias is appallingly clear, and only one conclusion can be reached: When it comes to reporting on the economy, what we hear/see/read is weighted HEAVILY in favor of the corporate perspective, the perspective of the owners, not the workers, the perspective of the rich, not the poor.

Moyers' episode on James Thindwa is here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03272009/watch.html. Great stuff about Thindwa's fight for a living wage ordinance in Chicago (shot down by Richard Daley) and his thoughts on Walmart and other low-paying retailers. Great quote by the head of Home Depot, classic hyperbole about how this new Employee Free Choice Act is the "end of civilization."

Greider, a veteran reporter whose stories on the economy have been on target and out of the mainstream for decades, was also interviewed about Obama's recovery plan. Greider supports Obama but is skeptical about the plan, saying it leaves control of the economy in the hands of individuals, corporations and institutions that have caused the problems. And it even rewards them!

Brilliant stuff again by the conscience of American journalism.

Rum River pics, March 28, 2009

2009-03-30T20:49:00.001-05:00

Roll 5

This blog is moving

2009-03-17T12:15:00.002-05:00

To the 13 or so people who read this blog, it'll be splitting in two and moving. The Messenger is getting a new website, so I'll be blogging about newspaper and Mille Lacs related things there. The new site will have the same url as the old one (www.millelacsmessenger.com) and will be up in a couple weeks. (You'll click "opinion" and the "blogs" to get to our blog pages.)

My personal blog, which is more what this one has become, will be at bogusbrook.blogspot.com. There I'll post personal journal stuff, songs and stories, links to stuff I like, etc.

He's Better Than Me

2009-03-17T07:21:00.001-05:00

We were the Mulvaneys

2009-03-15T13:52:00.003-05:00

I just finished We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates, and have to say it's my favorite book of about the last decade. I'm not sure why it had such a profound impact on me. Partly because the narrator is my age and is writing about the era I grew up in and about family problems that are somehow familiar though very unfamiliar. A lot of it has to do with Oates' genius in making me care about every minute detail of the inner and outer life of each character she describes. It just moved me, every page almost. I didn't want to read it fast, because a few pages were enough, a satisfying meal.

The only thing I'd read by her before was the short story "Where are you going, where have you been," which has one of the creepiest understated villains in all of literature.

Chapter 3

2009-03-15T13:30:00.001-05:00

Chapter 3 of 10 is now available at elmerbond.blogspot.com.

About the book

2009-03-15T12:55:00.003-05:00

I wrote the first draft of this story in 1987 when I was living in Albany, California, after dropping out of grad school at Berkeley, thinking I should be a novelist instead of an anthropologist (I'm quite sure I made the wrong decision, but since it's led me to where I am now, I have no regrets). I wrote during the mornings at Winchell's Donuts (where I met a woman who said she was Dr. J's mom) or the Albany Bowl (great All-American breakfasts), or I'd walk to Berkeley and write at Val's Pizza. I would buy packs of Marlboro Lights for 1.25 and smoke three or four while writing (pre smoking ban, of course). In the evenings, I would go to The Office for 50 cent Budweisers. Most Sundays I would get together with Chris Boesel and read him the latest chapters while sipping Budweiser pints at the Cafe Intermezzo on Telegraph Avenue. Many evenings I would take the BART to 3650 20th St. in the Mission to play guitars with Chris and Kurt Stevenson. I'd spend the night and write the next day at Cafe La Boheme or some less-aptly-named Bohemian cafe.

The story is based on events that happened to me in the fall of 1983 and the spring of 1984. As soon as the dust had settled, I knew I wanted to write some version of the story, but it took a few years to figure out how. The day I quit grad school, it came to me, like the concept had been sitting under a pile of books by Durkheim and Malinowski.

The first version of the story was much closer to the real events, about 75 percent true, but at some point I started embellishing, and now I really don't know what actually happened and what I made up. I was pretty sure the novel would be published and I would be interviewed on Phil Donahue's daytime TV program. That didn't happen.

I re-wrote the story in the early 1990s before and during graduate school at North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences, where I earned my Master's in English (not quite a Ph.D. from Berkeley, but oh well). I had decided there was too much truth in the first version, and besides, it just wasn't very good. I thought I had become a better writer during the intervening five years or so. While writing the second version, my main reader and critic was my wife Diane, who became a model for the main female character. When I finally finished, I read the whole thing to her on the porch of the barn we lived in east of Fargo. We cried at the end. I was sure it was just a matter of time before I was interviewed by Oprah (Phil Donahue's show had been cancelled by then.)

Shortly after I finished, I took a novel writing class from the late Rodney Whitaker (aka Trevanian). The class was at the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center and was sponsored by The Loft in Minneapolis. Rodney liked my writing and agreed to critique my novel, which he did — 50 pages of detailed comments. He said if I went through it and made the changes, he'd give it to his agent. So I did, and I sent it back, and he said I ruined it and didn't do what he said and he would not be giving it to his agent. So I sent it out to a couple dozen publishers and agents, collected rejection letters, then gave up.

It's just as well. Looking back at both previous versions is embarrassing. Neither one is any good, which doesn't bode well for this version, either, but what the heck.

I wrote the first draft of this version in two weeks while living in New Zealand in 2007. I had long ago decided that if I returned to it, it would be set in high school, not college, and would be even more fictional (about 95 percent) than the previous versions. I had some ideas, but didn't know how to start, and didn't have the time or energy (kids, job, etc.). One day I wrote a paragraph at work and found a new voice for the character and a new frame story and the rest came very easily. I paid a fiction editor to critique it and have been making mostly minor changes ever since.

I decided to publish it online because I don't have the time, energy or desire to go through the usual channels and hoops. I'm beyond thinking the world is eagerly awaiting my story, if only the right publisher lays eyes on it. I'm a fairly lazy writer who enjoys the first draft process but doesn't really know what to do with it after that, thinking it's as good as it's going to get in my clumsy hands. Besides, the world is changing, and the old ways of publishing may be on their way out anyway. Why not save a few trees and bypass the monied interests that have been shaping the tastes of book lovers since Gutenberg?

Hope you enjoy it. Send me an email with your thoughts or impressions.

Gotta love Neil

2009-03-15T11:46:00.002-05:00

Young, that is...

Here's to a rock star who makes his own low-budget youtubes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-young/huffpost-video-premiere-n_b_173714.html

Earmarks

2009-03-13T07:09:00.001-05:00

Here's the thing about earmarks: By complaining about them, politicians can act like government is expensive because of all the money it wastes. In fact, government is expensive because of all the necessary things it does. Earmarks are a tiny fraction, and often are necessary and important for local economies.

Field with oaks

2009-03-12T21:03:00.000-05:00

I always love driving by this field between Ogilvie and Isle.

New Album 3/12/09 8:57 PM

Sick day

2009-03-10T08:08:00.000-05:00

I picked up a cold, so I'm home sick today. I'll probably be working anyway.

Next chapter

2009-03-08T16:08:00.000-05:00

You can read my next chapter (2 of 10) at elmerbond.blogspot.com.

Michele Bachmann is the woman

2009-03-05T07:19:00.003-06:00

I don't have much sympathy for Michele Bachmann, Congresswoman from Minnesota's sixth district. But her latest foolishness almost made me feel sorry for her.

At some convention of right-wingers last weekend, she said of the new head of the Republican Party, Michael Steele, "You be da man. You be da man."

It was so embarrassing I won't even post a link. It's painful to hear.

Update: Okay, Rob, here it is. She's off camera, but the tone-deafness is loud and clear.

And yesterday she said this:

Chapter 1

2009-03-01T16:21:00.003-06:00

I'm working on a novel. I moved Chapter 1 to a different blog because I don't want to associate it with the Messenger.

It's at elmerbond.blogspot.com.

Preaching to the choir

2009-02-26T09:33:00.002-06:00

I get news releases with Gov. Pawlenty's public events schedule. Since he released his budget, he's visited what seems like every chamber of commerce in the state, but I can't remember one visit to a less friendly or hostile organization or event.

It seems he's comfortable among those who think like him. He needs to make his case to the rest of us.

Angel is a centerfold

2009-02-25T06:41:00.003-06:00

There's a song I hear the high school band play at nearly every sporting event I go to. It has a great melody riff that must be blast to play: Na na na na-na-na, na-na-na na-na na-na-na.

I recognize the tune from my youth: Angel is a Centerfold by the J. Geils band.

Here are the lyrics.

Does she walk? Does she talk?
Does she come complete?
My homeroom homeroom angel
Always pulled me from my seat

She was pure like snowflakes
No one could ever stain
The memory of my angel
Could never cause me pain

Years go by I'm lookin' through a girly magazine
And there's my homeroom angel on the pages in-between

CHORUS:
My blood runs cold
My memory has just been sold
My angel is the centerfold
Angel is the centerfold
(Repeat)

Slipped me notes under the desk
While I was thinkin' about her dress
I was shy I turned away
Before she caught my eye

I was shakin' in my shoes
Whenever she flashed those baby-blues
Something had a hold on me
When angel passed close by

Those soft and fuzzy sweaters
Too magical to touch
Too see her in that negligee
Is really just too much

CHORUS

It's okay I understand
This ain't no never-never land
I hope that when this issue's gone
I'll see you when your clothes are on

Take you car, Yes we will
We'll take your car and drive it
We'll take it to a motel room
And take 'em off in private

A part of me has just been ripped
The pages from my mind are stripped
Oh no, I can't deny it
Oh yea, I guess I gotta buy it!

First time I heard a band play it, I was shocked. Even more inappropriate than Tequila, another high school band favorite.

I wonder how many people know the song. I mentioned this fact to my publisher, Kevin, and his wife, and they weren't aware of what it was.

Waking up

2009-02-24T09:26:00.002-06:00

Every year about this time I start training to run the St. Cloud Earth Day Half Marathon very slowly to get me out of my pattern of winter laziness and overeating. Today I ran four miles and it felt good. It was almost not cold, and it felt like winter may end eventually.

This year I'm considering training for a full marathon over the summer. We'll see how the next couple months go.

Marbles and war

2009-02-24T07:11:00.002-06:00

As the war in Afghanistan appears to be on Obama's front burner, here's a column I wrote back in 2003:

Ever since I read about a missile attack by U.S. forces on a village in Afghanistan, I've been thinking about marbles and my childhood friend Khalid.

When I was nine years old, I lived in Bangkok, Thailand, and went to school with kids from all over the world: Gadi Plotnik from Israel, Ashim Segal from India, Sung-un Kim from Korea, and many others whose names I've forgotten. Khalid, who was from Afghanistan, was the captain of my soccer team.

Marbles were our favorite pastime on the athletic fields during recess. We didn't play the official way, where you try to knock each other's marbles out of the ring using a "shooter." We had our own game. One of us would toss a marble into the grass, and the other would try to hit it. We took turns until someone hit the other boy's marble. If you hit it, you got to keep it. Little boys with little missiles, in winner-take-all combat.

On Dec. 6, in an Afghan village, some boys were playing marbles when they were killed by rockets and gunfire from American planes. The attack was intended for an Al-Qaeda suspect, but our troops learned later that he hadn't been in the village for weeks. It didn't matter, because they missed his house. Locals say he was a motorcycle importer.

Nine children were killed in the attack. One of them was nine years old, the age Khalid was when I knew him.

When journalists and U.S. troops arrived to investigate, villagers were huddled around a pile of little hats and shoes. Marbles were scattered around the area. A 25-year-old man was killed, too. He had been in Iran digging wells and was getting married in a few days.

A Web site called "iraqbodycount.com" says at least 7,935 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the war began last spring. That's a low-ball estimate based on a fairly thorough survey of world press accounts. In Afghanistan, the estimate was 3,000 to 3,400 civilians during the first few months of that war. The methodology of such body counts has been questioned and criticized, but there's no better alternative out there. The Pentagon, which has the resources to make the best estimates, has said over and over again, "We don't do body counts." Why? Well, you figure it out.

It's true that the Afghans are probably better off without the Taliban, and the Iraqis are probably better off without Hussein — or they will be eventually. But do the ends justify the means? Is Saddam's head worth 7,000 civilian deaths? Will an unprecedented pre-emptive war cow the world into submission or make our enemies more dangerous than they were before?

The apparent murder of one young woman has some of our neighbors ready to execute every sex offender in the state. Imagine the outrage if a missile from a foreign power hit a schoolyard in Isle, killing nine children. And if 7,000 of our countrymen died in attacks by a foreign power, however well intentioned, would we welcome the invaders with open arms, accepting the sacrifice of our sons and daughters for a higher cause?

I saw the movie "Master and Commander" recently and was struck by how a graphic war movie can still leave you with the feeling that war is fun, like football, full of bravery and glory and male bonding.

Yesterday the whole world checked Saddam Hussein for head lice and peered into his mouth. Few people in history have been more deserving of such dehumanization, but as I watched, I couldn't help thinking we've taken warfare from the gridiron to the wrestling ring, with the kind of taunting we might expect from our former governor.

It's tempting to join in, but that pile of shoes and broken marbles reminds us that war is never worth celebrating, especially during this time of year. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men. What a fantasy that was.

Issue date: December 17, 2003. ©Mille Lacs Messenger Inc.

Chicken midwife

2009-02-23T05:50:00.001-06:00

Diane went to feed the chickens on Saturday and saw a chicken that was acting kinda funny, so by instinct, she stuck out her hand, and the chicken laid an egg into it.

Weird.

Broken Bottle

2009-02-21T09:17:00.000-06:00

Life is way too easy

2009-02-20T20:09:00.000-06:00

An old Messenger column

I called my buddy Jigs on my cell phone the other day. I was stuck in traffic down in Minneapolis.
“Where are you?” he said. “It sounds like you’re in a wind tunnel.”
“I’m in Minneapolis. I’m on my cell.”
“Why?”
“I thought I’d check in.”
“You used to come and see me when you wanted to check in.”
He hung up. I stopped at his trailer on the way home.
“Life is way too easy,” he said, opening the door.
“What?”
“Cell phones, the Internet. There’s no waiting anymore. There’s something to be said for waiting.”
I wondered if he would invite me in. He left me standing on the doorstep. “What do you mean?” I should know better. Asking Jigs what he means is inviting a 20-minute lecture.
“When was the last time you went to library?”
I couldn’t remember the last time, so I told him so.
“Used to be, when someone wanted to know something, they went to the library. When I was a kid and I asked my dad a question, he said, ‘Look it up in the World Book.’ If it wasn’t in the World Book, we’d have to wait until we got to the library. During the summer, that might be week or two. Even during the school year, it might take a few days. And do you know what we did in the mean time?”
“No,” I said.
“We wondered. We thought about it. We made up all kinds of possible answers.” He paused and just looked at me, like he was daring me to respond. I knew better. He went on. “The imagination is obsolete,” he said.
I thought he was exaggerating. “You’re exaggerating,” I said.
“No. Think about ice hockey.” I didn’t see the connection. He could tell. “The other day, they played the first outdoor hockey game in Minnesota history.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.
He clarified. “The first girls’ ice hockey game in Minnesota history.” I stared at him blankly. “Where does ice come from?” he asked.
I was still on the porch, waiting for him to invite me in. “From cold weather,” I said.
“Exactly. Life is way too easy. There wouldn’t even be hockey if there wasn’t cold weather. Yet nowadays, cold weather isn’t even necessary. There’s no need to suffer.”
“Suffering is good?” I asked.
“Of course suffering is good. What would you know if you had never suffered?” I stared at him. Blankly. Again. “Suffering is good, waiting is good, and wondering is good. But nowadays, with cell phones and Internets and indoor ice rinks, there’s no need to suffer. No need to freeze, to hunger, to wonder, to wait. I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder,” he said.
“What?”
“It’s Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The beat poet.”
“Who?”
“You know. Kerouac, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti.” He held a hand up to the ceiling of his double wide and looked over my head, focusing on a star somewhere. “I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder.”
“What?”
“Look it up on the Internet,” he said, closing the door gently in my face.

Why a legislative pay cut is a bad idea

2009-02-19T09:52:00.005-06:00

This just in:

HOUSE & SENATE REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS ANNOUNCE PROPOSAL TO CUT PAY OF LEGISLATORS AND CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS; PAY CUT PROPOSAL SHOULD BE DISCUSSED AT BUDGET MEETINGS STARTING TOMORROW

(St. Paul) – Responding to the likelihood that Minnesota budget deficit will be close to $7 billion, Republican members of the Minnesota House and Senate announced a legislative proposal today to cut the pay of legislators and constitutional officers by 5 percent.

If enacted into law, the base pay for legislators would drop from their current amounts to $29,583 per-year, with the estimated total savings per biennium of $676,441.20. [Please see the attached table for salary information for legislators and constitutional officers.]

My opinion: Seems like a no-brainer. In times of economic strife, politicians take a pay cut.

It's a bad idea because politics is already run by people who can afford to be in politics. State and federal legislatures and even small-town councils are skewed toward the relatively well off. The voices of the poor are mostly silent.

Cutting pay for senators and reps would mean the Legislature would be dominated even more by the wealthy and their friends and their interests.

It's also less than a million dollars (676,000), with a projected deficit 10,000 times that — 6-7 billion.

It's a gimmick. Leave pay for legislators alone.

Kids have too much to do

2009-02-16T19:43:00.002-06:00

From Nov. 19, 2003

You can't open the paper in rural Minnesota without reading an article or letter to the editor lamenting the plight of those poor teenagers who have nothing to do. Every time a kid opens his or her mouth to say "I'm bored," 15 parents start running around frantically to find something to entertain the poor, deprived small-town kids.

Apparently the snowmobile, ATV, hunting season, fishing season, Nintendo, stereo, Internet, VCR, satellite dish, athletic program, Scouting program, 4H, library and youth group aren't enough.

Our adolescents must be expert sociologists, judging by the way we buy into their explanations of society's ills. "Kids have sex and take drugs because they're bored," they tell us. Armed with such ammunition, we run to the non-profits and the Legislature for grant money to build a skate park, a waterslide, a community center, or a Drug-Free Virgin Arts Program.

Well, here's some straight talk for you parents out there: Kids don't have sex because they're bored. They have sex because it feels good. They don't take drugs because they're bored either. They take drugs because drugs make them high. They know the potential consequences, having been indoctrinated by D.A.R.E. and abstinence education, but they don't think those consequences will happen to them.

If kids don't have any moral opposition or fear of consequences, they're going to do it no matter how many distractions we throw in their way. We've tried to accentuate the fear, but that's not working. The only alternative is morality, which has become the property of right-wing pundits and prudes who celebrate the greed and excess of contemporary America. How can anyone grow up with a sense of morality in a culture that tells us "we are what we buy?" How can we expect kids to "just say no" to sex or drugs when every advertisement and TV show tells kids to pursue their selfish desires, regardless of the effect on other people, the environment, or their own materialistic and empty souls?

Given the pervasiveness of consumerism, it's not surprising that we address our kids' problems, which are spiritual at heart, by buying them something, be it an X-Box, a skate park, or an ice arena.

Don't get me wrong — I believe investments in the community are almost always worth it, but I know a lot of rural teenagers, and they have plenty to do. They don't need a fun fix. They've overdosed on it. The problem is that they're not intellectually or morally challenged. And my guess is that most of their parents are the same way: too busy with modern-day distractions — pro sports, videos, pulp fiction, shopping malls — to have any kind of interior life. As a result, most kids have little or no relationship with their parents or other adults. Why should they, when we're all caught up in the culture of greed, selfishness and excess, when we're all as materially spoiled and spiritually empty as our children, and just as prone to view consumption as our savior?

It's a pipe dream to think that we will suddenly shun consumerism and find meaning in books and conversation and self-expression, numbed as we are by the media and other drugs. But I do hope that we'll quit blaming our problems on boredom and quit thinking that spending money will somehow save us.

So next time your kid complains of having nothing to do, here's a list of relatively cheap and easy suggestions:

Start a rock and roll band. Take up birdwatching. Run for mayor. Plan a trip to the Boundary Waters. Raise a hundred dollars for a hunger relief organization. Befriend a nerd. Climb the town's watertower, haul up your television on a long rope, and drop it off, making sure not to kill anybody. Hack into the IRS computers and add a trillion dollars to the bills of corporate criminals. Paint a mural. Read a book. Take a hike. Love somebody.

Issue date: November, 19 2003. ©Mille Lacs Messenger Inc.

Back

2009-02-16T19:37:00.002-06:00

I'm back from vacation. It was good. I'll post some pictures. I'm also going to post some old columns because I need to save them to my computer, so I'm grabbing them off the Messenger website.

Here's the first batch of photos from Hawaii:

New Album 2/15/09 6:08 PM

The kind of winter it's been

2009-01-27T09:07:00.001-06:00

I haven't been exercising much this winter. I usually take a few months off from running and just cross-country ski or snowshoe a bit to stay somewhat in shape during the cold months.

But I've realized something after 30 years of cross-country skiing: I have a physiological anomaly that makes xc skiing extremely difficult for me: My toes stick out at a comically obtuse angle. My feet are not made to be parallel. As a result, I always feel slightly off balance on skis.

Snowshoeing is not much easier. I have old-school snowshoes, and my bindings get twisted around and loosen up as a walk and end up falling off, so I have to stop every few minutes to try to tighten them, but they're frozen, so there I am, crouched awkwardly in the snow, hauling on the straps behind my ankles, my face turning red, the curses forming at the back of my throat...

So today I got it in my head to go for a jog. When I went out to start the car to take the kids to school, it seemed warm, so I drove them to town, came back and got my jogging clothes on. The sun was coming out, so I figured that would make it even warmer, and it didn't look at all windy. I just wore a couple layers on the bottom and three on top, plus the little skull cap and lightweight running gloves I got for my birthday (thanks Jeff and Linda).

I got halfway to the mailbox and realized it was colder than I thought. I was on the hard-packed snow on the road, but the dogs were in the fresh stuff on the side, and their paws were squeaking. The spot on my cheek that I frostbit in the Fargo days started burning. My head was cold, my toes were cold, and my fingers were getting cold. By the time I got to the stop sign a mile from home and turned around, my thumbs were getting numb. Halfway home I had to take my fingers out and ball up my fists, so the empty fingers of my gloves made it look like I was carrying two rubber chickens.

You know where this is going, don't you?

I got home and looked in the mirror. There was frost all over my beard and my collar. I checked the Internet, which said it was 11 below. Next time I'll check the temp before I go jogging.

New website is coming

2009-01-27T05:13:00.002-06:00

Our new Messenger website is in the works. We're hoping to roll it out by March 1, but that may change. I'm learning the new program for uploading content, and so far I think it's gonna be great — a vast improvement in look, feel and usability from our old site. Still a fair number of issues to resolve, though.

Jan. 28 Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-01-27T05:09:00.003-06:00

Here's what's coming in the Mess:

Page one: Two juveniles plead guilty in connection to a theft at Boone's gun shop in Isle.

A first for Onamia: Jenna Peterson wins sub-section Triple A award.

Page two: Eric North, principal at Nay Ah Shing, is moving on. Vivian Clark visits with North about his years at Mille Lacs.

Page three: Mille Lacs County Board stories, a felony for shooting off a gun and domestic violence, a tribute to Mike Halpin by the Driftskippers snowmobile club.

Op/ed: Columns by Brett, Kathy, Moccasin telegraph.

Etc.

Ojibwe winter living skills.
Goby vs. sculpin
Kathio candlelight ski
High school sports

Banner removed

2009-01-23T06:10:00.001-06:00

The Pepsi advertisement inside the front doors of Milaca High School is gone. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, and not the result of my poison pen rant.

2009-01-22T07:19:00.001-06:00

Read this: Mohammed Jawad and Obama's efforts to suspend military commissions

The real issue for Obama

2009-01-20T12:01:00.001-06:00

Got this in my email today:

The Greatest story of the Millennium is the UFO cover up going on since 1947!

Will President Obama make the government tell the TRUTH of Aliens visiting Earth?

If President Obama along with his CIA head Leon Ponetta wants to Change America and the World, they must end the "greatest lie" of the millennium which is the government denial and the cover up of UFO's and Alien visitation here on Earth . We know that throughout history leaders of mankind has always tried to hide, silence and even kill the TRUTH in order to keep the world in darkness. Even the Messiah, Jesus Christ, was killed by the leaders of His day because those insecure leaders wanted to keep the truth from mankind. It didn't work then and it will not work now. James Forrestal, Secretary of Defense in 1947 at the time of the Roswell Alien crash, was right when he said that mankind has a right to know the Truth. He died mysteriously. His death was ruled a suicide but many say it was not a suicide but he was murdered to keep the truth from coming out.

How many people are going to have to die mysteriously before the American public says enough is enough and we demand the TRUTH about Aliens? Secretary Forrestal told others he felt his life was in danger.
A little bit more info on James Forrestal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0NGbxzBVI
Other Roswell eyewitnesses have also mysteriously died.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc_hm3d1zaE&feature=related

Why want the government be Honest with the People of Earth?

More than likely it is because they think we're bunch of idiots and we can't handle knowing the truth. Yet hundreds or thousands of government officials know the truth and they seem to be functioning fine with the facts. If Military and Government officials can handle the truth, well then can't we all?
The government is not going to do what is right and release this information unless they are made to do so.
Why some in power feel that they can handle the truth but the tax payers who pay their government salaries can't handle is truth is another mysterious thing. If you look at the high ranking government personnel, including Roswell eyewitness Major Jesse Marcel, that have come out with the truth that Aliens are visiting earth and UFO's are real, it would be hard not to believe their testimonies. The American Press, the American Public, and our New President Barack Obama must "change" this great lie our government has perpetrated for almost 70 years. Ladies and Gentlemen, Yes UFO's and Aliens are real and some government's, including the USA, already have this knowledge but they're working overtime to make sure this TOP Secret evidence doesn't become concrete in the eyes of the media and the public. They can't stop the inevitable.

Aliens are not gods but creatures created by God!

Betty and Barney Hill's abduction case is one that holds credence that these Aliens are space explorers that have the technology to reach distant planets. Betty describes and draws a star map that the Aliens showed her when she asked their leader where they were from. The leader showed Betty a large star map of the star system Zeta Reticuli and pointed to the planet they were from. Betty and Barney's UFO abduction was verified years later after the star system map she drew was discovered years later by earth's Scientist to exist just as Betty had described. The Aliens also asked Betty why her husband Barney's teeth came out and her's didn't. Obviously no God's or beings from our World would ask such a question about dentures. This part of their testimony was also verified decades later by some of the eyewitnesses of the Alien's body autopsy from the Roswell Crash, when they said the aliens had no teeth. So Betty's original testimony makes more sense years later as to why the Aliens would be curious about our teeth. There are many such cases as this that point to the truth that very intelligent advance Alien life is visiting Earth but people need not look to Aliens for answers but to God.
Those awaiting Aliens to land and bring lasting peace on Earth will never have that fantasy realized. Aliens are not Gods, they are creatures just like the rest of us. After all Gods don't crash in the New Mexico desert or anywhere else for that matter. Religious folk need to not fear for they are not demons either. Demons can't read minds and they don't have to ask abductees why some teeth come out and others don't.

Why are UFO believers struggling to make UFOs Fact rather then Fantasy?

FOUR words describe why, MISUSE OF CREDIABLE SOURCES! The only case that needs to be made is that over a hundred ranking military personnel have come forward. That's enough right there to prove there is a great lie from our government. In a court of law a hundred witnesswa is enough to prove anything. There are high ranking military sources that have broke ranks to testify that Aliens are REAL but these men and women are not being USED enough to make the point that Aliens are REAL. Anyone knows that if you want to make a strong and believable case you need credible sources to make the case. Who is more credible they those whom our government has trained and promoted to high office? Our brightest minds come from those in the Military who had trust and security clearance, also pilots both commercial and military, and former government workers that had access to this information. John Mack, a Harvard graduate, was a bright mind that believed in Alien visitors from far off Worlds. As Psychiatrist and Professor at Harvard Medical School many people believed what John Mack said about Aliens and Abductees. His tragic death in September 27, 2004 was a great loss to the UFO community of believers and the world. John Edward Mack, M.D. was a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, and considered to be a leading authority on the Abduction Phenomenon. He was ran over by a car when he was in London.

Crop Circles are really Crop Signs or Crop Codes.

These other worldly beings are communicating to mankind in indirect ways. They are writing messages in our crops. Some of these crop codes are highly complex and in no way could have been man made overnight. Some abductees report being told by these creatures that our planet, earth, is heading for dark and disastrous times. It is wise to look at the Alien visitation phenomenon, crop circles, abductions and the like as signs of the time. These creatures are trying to indirectly establish contact with us to let mankind know that we are not alone and that we can do much better than we are currently. One alien abductee said that the Aliens told them that they know there is a Creator God and they referred to Him as the Source.
Are governments holding back these the facts of Alien technology because that would destroy the theory of evolution? Knowing that there are possibly more Worlds that have life than we could even count would do more to prove there is a Creator God rather than life randomly took place on the Earth alone through evolution. More on Crop Circles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KoR2t-iM9k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBnowBwf1WI&feature=related

Are Aliens planning to destroy Earth as in the movie "War of the World"?

No! If Aliens wanted to destroy us with their advanced technology they could wipe us out relatively easily if that were their goal. These being are here more or less trying to warn mankind and help us in an indirect way. Those who have encountered them say these beings are just as curious about us as we are about them. Many who have been abducted by Aliens say that the Aliens have communicated with them that our planet is in trouble and headed toward a dark future. It almost as if these beings are warning us of a bleak and dim future for our planet Earth. Also that Earth will undergo major earth changes and this tribulation with usher in a time of suffering as our World has never known. It is highly likely that God has laws among advanced worlds that governs all his creation from direct Alien interference. This type of law would surely prohibit advanced civilizations from directly interfering with the progress any World such as ours, as we must create our own destiny and learn from our mistakes by bettering ourselves.

Notice that the Roswell Crash happened in 1947 not long after the Atomic Bomb was dropped on Japan in 1945. The 2 Atomic bombs were flown from the only Nuclear weapons base in America at that time, the Roswell New Mexico's 509th bomb squadron. On August 6, 1945, the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima. Followed on August 9 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945. There was probably so much alien activity in the New Mexico area after those two Nuclear bombs had been flown from the 509th military base and dropped on Japan that it lead to a crash between two of their space craft. Obviously our use or misuse of Nuclear technology is of great concern to the Aliens.

It is no coincidence that the two most famous Alien incidents which happened both at Roswell and Rendlesham also just happened to be Nuclear weapon bases. Also many military personnel at other nuclear weapon bases tell of alien activity on their bases at times. The Rendlesham Forest case happened at an British Air Force base that had a nuclear weapon storage complex. See more on that incident at; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r35q0KQMXOg

President Barack Obama can really bring "change" by stopping this cover up!

We are on the verge something special in America with the swearing in of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. We only hope that many good changes will come from his Presidency.
One of those changes may be that the World learns the truth about UFO's and Aliens that our Governments have deceitfully hidden from the men and women who pay their salaries. Obama will hopefully remind the government that they work for the people and not the other way around. America is a democracy but our government leaders hide the Truth about Aliens as if America was a dictatorship. The fact that we have recovered space craft from Alien Worlds already in our government's possession is the biggest story since Jesus' birth, death and resurrection. Why are very few of the media even demanding the truth and telling this story? The biggest story of our century is being overlooked. But NOT FOR LONG!

J Shaw

Letter to the editor

2009-01-19T20:54:00.001-06:00

I'm writing this to the Mille Lacs County Times, the paper in Milaca, where my kids go to school.

Dear editor:

I walked into Milaca High School this evening to drop my son off for basketball practice and was greeted by a banner saying "Welcome to Milaca High School, Proudly Serving Pepsi Products."

Gag me with 10 teaspoons of sugar!

I don't know what Pepsi is paying for that advertising, but no price is worth your soul, and it's not an exaggeration to say that the soul of the school is at stake when it sells advertising to a company like Pepsi, which survives by addicting children to unhealthy products, habits and lifestyles.

I've read the PR on the PepsiCo website about the company's promotion of health, education and environmental responsibility. It's a lot like the PR on the Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds websites.

Companies like Pepsi are to tooth decay, diabetes and obesity what those companies are to lung cancer. Pepsi's PR campaign in the schools is putting lipstick on a pig, to borrow a popular phrase. It's an attempt to convince children at their most vulnerable age, while their brand loyalties are developing, that Pepsi cares about them, and their school, and their town, and Mother Nature, and mom and apple pie. Pepsi cares only about creating customers for life, and our school is playing into their hands.

Wake up, administrators and school board members. Giving Pepsi advertising in the school is the equivalent of putting Joe Camel posters on the wall. If you value your integrity and that of the school, you'll tear those banners down. Otherwise you might as well cut health class, since walking through the front doors contradicts everything our kids are taught by their teachers.

While you're at it, you should get rid of those vending machines that are full of junk food, yuppie kool-aid, and overpriced water in environmentally unfriendly plastic bottles. Those machines teach kids not only bad eating habits but bad spending habits and bad stewardship of resources as well, while fostering jealousy among children and division between the haves and have nots.

I hope other parents will join me by calling their school board members and telling them no price is high enough to justify the corruption of our kids' minds and bodies.

Sincerely,

Brett Larson
Bogus Brook Township
320-983-3092

Stuff I found in the snow

2009-01-18T19:42:00.001-06:00

Slideshow from snowshoeing around the property today.

Once you start looking at stuff, everything looks amazing.

Stuff I found in the snow 1/18/09 7:01 PM

Windchill

2009-01-14T09:06:00.006-06:00

Got a wild hair this morning to go out skiing. It was only five below, compared to 30 below yesterday morning. Windchill today was still 30 below, but I'm not a big believer in windchill — in spite of the warnings of doctors and weathermen.
Don't get me wrong — I know the wind makes it "feel" colder, and makes it more dangerous to be outside. Diane and I lived 30 miles east of Fargo for three years, with a western exposure — a bean field stretching a mile to the next farm. We skied back and forth from the house when we were snowed in for a month, up a driveway 3/4 of a mile long. I get wind.
I also get cold, having lived in International Falls for three years.
But what windchill is mostly about is Minnesotans feeling better about themselves and where they live by exaggerating how bad it is and, by extension, how tough they are.
Truth is, Minnesotans aren't that tough. We've created a system of garages and block heaters and snowblowers and snowplows and skyways that allow us to live here without really being affected very seriously by the cold and snow (which has never been as much of a problem as many places in the country). Heck, Minneapolis and St. Paul have enclosed their entire downtown areas so nobody actually has to go outside.
So we have windchill, which allows us to say it's 20 below when actually it's five above. This morning the weatherman actually said it was just as cold today as it was yesterday, but today's map showed windchills, while yesterday's showed air temps. Ridiculous.
Anyway, I went out skiing this morning and was dumb enough to take my camera. I stopped a couple times, pulled in from my coat, took off my glove, and snapped some pictures. None of them were any good, but that brief exposure to the elements numbed my thumbs, and I didn't get any good pictures.
Not fit for man nor beast.

The conscience of America

2009-01-10T21:24:00.001-06:00

Is Bill Moyers the most clear-headed and articulate voice in the mainstream American media? Does PBS count as mainstream?

Body language

2009-01-08T18:25:00.001-06:00

I can only hope that the body language in this picture doesn't capture the entirety of this photo op/meeting

Big Sur pics

2009-01-06T08:12:00.002-06:00

I should mention that this trip was made possible by a grant from East Central Arts Council. They funded the trip for me to do research for a novel I've been working on for the last 20-some years. (No, they didn't pay for Diane's ticket.) Thanks to ECAC and McKnight Foundation.

The novel's almost done. I'll let you know when I find a publisher. Don't hold your breath. I may publish it on this blog.

Big Sur

Great vacation, depressing homecoming

2009-01-06T07:17:00.002-06:00

I had a cold night at Fernwood Resort with lots of waking. We had a great last day in California. Got up early and took a walk at Pfeiffer State Park, a beautiful little beach enclosed by cliffs. Haystack rocks with windows carved by surf, a guy walking his dog on the beach. It looked like he had a long leash, but it turned out he was dragging a piece of kelp that the dog was playing with. It was cold, the sun shining on the mountain to the north but not on us.
From there we went to Deetjen's for breakfast. I had eggs benedict, Diane had a turkey/avocado thing. The atmosphere was perfect, the coffee was good, and we eavesdropped on an old couple reminiscing about the old days at Deetjen's and Nepenthe, where they had worked.
After Deetjen's we drove back up to Nepenthe and had a pot of tea, watching for whales out at sea. I saw a pod of something swim to the north, but I couldn't tell what they were.
We drove south, stopping a few times along the way, including the waterfall at Julia Pfeiffer Burns state park, which drops out of the woods onto the beach. At the elephant seal rookery, we found a spot where we could walk to the beach and it was just us and the seals, no crowds. They were mostly sleeping, but there was some interaction among the females and their small pups. We had lunch in San Simeon, then drove over the hills to Paso Robles and up 101 to San Miguel, where I found a bridge I slept under in 1984, and everything looked surprisingly like I remembered.
We drove to Los Gatos without much stopping, and Diane slept. It was dark by the time I got there, and I couldn't get much of a feel for the lay of the land, but we did find the house on the lot where Neal Cassady's house was.
We didn't have time to meet up with Kurt and Kate, so we had dinner and went to the airport, where we got a little sleep on the chairs and the floor at an empty gate.
It was a terrible flight home. We were in front of the exit row, so our seats didn't recline, and the seat of the guy in front of Diane was broken and reclined too far, making her terribly cramped. Neither of us slept much. (Yes, I offered to trade seats.)
We got home and had to leave the car in the driveway, which was drifted over, and walk home through snow and a biting wind. Slept, had a birthday cookie, watched the Vikes lose with Leif, had a birthday steak.
Monday morning none of the three cars would start. It was 23 below. I tried to charge the batteries and get them started all morning, to no avail. Borrowed mom's car, got to work at 11, was a grouch, got home at 6.

200,000 vets sleeping on the streets

2009-01-04T20:35:00.001-06:00

After watching all the obviously mentally ill street people in San Francisco scrounging through garbage cans and panhandling and sleeping on vents, this article caught my eye: Did You Know 200,000 Vets Are Sleeping on the Streets?

Good article

2009-01-04T20:28:00.000-06:00

America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power

By Stephen Zunes, AlterNet. Posted January 3, 2009.

From a campground in Big Sur

2009-01-02T20:28:00.000-06:00

We're at Fernwood Resort in Big Sur, and it's been quite a couple whirlwind days. Flew in the evening in a crowded plane, slept the whole way, but woke up about 20 times, midnight came on the tarmac at SFO, got to our hotel at 2 am or so after driving through mobs of revellers (girls in short skirts and tall shoes, boys in untucked t-shirts with creased pants and chains and sport coats, hailing cabs every color of humanity possible on Embarcadero.
Yesterday walked down through Union Square to Market, then caught the BART to 24th and Mission, walked to Kurt and Kates' had coffee with Kurt while Kate slept, then she got up and we walked to a Mexican joint for breakfast/lunch. Ate too much and walked it off up 20th past the old 3650, then up past to park and down past Mission High and Mission Delores, back Valencia to a house Kurt worked on where the owners were having an open house. We cut out for the hotel, where there was a 5 p.m. wine tasting, then jumped in the car and drove to Albany, saw the house where I lived, drove up Solano past Happy Produce, saw Albany Bowl where I ate breakfast and wrote, and Happy Donuts (formerly Winchell's, where I once me Dr. J's mother, or so she said). Looked for the Office, the bar I frequented there, but couldn't find it. The Ivy Room, where Chris and I met fat, murderin George and I got born again for the last time, was closed, so we went to Club Mallard, which is like a Minnesota northwoods bar plopped onto San Pablo Avenue, all art deco and East Bay hipsters. Saw Slum Dog Millionaire at the Albany theater, where I used to go to movies, then back to the hotel via Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, wondering which of those storefronts was the Cafe Intermezzo where Chris and I would drink the sweetest beer of the week on Sundays after church.
Then this morning took Hwy. 1 from its inception to here with stops in Santa Cruz for burrito and quesadilla and Monterey where Cannery Row, made famous by Steinbeck's books about homeless guys, has been transformed into a yuppie commercial district, and Carmel-by-the-Sea, which would be paradise if not for all the ostentatious wealth and Californians, then a walk to the ocean at the state park before pulling in here to set up our tent at 3 p.m. We were going to have an early supper at Deetjen's, a charming little retreat built by a Norwegian in the 30s, but no supper till 6 so we stopped at the Henry Miller library then went to Nepenthe up on the hill overlooking the sea, where Kerouac went with a gang of poets 50-some years ago and wrote about in Big Sur, which I've been reading on the trip, as you can tell by the stream-of-consciousness.

Christmas photos

2008-12-26T06:51:00.001-06:00

New Album 12/25/08 2:47 PM

Best Christmas tree ever

2008-12-24T16:48:00.000-06:00

My Mille Lacs Messenger column for 12/24.

During the Depression, when my dad was a young boy in Chicago, his family couldn't afford a Christmas tree one year.

My grandfather was out of a job, and he paced, defeated, across the floor of their one-bedroom apartment. He had been taught that it was a man's duty to support his family, but like many during those hard times, he wasn't able to.

That Christmas, they had to rely on the generosity of their neighbors and food from the government.

My grandfather was not a drinking man - just the opposite in fact. Although Prohibition had been repealed a few years earlier, it was still Prohibition in Grandpa's church, and in his heart.

But one day, a week before Christmas, my dad, who was 10 at the time, came home and found his father sitting by the window with a large jug of wine, the cork still in it, the seal unbroken.

Grandpa would look from the window to the jug and back to the window, and my dad wondered what it was doing there, and how he could afford it, and why he didn't open it.

My grandmother was a cheerful woman who could make oatmeal taste like sugar plums. That same day, while Grandpa was sulking by the window, she came in, brushing snow off her coat and holding what looked like the branch of a small tree. Her rosy cheeks made Dad think she was as warm inside as the oil burner that heated the living room where he and his brother slept.

Grandma's tree was six feet tall, with gray bark. Its branches curved and grew upward, each one splitting again and again, and each covered with sharp thorns.

Grandpa asked what she was doing.

"I got us a Christmas tree," she said.

My dad knew where it had come from. Near their apartment building was a vacant lot, and across the lot was a small valley - more of a ditch, really - lined with thorny trees.

Grandpa watched as she tried to find a way to make the tree stand up. She put it in a glass pitcher, but the tree tipped the pitcher over. When she filled the pitcher with water, the tree still leaned precariously because the mouth of the pitcher was so wide.

It leaned there all evening, a bare and ugly thing, until it was time for the boys to go to bed.

In the morning, when my dad woke up, the tree was standing straight and tall - taller than my dad or his younger brother. It had been decorated with popcorn and cranberries and the most colorful and fragile ornaments, which Grandma had collected during happier times. Around its base was a red wool blanket that the boys slept under on cold nights.

The boys knew there wouldn't be many presents under the tree that year, but they hoped for the best. They awoke on Christmas morning and saw a present for each of them under the tree, but the real present was on the branches. Overnight the tree has sprouted hundreds of purple flowers - more beautiful and intricate and fragile than Grandma's precious ornaments.

When it was time to take the tree down, Grandma took the red blanket away, and there, under the tree, holding it steady, was the jug of wine that Grandpa had brought home. He never drank it, but the tree did, and turned the wine into purple flowers.

Grandpa and Grandma are gone, and so are my dad and his brother. All that's left of them are the stories they told, and one old, cracked ornament. Whenever we would ask him to tell a story about his childhood, my dad would tell that story, and eventually it became a tradition. He would hang that bulb on the tree and tell us the story of the best Christmas tree ever.

Merry Christmas.

Brett Larson (blarson@millelacsmessenger.com) is the editor of the Mille Lacs Messenger.

Appropriate boob

2008-12-20T11:04:00.002-06:00

Conversation in car with son Leif, 11.

Leif: Why do they always call people boobs on Nickelodeon?

Me: I don't know.

Leif: I wonder what kind of boob they mean.

Me: What kind do you think?

Leif: The uninappropriate kind, I think.

Me: Uninappropriate?

Leif: I mean appropriate.

Chopped liver

2008-12-19T15:44:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I feel completely unnecessary around here.

I thought being the editor of local newspaper had a little, just a little status associated with it, but I'm constantly reminded that I'm about as important as the potted plants.

This morning I hear our staff members talking about a couple incidents that occurred yesterday afternoon. Something about cop cars and guns drawn at the IREC and Portside.

My ears perk up. "What?" I yell from my office. "Guns drawn? Why didn't I hear about this??!!"

Turns out the call came in yesterday afternoon when I was engaged in really important activities: Taking pictures of the Onamia girls' basketball team. The call went to Rob, who tried to get EVE to cover it. EVE, OUR 16-YEAR-OLD INTERN!!!

(Rob was preoccupied, but what else is new?)

COPS HAVE DETAINED PEOPLE ON SCHOOL PROPERTY AND GUNS HAVE BEEN DRAWN? AND YOU DIDN'T CALL ME???

I HAVE A CELL PHONE! THE NUMBER IS 218-820-3649! WHEN NEWS HAPPENS, CALL ME FIRST!!!!

When Merit burned a couple weeks ago, I was the last one to know. Diane Gibas was there, Linda Becker was there, Jamie Root-Larsen called ROB (for Pete's sake! not ROB!), while I'm at home taking a leisurely tubby bath, brushing my teeth, eating my oatmeal, kissing the children goodbye...

I'm the editor of the local paper, for crying out loud! When news happens, I'm supposed to be the first one to know! I should be on speed dial! My red phone should be jumping off the hook!

Good conversation

2008-12-19T09:43:00.003-06:00

I had a nice talk with Bill Hill this morning, who pointed out some misleading statements on my blog and in my column about the library. He wasn't trying to get me to make a correction, but I do like to clarify things when I find I've said something that is incomplete or misleading.

Bill pointed out that the council attempted to meet with Judy Cain of the Tourism Council to discuss options for her group and the Depot and the library, but she and the council had already decided to move out.

Bill also said the city council has a good working relationship with the school district, and he took issue with a crack I made on this blog referring to possible rivalries among various entities. Bill cited the ball field development, the Nexus project and the fitness center as three areas in which the city and the school district worked well together, for mutual benefit.

Bill likes step in when tempers flare and be a mediating voice of reason. It's good to have people like that in the community and on the council.

By the way, the Onamia School Board decided to make Bill's son Bill the next school board member, after the resignation of Tom Briscoe. Bill was fourth in the voting in the recent election, after the three winners, so it made sense to appoint him.

Matt on Al and Norm

2008-12-19T06:56:00.001-06:00

Matt Taibbi reports from Minnesota. Might be the only time my brother's name and childhood state senator (Fritz Knaak) appear in Rolling Stone.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24603798/the_last_recount

Brief reviews

2008-12-18T22:21:00.003-06:00

I'm reading House of Sand and Fog. Didn't see the movie. Book is good, but I don't like when male authors describe what women feel like when they're making whoopee. But it was on Oprah's list, so maybe he got it right.

Movies I've watched recently:

Mission Impossible 3 on cable. Review: bearable.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead: Philip Seymour Hoffman is always hard to watch, but even harder to watch when he's a heroin addict whose plot to rob his parents' jewelry store goes tragically awry, unleashing a series of increasingly dark consequences.

I want to make a list of favorite kid/family movies of the last 10 years. With an 11 year old and a 13 year old, I've seen lots of them. A couple that come to mind: Penelope, Bridge to Terebithia. The kids singing "Why Can't We Be Friends" is one of my favorite musical movie moments, which makes me think I should make a list of favorite musical movie moments. One that comes to mind: "Tiny Dancer" sung on the bus in Almost Famous. The end of Magnolia with all the characters lip-sinking to that Amy Mann song. All the Cat Stevens music in Harold and Maude.

I love the Harry Potters, especially number 3.

Can't wait for Lost to come back on. Some good music in that show, too.

Went to Twilight with Cedar. I was pleasantly surprised, and it was nice to think about the summer I lived in Forks, Washington, and hooted for spotted owls. I didn't see any vampires, but Diane found signs of what appeared to be a wiccan ceremony outside Port Angeles. Maybe it was vampires.

Finally found a used copy of Shotgun Willie on vinyl. And Merle Haggard, Serving 190 Proof.

Read Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent. Oddly compelling, but ultimately unsatisfying.

I have once again become an unabashed Vikings fan. And was on the bandwagon even when they were 0-2.

Had jury duty today. Got dismissed, thank goodness.

Mushkooub challenging election results

2008-12-18T22:13:00.003-06:00

My friend Mush called me today to say he believes there were irregularities and violations of Band statutes and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe constitution in the election Tuesday, which Marge Anderson won.

I like Mushkooub. He's a good guy. And he calls me on the phone sometimes, which I appreciate.

Newspaper editors like getting phone calls.

Isle community dinner

2008-12-18T22:11:00.003-06:00

Looked like a great turnout at the Isle dinner tonight. Nice to see the kids serving people, all the teacher volunteers, the students playing music...

Onamia girls' basketball game was good, too. They won and it was a fun but low-scoring affair.

What I really think about libraries

2008-12-18T22:05:00.000-06:00

They are good.

I like them.

I am a friend of the Milaca library. I gave money. I love the new Milaca library. I loved the old one too.

I have several friends who are librarians.

I believe checking out books is a good thing, but I don't often do it because I forget to turn them in and have to pay a fine, and besides there are too many to choose from so I can't decide, so I usually buy a book at Goodwill instead when I need one to read.

I love the people who volunteer their time to make a library, people like Eunice and Marge in Onamia and Shelly and Jody in Milaca and thousands and millions of people everywhere.

I will use my bully pulpit to help Onamia get a library. I don't care where they put it.

Hello, Bill

2008-12-18T17:52:00.002-06:00

I generally assume nobody reads this thing, although I know from the counter that I get an average of 15-20 visits per day. I figure they're mostly old buddies, with a few suspicious Messenger readers trying to discern if I really am a communist.

Then I hear somebody saw something on my blog, and I think I better be more careful.

So I might have given the impression that the Onamia City Council was more mean and nasty than they were. Did I get yelled at and laughed at? Yes, but it was all in the usual give-and-take between government and the press.

Did I yell back? Well, I guess I did, which I confessed to upon coming into the Mess office the next day. One council member said I shouted him down, in fact. That, I think, is open to debate.

Anyway, let it be said that I am a great admirer of all who take on the thankless task of public service, and I also enjoy needling people in writing — probably too much.

And I like the friends of the library, and don't expect to be taken so seriously, as I suggested in the first sentence of that column.

Call me or write if you ever want to needle me back. I deserve to get as much as I give. I'll try not to yell, but if I do, it doesn't mean I don't like you.

Cedar's one-act

2008-12-18T07:24:00.001-06:00

Cedar's one-act, Milaca High School, Dec. 10, 2008

Isle City Council pays legal fees

2008-12-18T06:54:00.002-06:00

Okay, so here's the story behind the story about the city of Isle paying Mayor Mike DeCoursey's legal fees.

Diane was at the meeting and wrote the story. A couple of us who read it said, "Why is it the city's responsibility to pay the legal fees? Does Mike argue that he was acting in his capacity as mayor when he got into an altercation with a cop that led to charges?"

So I had Diane call the city council members and ask them why they voted as they did.

The three who voted in favor of the bailout all told Diane they did so because the city attorney advised them to.

So she called Mike, who said he had been advised by his personal attorney to ask the city council for the money. Mike told Diane the city attorney had not been consulted on the matter.

So somehow three council members got the impression that the city attorney had advised the city to pay the bill. And those three didn't ask any followup questions or clarify which attorney had given the advice, and to whom.

And the mayor also voted in favor, saying he could because it would've passed anyway.

And he said he didn't benefit from it.

So, the answer to the question many people are asking: Yes, it is all just as bizarre as it appears.

That said, it brings up an issue that deserves mention: You get charged with a crime by the government, pay through the nose to defend yourself, the people find you not guilty, and you're $30,000 poorer, thanks to our wonderful prosecutors and law enforcers. In the same situation, I'd probably look for a bailout too (but not from the taxpayers of my town).

Beware of the wrath of the library

2008-12-18T06:26:00.003-06:00

Who would've thought a column about the library would create such controversy?

So far I've been yelled and made fun of by the Onamia City Council, accused of shoddy journalism by the Friends of the Library, and invited to coffee by the director of the East Central Regional Library. (I thought that might mean she liked the column, but I was told otherwise by the county commissioner who is on the library board.)

Off the record, several people have agreed with one or more of my points.

All I said was that

1. IMHO, the historical depot would not make a good library.

2. The city council shouldn't have given it to the library so unceremoniously, given that there was a tenant who provided a service to the community (Mille Lacs Area Tourism Council).

3. There are other options for a library (Rolf Olsen Center or a downtown storefront or, my humorous conclusion, move the city council into the depot with the tourism coucil, and make the city hall into a library).

4. The Friends of the Library don't need the East Central Regional Library to start a library. (I referred to "the great and powerful ECRL," which apparently some took exception to. It was a joke. I know the library is not REALLY great and powerful.)

Apparently there's some bad blood between the city council and the tourism council, and possibly between the school administration and/or board (which controls the ROC) and the city and/or friends of the library.

Whatever.

A lot of people would love to see the library in the ROC, and I think it should be considered. But I don't live there, so I should just shut up about it.

Marriage

2008-12-17T11:23:00.001-06:00

I found this in an anonymous letter to the editor in the Mille Lacs Messenger of Sept. 5, 1935: "Successful marriage is one-tenth luck and nine-tenths habit."

Awesome kid

2008-12-16T16:58:00.001-06:00

Leif Larson, snowboarder

My lively wife

2008-12-16T16:38:00.000-06:00

Untitled Album

Fire hydrant

2008-12-16T05:39:00.001-06:00

I know how a fire hydrant feels. You believe you were created for a noble purpose, but the dogs have other ideas.

Behind the "Bait and Switch" story

2008-12-03T08:03:00.003-06:00

This blog title, "Inside the Mess," is usually misleading, because I don't give that much behind-the-scenes info about the Messenger. It's mostly inside the mess that is my brain.

So I thought I'd put some things out there about why I decided to run the story and the process of writing it.

Al Reum contacted me by phone and told me his story. In his view, the Corporate Commission and Small Business Development Program misled him and his wife Solita, presenting them with a rosier outlook for the business than turned out to be true.

I thought it was an interesting story, not because I sided with Al and Solita (I withheld and still withhold judgement) but because there was a strong human interest element in it: Couple follows dream; dream turns into nightmare.

Frankly, I don't know if the Reums were to blame for their predicament or the Corporate Commission was, but I'm heartened by the comments on the Mess website following the story. They're fairly evenly split, which suggests that you can read the story either way. As usual, the truth is probably somewhere in between.

It's always a bit risky to run a story that may be seen as critical of the Casino. The Messenger has lost advertising revenue in the past because of critical coverage, and honestly, we make a good deal of money from the Band and the Casino.

That's not my business, though. Kevin, our publisher, handles the advertising end. I handle the stories, and we stay out of each other's business. That's the right way to run a newspaper, but not always the most profitable.

Another question that arose in the office had to do with why the story was newsworthy. Isn't it just a "he said, she said," one family's grievance against a private entity?

Well, it's more complicated than that. For one thing, there's a human interest element to it. There's also a moral to the story that makes it worth telling. Finally, the Band and Casino are major employers and major entities in our area. The "David and Goliath" theme pertains, and newspapers have a long, proud tradition of giving voice to Davids who feel threatened by Goliaths. Would we run the story if some business owner felt they got bad advice from some other entity, the Small Business Administration, the Initiative Fund, the East Central Regional Development Council? Yeah, we probably would. And we'd give those agencies a chance to respond.

The only thing that's troubling to me about the casino's response is how carefully spun it is. The Corporate Commission demanded written questions, then it took them 10 days to respond to my questions. Not exactly a candid, spontaneous response, which makes you wonder why all the spin-doctoring was necessary.

David Glass, who is mentioned in the story, suggests that the Reums did get a raw deal on the business. But who is ultimately responsible? I don't know. That's for the reader to judge, and obviously, readers are coming to different conclusions.

One thing we can all agree on: Buyer beware.

unknown owl

2008-11-30T17:03:00.002-06:00

I was jogging on my trails today and saw an owl I couldn't identify. It looked too small and thin to be a barred owl, but not small enough for a screech owl. A flash of reddish brown, an erratic flight, no visible ear tufts. I've seen short-eared and long-eared in the past, the latter on our property here during migration. This one was too dark for a short-eared, so I'm guessing maybe long-eared. Apparently you can't see the ear tufts in flight. Short tail, too. Is that characteristic of a long-eared? Not sure.

My latest Mille Lacs Messenger column

2008-11-26T13:51:00.000-06:00

Band needs help from inside and out

by Brett Larson
Editor

Like many in the Mille Lacs area, I've been watching the political events in the Mille Lacs Band community with interest. I think I speak for many of the Band's non-Indian neighbors when I say to Band members, "We're pulling for you." A successful and healthy Mille Lacs community depends on a successful and healthy Mille Lacs Band government, and right now, we don't have that.

We have a Band Assembly who, I believe, prematurely ousted Chief Executive Melanie Benjamin before she had a chance to defend herself. It's true that she walked out of a hearing that was scheduled for her to make her defenses, but she believed that a court order questioning the proceedings was legitimate. It may turn out that she's guilty of using her position for personal gain, but the Band Assembly, rather than wait for the legal issues to be sorted out, chose to vote her out of office immediately, indicating that "innocent until proven guilty" may not be a core principle of the Assembly.

Anyone who's been around the Mille Lacs Band knows there are warring factions, not just in the government but in the Band community as a whole. In any society, tribal or non, when people in government are more loyal to their factions, their families or themselves than they are to the group as a whole, problems develop: nepotism in government appointments, favors doled out to people on the "inside," revenge taken against perceived enemies, intimidation, threats and a constant cloud of fear.

Let's hope that Band members reject that kind of factionalism and get behind the candidate most capable of running a squeaky clean administration that will lend stability and credibility to tribal government.

I don't know which Band candidate best fits that description, but I think Band members know, and I hope they put the interests of the whole over the interests of their specific group.

In addition to good leadership, the Band also needs help from the feds, and soon. If the allegations in the Band's recent internal investigation are true, then a lot of Band money - and probably federal funds included - has gone into the pockets of "skunks in the woodpile," as former commissioner of community development Al Olson called them. It's not just Band members who should be angry at the culprits; non-Indians' tax dollars are probably also among the missing.

David Lillehaug, the former U.S. Attorney who conducted the investigation, would not make these charges lightly. If he found sufficient evidence to put in writing the names of those suspected of bilking the Band out of millions, then what's taking the feds so long? Bring on the indictments! Band members need to clean house in order to move forward.

When a new chief is chosen, I hope he or she realizes that the Band needs a more transparent government, which would prevent some of these problems from happening again. I understand the historical reasons why tribal governments are neither required nor inclined to make their governments as open as our state government. The defense of tribal sovereignty, the protection of Band assets, and the fear of a racist backlash make tribal governments hesitant to let the sun shine in.

However, there are also historical reasons why the best functioning governments are also the most transparent.

I don't think tribes should open their books to any non-Indian who walks in off the street, but Mille Lacs Band members should have easy access to government data - including casino data. The problem with that is obvious: Once Band members know the details, the world will know. Well, so be it. Too much knowledge is far less dangerous than too little.

The more that's known about what the Band actually owns and makes through its casinos, the better chance that Band members and their allies in local, state and federal governments can keep close tabs on that treasure.

Brett Larson is the editor of the Mille Lacs Messenger.

blarson@millelacsmessenger.com

Thought for the day

2008-11-26T06:46:00.003-06:00

On my tombstone: I tried to be average at half of things I attempted

Still here

2008-11-24T19:01:00.001-06:00

Nothing much to say. Maybe I'll post a slideshow
.

I went on a photography walk with Cedar yesterday.

New Album 11/8/08 10:12 PM

Recount day

2008-11-21T06:20:00.002-06:00

They've been recounting votes in Mille Lacs County for the state Senate and House races. Today they'll start recounting the votes in Franken vs. Coleman. I'm gonna stop by the courthouse. The secretary of state, Mark Ritchie, is supposed to make an appearance at 9:45.

Maybe I'll post some pictures here later. Probably on the Mess website too.

Off to Brainerd

2008-11-19T07:36:00.002-06:00

For someone who works at Mille Lacs Lake, I hardly ever go to Brainerd. Since I live down by Milaca, it's easier to go to St. Cloud or the Cities.

So today I get to go to Brainerd as a tourist, researching an article for our quarterly magazine, Compass.

I'm excited. Diane's coming with me. We're gonna go to the arboretum, and the Crow Wing County museum, and the downtown area and old depot.

Brainerd. Made famous by the movie Fargo which was not filmed in Brainerd but set there.

Where Tom and Hoon and Chris Murphy and I went when Tom and I kidnapped them from Camp Shamineau.

Where Paul Bunyan knew every kid's name, and chickens did tricks if you put a quarter in a slot.

Home of Roundhouse Rodney.

Mille Lacs Messenger, Nov. 19, 2008

2008-11-18T06:43:00.003-06:00

Update on search for missing angler
Funeral of Garrison firefighter Mike Wachsmuth
Locals head for Sierra Leone to start new mission
Four felonies — gunshots, domestic assault, burglary
Isle, Onamia school boards and city councils, school boards
Story about Melvin Johnson, dowser
Column by Tom Bracken about his latest Quetico Park journey
Banquet for Mille Lacs County veterans

It's a small paper this week — smallest since I've been back, smallest in years, perhaps. Advertising is hard to come by with the economy the way it is. Hopefully we're not seeing a permanent downturn due to Internet or other causes.

So if you don't like how small your paper is becoming, buy an ad or get someone else to.

My fascination with Obama has gone too far

2008-11-17T19:53:00.003-06:00

Now I'm dreaming about him.

I dreamt last night that I played badminton with Barack. I'm pretty sure the dream stemmed from the fact that Barack spent four years in Indonesia as a kid, and I visited Indonesia a couple times, once as a 10-year-old and once just out of college.

When I was 22 I stayed with the family of an Indonesian Christian minister, a small chubby man named Pak Jonas, whose wife, Ibu Rica, taught English at a language school my dad helped start in Bandung. One day Pak Jonas challenged me to a game of badminton, which is very popular in Indonesia. In spite of the fact that I was young and fit, he whipped my butt.

Barack did likewise, but I didn't care. It was fun hanging out with him.

Bill Ayers speaks

2008-11-17T05:57:00.000-06:00

Interesting article from Salon.

BO and MO on moment of realization

2008-11-15T09:12:00.002-06:00

Cute as heck, but you have to watch a commercial first.

From Salon

2008-11-15T09:07:00.000-06:00

Bush lays trap for Obama.

Isle Bay

2008-11-14T13:18:00.001-06:00

Took this picture of Isle Bay earlier this week. Kinda like it.

Death dreams, musical coincidences

2008-11-14T09:42:00.002-06:00

I had a dream the other night that my dad, who died in 2000, was slicing watermelon, singing "Heaven, I'm in heaven ..." Dad loved watermelon and fires. We had two fireplaces in our house growing up, and when they retired to the lake, Dad would start a fire most days between October and April, sitting down cross-legged in front of fireplace, crumbling up newspaper, laying a grid of kindling and placing a couple logs on top. In another part of the dream, I went into a room behind my dad's fireplace, where there were two more wood-burning furnaces with fires blazing. Hell imagery, heaven lyrics.

Then yesterday, Viv was talking about this young firefighter from Garrison who died from a brain tumor, and I was thinking about this song I sang at my Aunt Rae's funeral, "Go Rest High on that Mountain."

A few minutes later, I got in my car to drive home, and through the crackles of the AM sports talk station I was listening to, I could hear a song playing on another station: "Go rest high on that mountain, because your work on earth is done. Go to heaven a'shoutin', love for the father and the son."

I hadn't thought about or heard that song in years.

I still remember once when I was in high school, and at church one morning, I was thinking about the song, "Till the rivers all run dry," a Don Williams oldie I knew from a Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane album. I went out to the car and turned on the radio, and that song started playing — the Don Williams version, which I had only heard on TV commercials.

Obama on his faith

2008-11-13T07:04:00.001-06:00

Fascinating interview from 2004.

Supreme Court wasting time

2008-11-11T08:32:00.006-06:00

I heard the U.S. Supreme Court spent its precious time on the first day of the new session debating obscenity and censorship — specifically, how to keep the "F" word off the airwaves.

That the highest court in the land can engage in such an absurd drama and not notice how hypocritical, clueless, and unnecessary the whole debate is should really make Americans nervous.

Background: Bono and Cher let the F word slip at awards shows. Janet Jackson showed her nipple at the Super Bowl. Prudes fainted, then called their Senators.

I agree that our culture is too crass, and I wish you could get rid of all curse words and sexual innuendo on prime-time broadcast TV, but as my son would say, "That ship has sailed, Dad."

Norm Coleman ran an ad here in Minnesota showing Al Franken saying "bleep bleep bleep." To me, the question is obvious: Who is more to blame for the corruption of our culture, the guy who cussed in a nightclub or a cable show somewhere, or the guy who put all the easily-deciphered bleeps on primetime?

The Republicans in Pennsylvania did it too, showing Reverend Jeremiah Wright saying "God damn America" on their McCain commercials.

When the Starr report came out, the right-wing scolds who want to censor the media and clean up Hollywood saw to it that my local newspaper was turned into a bad soft-core paperback.

Dear Supreme Court: There is no escaping the F word. Any child over 5 years old who has been to public school or played in the neighborhood without parental supervision can fill in the blank when they hear the F word bleeped out. All it does is wreck otherwise good movies and TV shows and make stupid ones appear less stupid.

The absurdity utterly dumbfounds me. The justices are apparently under the impression that — with the exception of F-bombs on awards shows and nipples on the Super Bowl — prime time on broadcast TV is good, wholesome, family entertainment.

In fact, the very networks whose language the Supreme Court wants to keep tabs on are using the public airwaves to present storylines and innuendo that are far more graphic than whatever Bono and Cher said.

I was watching an episode of Two and a Half Men and saw one of the main characters get a lap dance.

I caught a few minutes of the Family Guy and was treated to a joke about a woman with an inside-out anus (sorry to pass that on, but I need another example).

Pornography shouldn't be outlawed, but I don't really want it normalized on primetime by sitcom jokes and Zack and Miri commercials.

On cable it's not much worse. I turned on The Sopranos on A&E this morning, and the half-assed censorship was laughable. There's Tony saying "frig" this and "frack" that, while he's in a hotel room with an underwear-clad prostitute whose face was shown from a fat-man's eye view over Tony's stomach in the neighborhood of his boxer shorts.

Switch over to Comedy Central and there's a bad movie with gaping holes in it: Why you mother ________, get your ______ ass back here you _______ _______ ________.

Speaking of "ass," I remember when it became acceptable to use that word on TV. It was back in the early '90s, and every time it came on, I would say to my wife, "They said 'ass.'" Every show suddenly had the word "ass" in it at least once. The same thing happened with "son of a bitch," but as the years went on, the words lost their impact and eventually their use declined.

Silence it, bleep it, or "frick" it — it's still the F word, and everyone knows it. If you want to clean up prime time TV, go the whole nine yards. If you can't, then open the door. Maybe the light of day will finally make people realize that the writers of our movies and sitcoms are sex-crazed juveniles with a fifth-grader's obsession with dirty words, bodily functions and pissing off The Man.

The FCC and our esteemed justices are playing into their hands. Ignore them, and maybe they'll go away.

Five minutes of terror

2008-11-11T06:37:00.003-06:00

Cedar called me at 4:55 p.m. yesterday when I was at work. She was home, and the Milaca police had called looking for the parent or guardian of Leif Larson.

I hung up and called the Milaca Police station, but I got a recording so I hung up and called 911, setting off some kind of alarm on all the phones in the Messenger office.

I told the dispatcher I was Leif's dad, and the Milaca police were looking for me, then nearly gave her the wrong phone number, I was so flustered. She said they'd contact the Milaca cops and get back to me.

So I waited. Leif had stayed after school for safety patrol, and then was going to a friend's house to play football. I could imagine all kinds of things, mostly horrible, life-as-we-know-it-ending scenarios — blood on the sidewalk, twisted limbs, spiderweb cracks in windshields.

Well, the cop called at 5 p.m., and it turned out Leif had accidentally broken someone's side mirror in the parking lot of his friend's apartment building. He was fine, but the owner of the car wanted to talk to us.

I've had several of those heart-stopping moments during 13 years of parenting. I hope that's the last one, but I suspect it isn't.

Thought for the day

2008-11-11T06:36:00.004-06:00

I've been underachieving for so long that I'm starting to wonder if I'm actually NOT underachieving.

Merle Haggard battling lung cancer

2008-11-11T05:59:00.000-06:00

This week's Mille Lacs Messenger

2008-11-10T19:40:00.002-06:00

Lots of good stories coming Wednesday:

Stories on the election: Gail Kulick Jackson (Rep. from 16A), Lisa Fobbe (Dist. 16 Senate), Rod Schultz (new mayor of Isle), Mary Sam (elected to Onamia school board).

Update on missing angler. He's still missing.

Verdict in Jeremy Hull's murder trial. He's guilty.

A couple felonies, an update on a Garrison firefighter (Mike Wachsmuth) recently diagnosed with cancer, election pics, lots of dead deer, fishery input group meeting, columns by me, Bob, Rob, drug-sniffing dog, election judges.

Tons of good stories.

Snowflake on a spider web

2008-11-09T09:25:00.003-06:00

I went for a jog through the woods yesterday, in spite of the fact that it was deer season and I don't own any blaze orange, hoping no one would mistake me for a white-tail.

When I got to the trail by the river I slowed down and walked, and nearly ran into a large snowflake suspended in midair. It was cold and gray and windy, and the snowflake was just hanging there on what I guessed was a strand of spider web, even though I couldn't see it. It was a big fat snowflake, about an eight of an inch, mostly symmetrical but with an extra blob on one of its arms.

I thought about all the things that would need to happen to bring that snowflake to my attention, and it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime coincidence, so I ran home to get my camera, then drove the pickup through the fields to get back faster.

Alas, it was gone, so I have no picture for you. Instead, I'll give you a picture of all my neighbors, who got together to celebrate my brother Jeff's election to the Milaca School Board.

My election day slideshow

2008-11-07T20:16:00.000-06:00

New Album 11/7/08 7:25 PM

An open apology to boomers everywhere

2008-11-07T05:42:00.001-06:00

I think of myself as existing exactly on the boundary between the baby boom and Gen X. I was born in January of 1963. Some say the baby boom ended in '62, others say '64. I didn't have the resentment toward the boomers and hippies that Gen X'ers have, probably because my parents were older — the same age as the boomers' parents — so I identified with the hippies, who weren't much older than me.

But I was pretty much a Gen X slacker, largely because when I graduated from college there were no good career options because the boomers had all the good jobs. Most of my friends spent their 20s underemployed like me.

Anyway, I can relate to this article from both ends, as a boomer and a Gen X'er. And in a sense, I can't relate to it at all.

From Salon:

An open apology to boomers everywhere

Your earnest, self-important prattle has gotten on Gen X nerves for decades. But now we finally get it.

Morning in America (and beyond)

2008-11-05T08:53:00.002-06:00

I was thinking last night as I was driving home after 2 a.m. that I've never really liked the president until now.

I don't remember Johnson, but I do remember the 68 election when Humphrey lost to Nixon, and my dad's disappointment. My dad's views influenced mine throughout my childhood, and he was no big fan of Carter and couldn't stand Reagan. Then it was Bush, then Clinton, who never did a lot for me. I don't think I ever watched a Clinton speech from beginning to end, and I only voted for him once.

Then it was Bush, of course.

I like the president. Strange feeling.

Incredibly close

2008-11-05T00:28:00.003-06:00

Here at the Finish Line with the local Dems. Kulick Jackson and Erickson going back and forth for state House; Fobbe and Krueger going back and forth for state Senate.

Franken closing the gap on Coleman.

Bachmann will probably win. What the?

Finish Line

2008-11-04T23:19:00.001-06:00

I'm off to the appropriately named Finish Line bar in Princeton to see some friends, my brother who is winning his school board election, and wait out the final results in state house and senate races, and the unbelievably close Franken/Coleman thing.

McCain's speech was gracious (the crowd, not so much, though Dems wouldn't have been any better).

Obama's was brilliant and beautiful. Momentous. One of the great moments in American history, not just in our lifetimes. Unbelievable.

I might blog later about the final results.

Raising a glass

2008-11-04T22:05:00.001-06:00

Going to the neighbors to lift a glass to our new prez. Quite a feeling.

Unbelievable headline

2008-11-04T21:06:00.000-06:00

President-elect Obama

When everything changed

2008-11-04T20:37:00.003-06:00

At 8:30 p.m. central time on Nov. 4, 2008, everyone started believing that Barack Obama was going to be elected president of the good ol' US of A.

Bob Schieffer, Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Campbell Brown ... nobody can imagine a way McCain can win.

CNN: 199-78

Good site

2008-11-04T20:17:00.003-06:00

My friend Bob sends this link to Google election results:

http://www.google.com/2008election/

Roll your cursor over the state to see current numbers.

Bob calls Ohio for Obama (following Fox). If that's true, it's over.

Hank Jr. is a buffoon, and not just because he likes McCain. I don't think the Christian right would like him much, either.

174-49

2008-11-04T20:01:00.002-06:00

CNN calls WI, MN, NY, MI, RI for Obama, WY and ND for Mac.

I had hopes for ND for Obama, but it doesn't look like it.

Two more Senate pickups in Senate, Udall in NM and Shaheen in NH.

More from Salon

2008-11-04T19:51:00.000-06:00

David Talbot (8:30 p.m. EST): Oh, my God, did you all just hear what Ann Curry on MSNBC said? Even most white voters in North Carolina for whom "race was a factor" went for Obama. This isa new America.

__________

David Talbot (8:22 p.m. EST): Another reason to be a proud American tonight: Obama matched McCain among white voters in Pennsylvania, significantly outperforming Kerry's tally four years ago. So much for the Bradley effect. This country continues to be an inspiring social experiment

But I still don't believe he'll win VA or NC.

Huge turnout

2008-11-04T19:33:00.002-06:00

At Bogus Brook Township Hall (yes, that's actually where I live), I was voter number 690. Before tonight, they had 750 registered voters. They registered over 100 today, plus had 40 or so absentee ballots.

Warner destroys his competition for VA senate.

Obama still ahead in FL and NC.

More networks calling PA for Obama.

Still looking good.

I'm off to vote

2008-11-04T19:15:00.001-06:00

Guess I have to make up my mind now. I'll update in a half hour. Hopefully it'll be over by then, but the Dem bloggers are hoping they don't call it because they don't want late Western voters to stay home.

Obama up to 77

2008-11-04T19:00:00.004-06:00

Well, no surprises there. Mass, Conn, Ill, ME, Del, DC, MD for Obama
Ok and Tenn for Mac.

Florida's looking really good, and if Obama gets it, it might be over. Virginia doesn't look good, but that was always a longshot.

North Carolina also looks good for Obama right now, but I'm not trusting it.

Some are calling PA for Obama, and Ohio looks good for Obama, too. Looking good so far for my guy.

Good quote from Salon

2008-11-04T18:50:00.001-06:00

Gary Kamiya (7:09 p.m. EST): The hour has tolled, it's after 7 pm EST, and a wave of returns is about to break. Virginia could tell the whole tale. The waiting all day has been agonizing. Everyone I talk to is about to lose it. You can feel the whole country, the whole world, holding its breath. It's like a hundred World Series game sevens or Super Bowls rolled into one. I'm almost clinging to the banality of watching the talking heads going on and on about minutiae because it's too hard to think about this except as a horse race. It's too big. It's like waiting for a cancer prognosis -- or the answer to a marriage proposal.

So it begins...

2008-11-04T18:15:00.002-06:00

Vermont, 3 electoral votes for Obama.
Kentucky, 8 for McCain.

We're doomed.

Busy polling places in northern Mille Lacs County. High turnout in our conservative neck of the woods, but that'll be offset by turnout in the cities, and it may be that our conservative neck of the woods ain't so conservative this time. We'll see.

I was up at Kathio Township hall, where most Mille Lacs Band members vote. The race for state House may hinge on turnout among Band members.

Keeping it in perspective

2008-11-04T05:55:00.001-06:00

From A Tiny Revolution:

American Landslide

One of the strangest things about US politics is how tiny differences in voting percentages turn into huge differences in party control, and then into gigantic differences in media narratives about Who We Are As A Nation.

For instance, in 2006, the Democrats took back Congress by improving their percentage of the popular vote total 5.4% over 2004, to 53.6%. This was supposedly such a gigantic repudiation of the Bush administration that they kicked out Donald Rumsfeld.

And in 1984, Ronald Reagan won with 58.8%. This was considered an enormous landslide and demonstrated America was deeply conservative. Yet imagine if the election had been decided by just ten voters: all Mondale would have had to do was persuade one of them to vote for him, and he would have been president.

Similarly, it's unlikely Obama will win tomorrow by more than 10% in the popular vote. Thus, all McCain needs to do between now and then is persuade one voter in 20 to vote for him, and Sarah Palin will be Vice President.

Meanwhile, this is the system we use to decide which person gets the opportunity to destroy human civilization. Perhaps we could invent something better.