I don't have to go any farther than the office parking lot for all the reason I need to tell the Big Three automakers "go fish." Parked in its usual spot is my 1998 Metro -- a car the likes of which our domestic car companies didn't see fit to sell after 2001.
Because I'm cheap, I bought it used five or six years ago. There's no mistaking it for a Mercedes, but it's yet to fail to start, and other than a blower switch I haven't done any thing but routine maintenance - plus tires and light bulbs to keep it on the road. It compares well with Gayle's '97 Prizm which is about to roll 200,000 miles and has yet to have a wrench on the engine. They haven't made those for years either.
Oh, and did I mention if I don't get better than 35 mpg on a road trip from either of them it's entirely due to a heavy, heavy foot. A really nice feature a couple of months ago when gas was better than double what it's costing me today ... and it will be a really nice feature in the very near future when we're back to paying that price again and more.
But for years Detroit hasn't seen fit to put solid little cars on the American market -- though anywhere beyond North America solid little cars are about all there are to see. Instead they marketed dinosaurs -- big, inefficient, expensive and, for them, profitable -- as long as they were selling. Trouble is, when it cost a Franklin to fill the tank and the tank needed filling twice a week -- the shine came off that Detroit steel and folks, not always being as dumb as we look, looked around and bought a Hyundai.
Now Ford, GM and Chrysler want Unka Sugar to dig deep and save their bacon ... sort of like he did for AIG and the Wall Street bankers who forgot how to add, subtract, and figure simple interest. Unfortunately, there are thousands of ordinary folks whose jobs are on the line here -- and it's not fair to folks who just build 'em to suffer because the hotshots in the corner office have proven themselves no brighter than sea cucumbers.
So, let me suggest Congress tells the guys from Detroit to go back to MoTown, clean out there desks, turn in their keys and put in for third shift closers at the nearest Mac & Don -- then put in a call to Honda, Hyundai, Toyota and VW to make them an offer their not likely to refuse -- with cash-back financing to boot.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
What if we just have enough stuff?
The hand-wringers were working overtime again last week. Now it seems that Americans aren't hitting the stores hard enough to keep the Chinese gizmo factories humming and some are even daring to suggest they might only spend what they can afford on Christmas gifts this season. All of this, of course, is the latest harbinger of economic collapse to spoil the day of any American not in the Marine Corps, in prison or so spectacularly wealthy they don't have to worry about their next three hots and a cot are coming from. Of course, this bad news comes hot on the heels of the dire warnings that Americans were drowning in debt, couldn't get credit and the whole tottering economic edifice was about to collapse because we just couldn't exercise any self control at the checkout counter.
Y'know -- y'just can't please some people.
Now I realize that for decades millions of us have lived up to the consumer mantra: When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping -- and Americans have always made it a point to prove to the world that nobody's tougher than us. Through the years we've dutifully bought stuff and bought stuff -- putting up ever bigger houses complete with multiple car garages (with the multiple cars parked on the driveway) to hold it all. We just kept on hauling it home and stacking it up and now, I suspect, more and more of us are confronted with a reverse Mother Hubbard -- far from being bare, the cupboard doors barely close. After a half century buying binge -- might it just be that a whole lot of us have enough stuff and might just use all this recession talk as an excuse not to add on yet another room to hold another holiday's worth of gifts we'd really rather not get?
And if enough is finally enough, does that mean the inevitable collapse of commerce? Well, not necessarily. While a lot of us can't find room for one more thing, there are a whole lot of people elsewhere in the world who'd have no trouble finding room to walk into their walk-in closet -- if they only had a house to put a closet into. If we have enough stuff, maybe we could let them have some -- there are some long Christmas lists out there.
Y'know -- y'just can't please some people.
Now I realize that for decades millions of us have lived up to the consumer mantra: When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping -- and Americans have always made it a point to prove to the world that nobody's tougher than us. Through the years we've dutifully bought stuff and bought stuff -- putting up ever bigger houses complete with multiple car garages (with the multiple cars parked on the driveway) to hold it all. We just kept on hauling it home and stacking it up and now, I suspect, more and more of us are confronted with a reverse Mother Hubbard -- far from being bare, the cupboard doors barely close. After a half century buying binge -- might it just be that a whole lot of us have enough stuff and might just use all this recession talk as an excuse not to add on yet another room to hold another holiday's worth of gifts we'd really rather not get?
And if enough is finally enough, does that mean the inevitable collapse of commerce? Well, not necessarily. While a lot of us can't find room for one more thing, there are a whole lot of people elsewhere in the world who'd have no trouble finding room to walk into their walk-in closet -- if they only had a house to put a closet into. If we have enough stuff, maybe we could let them have some -- there are some long Christmas lists out there.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Two buck gas on Election Day?
Welly, welly, well -- two months ago, who'd a thunk it? Driving by the Kwik Trip on the corner I see gas selling for $2.149, just like back in the good old days when auto petrol was just too expensive, not ruinous.
Good lord, wasn't it just back in June when anyone with a wit about them consigned Sweet Shelly Bachmann to the ranks of the terminally dingy when she suggested that if we were to drill, baby ,drill the price of gas would drop back to two bucks. And all us pink-diapered lefty sympathizers know she would have been laughed out of office if sh had suggested that we might well be driving to the polls on $2 a gallon gas on Election Day ... and if it were to happen, we all had the dots connected and the conspiracy concocted linking Exxon Mobil, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the Republican National Committee and all the Sheiks of Araby.
Well Michele is on the verge of being laughed out of office any way, gas or no gas, and the virtually the only drilling that's gone on since June has taken place in dentist's offices. It appears all it took to bring down the price at the pump was a world-wide economic collapse. You betcha, nothing like the prospect of a real life sequel to The Grapes of Wrath to take the fun out of international commerce.
So here we are with cheap(er) gas on every corner and nowhere to go.
Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?
Good lord, wasn't it just back in June when anyone with a wit about them consigned Sweet Shelly Bachmann to the ranks of the terminally dingy when she suggested that if we were to drill, baby ,drill the price of gas would drop back to two bucks. And all us pink-diapered lefty sympathizers know she would have been laughed out of office if sh had suggested that we might well be driving to the polls on $2 a gallon gas on Election Day ... and if it were to happen, we all had the dots connected and the conspiracy concocted linking Exxon Mobil, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the Republican National Committee and all the Sheiks of Araby.
Well Michele is on the verge of being laughed out of office any way, gas or no gas, and the virtually the only drilling that's gone on since June has taken place in dentist's offices. It appears all it took to bring down the price at the pump was a world-wide economic collapse. You betcha, nothing like the prospect of a real life sequel to The Grapes of Wrath to take the fun out of international commerce.
So here we are with cheap(er) gas on every corner and nowhere to go.
Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
So long Sarah, it's time to get serious
How is it that no sooner do we start having fun when something has to come along and ruin it?
We've had almost three weeks of good old fashioned political theater -- Sweet Sarah, the moose-hunting mama takes aim at Washington. Such fun it was -- the bridge to nowhere, Troopergate, jets on eBay, teen-age sex and shotgun weddings -- way better than the wonky stuff the Democrats wanted to talk about. When putting lipstick on pigs becomes a major campaign issue -- politics just don't get any better.
Then reality rears it's ugly head.
Here we are with an economic situation that hasn't been so grim since Herbert Hoover insisted that prosperity was just around the corner. Look folks, when the country's biggest banks are going broke the rest of us best sit up and take notice -- especially those of us running for president - or voting for president.
It's time to take the GOP's Tina Fey wanna-be off the front page and start asking the guys at the top of the ticket what they intend to do to keep 2009 from looking all together too much like 1929.
We'd best quit looking to find a candidate who's "just like us" and find out which one is a whole lot smarter than we are. Sarah may know the price of sneakers at the Wasilla Wal-Mart, but we need the folks in the White House who understand a whole lot more than that.
Sorry Sarah, it was fun while it lasted, but now it's time to get serious and you're just a side-show.
We've had almost three weeks of good old fashioned political theater -- Sweet Sarah, the moose-hunting mama takes aim at Washington. Such fun it was -- the bridge to nowhere, Troopergate, jets on eBay, teen-age sex and shotgun weddings -- way better than the wonky stuff the Democrats wanted to talk about. When putting lipstick on pigs becomes a major campaign issue -- politics just don't get any better.
Then reality rears it's ugly head.
Here we are with an economic situation that hasn't been so grim since Herbert Hoover insisted that prosperity was just around the corner. Look folks, when the country's biggest banks are going broke the rest of us best sit up and take notice -- especially those of us running for president - or voting for president.
It's time to take the GOP's Tina Fey wanna-be off the front page and start asking the guys at the top of the ticket what they intend to do to keep 2009 from looking all together too much like 1929.
We'd best quit looking to find a candidate who's "just like us" and find out which one is a whole lot smarter than we are. Sarah may know the price of sneakers at the Wasilla Wal-Mart, but we need the folks in the White House who understand a whole lot more than that.
Sorry Sarah, it was fun while it lasted, but now it's time to get serious and you're just a side-show.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Driven batty?
I guess it would be a stretch to link the pair of rabid bats found in Winona over the last couple of weeks with the political goings-on in Denver and St. Paul, but after two weeks of non-stop poli-spin anybody who's been paying attention to the parties' parties is probably a bit batty at this point.
In Denver we had three days of non-stop invocations in the name of St. Barack culminating with worship in the Greek Temple on the 50 yard line ... if the Democrats could have come up with a virgin, she would have been in a dangerous place.
Republican's usually have a better time with virginity, but since Alaska's First Family + boyfriend has been declared off-limits, we won't go there. The GOP -- who've supposedly had the keys to the White House these last eight years and fielded majorities in the Congress for all last two (when they insist nothing was done anyway) spent a week working itself into a lather to "throw the bums out" and "clean up the mess in Washington." It's the first time on records the tenants served themselves the eviction notice.
Meanwhile, hurricanes are lining up in the Atlantic, the unemployment rate creeps ever upward, an ice shelf the size of Manhattan disappeared in the arctic and Winona is dealing with an outbreak of rabid bats.
Enough, already.
In Denver we had three days of non-stop invocations in the name of St. Barack culminating with worship in the Greek Temple on the 50 yard line ... if the Democrats could have come up with a virgin, she would have been in a dangerous place.
Republican's usually have a better time with virginity, but since Alaska's First Family + boyfriend has been declared off-limits, we won't go there. The GOP -- who've supposedly had the keys to the White House these last eight years and fielded majorities in the Congress for all last two (when they insist nothing was done anyway) spent a week working itself into a lather to "throw the bums out" and "clean up the mess in Washington." It's the first time on records the tenants served themselves the eviction notice.
Meanwhile, hurricanes are lining up in the Atlantic, the unemployment rate creeps ever upward, an ice shelf the size of Manhattan disappeared in the arctic and Winona is dealing with an outbreak of rabid bats.
Enough, already.
Monday, August 04, 2008
SNL used to be funny too...
Saving a U.S. Senate campaign from terminal tedium is a tough assignment for a fourth grade teacher, but that 's the assignment Al ... er, Allan ... Franken has given the woman who decades ago drilled him in multiplication and the memorization of the states and their capitals (spelling counts).
For those of us who savor politics as an medium of entertainment as well as mechanism for debating public policy, Minnesota's U.S. Senate campaign has been one disappointment after another. The prospect of months of Franken riffing on Senator Norm and his good buddy Dubya could only have been improved by Jesse "The Ego" jumping in with both oversized feet. But Ventura couldn't be lured from the Baja and Fearless Al reverted to Stewart Smalley -- "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and by gosh people like me..." A guy who made a career out of the emperor's lack of clothes -- or at the least that he let his mother dress him funny -- is being played the fool by a trio of bogus bowlers in the employ of the seriously humor-challenged Minnesota GOP.
C'mon Al ... a serious comedian is as credible as a fornicating TV preacher -- only a lot less fun to talk about.
Lighten up, Al, lighten up.
For those of us who savor politics as an medium of entertainment as well as mechanism for debating public policy, Minnesota's U.S. Senate campaign has been one disappointment after another. The prospect of months of Franken riffing on Senator Norm and his good buddy Dubya could only have been improved by Jesse "The Ego" jumping in with both oversized feet. But Ventura couldn't be lured from the Baja and Fearless Al reverted to Stewart Smalley -- "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and by gosh people like me..." A guy who made a career out of the emperor's lack of clothes -- or at the least that he let his mother dress him funny -- is being played the fool by a trio of bogus bowlers in the employ of the seriously humor-challenged Minnesota GOP.
C'mon Al ... a serious comedian is as credible as a fornicating TV preacher -- only a lot less fun to talk about.
Lighten up, Al, lighten up.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The breast news this week
Every now and then a bright sliver of rationality dawns over the world and we do well to note and celebrate it.
This bit of common sense comes to us complements of the federal court of appeals which ruled that a 7/16 of a second glimpse of Janet Jackson's 38-year-old right breast wasn't worth $550,000 -- even if it is the highlight of a championship football game. (Of course, with about 90 million people watching -- it does work out to a little more than a half cent per peek -- which isn't too bad a price.)
Yeah, the moral watchdogs at the FCC lost their fight with CBS over the infamous 2004 Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction." Grossly paraphrasing, the judges ruled the punishment didn't fit the crime, if, in fact, there ever was a crime to be punished.
Well, I'm quite certain the only damage done was to the eyesight of all of us (yeah -- you too) who squinted over grainy, pixelated screenshots to be sure we saw what we thought we were seeing -- ultimately realizing it really wasn't worth the trouble.
But with the political advertising season well upon us, this ruling comes at an appropriate time. Thoughout the coming weeks, I'm sure I won't be the only one expressing the profound wish that the only boobs on television were attached to a pretty woman's chest.
This bit of common sense comes to us complements of the federal court of appeals which ruled that a 7/16 of a second glimpse of Janet Jackson's 38-year-old right breast wasn't worth $550,000 -- even if it is the highlight of a championship football game. (Of course, with about 90 million people watching -- it does work out to a little more than a half cent per peek -- which isn't too bad a price.)
Yeah, the moral watchdogs at the FCC lost their fight with CBS over the infamous 2004 Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction." Grossly paraphrasing, the judges ruled the punishment didn't fit the crime, if, in fact, there ever was a crime to be punished.
Well, I'm quite certain the only damage done was to the eyesight of all of us (yeah -- you too) who squinted over grainy, pixelated screenshots to be sure we saw what we thought we were seeing -- ultimately realizing it really wasn't worth the trouble.
But with the political advertising season well upon us, this ruling comes at an appropriate time. Thoughout the coming weeks, I'm sure I won't be the only one expressing the profound wish that the only boobs on television were attached to a pretty woman's chest.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Finie, Julius C.
Well, at long last the Julius C. Wilkie has been reduced to flinders and toothpicks -- albeit rotten flinders and toothpicks.
It wasn't Winona's finest hour.
I can't say I had any great love for the boat-shaped building at the foot of Main St. It was a Disneyfied misconception of a remarkable era; a structure that was neither historic nor contemporary with as close to an anti-functional design as has ever been foisted upon a good intentioned community.
Built on the cheap, haphazardly maintained, never open and forever in the red it was a only a matter of time until the whole edifice collapsed in upon itself. A few hours and a backhoe finally put it out of its misery.
But the tragedy that finally played itself out last week had little to do with bad plans and poor lumber. After the original Wilkie\Pierson burned, the Winona community rallied to replace what had been lost. People dug deep, writing checks and tossing change into collection buckets sitting at virtually every checkout counter in town. Winona invested money and spirit in what was promised to be a lasting representation of their heritage ... and Winona was badly shortchanged.
But at long last it's all over, but for carting away the rubble. Hardly a good, definitely not a happy, ending. But an ending.
Let's learn from it.
It wasn't Winona's finest hour.
I can't say I had any great love for the boat-shaped building at the foot of Main St. It was a Disneyfied misconception of a remarkable era; a structure that was neither historic nor contemporary with as close to an anti-functional design as has ever been foisted upon a good intentioned community.
Built on the cheap, haphazardly maintained, never open and forever in the red it was a only a matter of time until the whole edifice collapsed in upon itself. A few hours and a backhoe finally put it out of its misery.
But the tragedy that finally played itself out last week had little to do with bad plans and poor lumber. After the original Wilkie\Pierson burned, the Winona community rallied to replace what had been lost. People dug deep, writing checks and tossing change into collection buckets sitting at virtually every checkout counter in town. Winona invested money and spirit in what was promised to be a lasting representation of their heritage ... and Winona was badly shortchanged.
But at long last it's all over, but for carting away the rubble. Hardly a good, definitely not a happy, ending. But an ending.
Let's learn from it.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
So what?
I'm thinking that maybe Barack Obama should consider changing his religion.
I know it's a lot to ask ... from the testimony of everyone who ought to know he's been a good and faithful Christian, a good church-going man as it were, since he was just a little feller going to services with his mama ... but if he wants to set an example and lead this country into a better day, I do believe he should consider becoming a Muslim.
Now to a bunch of gullible, unwitting, misguided or just plain ignorant souls this wouldn't seem possible -- they believe, based on the ranting of various ignorami and liars, that Obama already is Muslim and harbors secret plans to turn us all over to the ayatollahs on Inauguration Day. Now I'm just old enough for that sort of talk to sound like the plans another presidential candidate -- also a Democrat and also a senator -- supposedly had to turn the United States over to the Pope as soon as he was sworn in. But John Kennedy disappointed the bigots and John XXIII never sat in the Oval Office.
Of course, if a President Obama remains faithful to the United Church of Christ, as he has throughout his lifetime, he won't have the opportunity to provide living testimony to the mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers that being a good Muslim and a good American are anything but mutually exclusive -- just as JFK did for American Catholics nearly 50 years ago. He could demonstrate that the proper reaction to the "accusation" of being a Muslim is and always should be, "So what?"
Yeah, for the good of the Constitution and all of humanity, perhaps Barack Obama should consider embracing Islam -- all things considered, it would be the truly Christian thing to do.
I know it's a lot to ask ... from the testimony of everyone who ought to know he's been a good and faithful Christian, a good church-going man as it were, since he was just a little feller going to services with his mama ... but if he wants to set an example and lead this country into a better day, I do believe he should consider becoming a Muslim.
Now to a bunch of gullible, unwitting, misguided or just plain ignorant souls this wouldn't seem possible -- they believe, based on the ranting of various ignorami and liars, that Obama already is Muslim and harbors secret plans to turn us all over to the ayatollahs on Inauguration Day. Now I'm just old enough for that sort of talk to sound like the plans another presidential candidate -- also a Democrat and also a senator -- supposedly had to turn the United States over to the Pope as soon as he was sworn in. But John Kennedy disappointed the bigots and John XXIII never sat in the Oval Office.
Of course, if a President Obama remains faithful to the United Church of Christ, as he has throughout his lifetime, he won't have the opportunity to provide living testimony to the mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers that being a good Muslim and a good American are anything but mutually exclusive -- just as JFK did for American Catholics nearly 50 years ago. He could demonstrate that the proper reaction to the "accusation" of being a Muslim is and always should be, "So what?"
Yeah, for the good of the Constitution and all of humanity, perhaps Barack Obama should consider embracing Islam -- all things considered, it would be the truly Christian thing to do.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Congratulations, Del and Phyllis -- after 55 years
I just checked. The sky hasn't fallen yet even though California is issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
They sign in as Party A and Party B rather than bride and groom -- just in case you were wondering.
The first couple to tie the knot were, appropriately enough, a San Fransisco couple, Del Martin, and Phyllis Lyon, Del is 87, Phyllis is 84. They've been together 55 years.
Talk about long engagements...
At least they were married in time to have the legal right to make funeral arrangements for each other. The legal right to be there when the other dies.
Fundamentally, that's what this is all about -- legal rights enforced by a contract that they have been allowed to enter into.
A contract -- not a sacrament. Theirs is a union sanctioned by the state, not necessarily a church. It is an act of man, not of God.
Which is how it should be. Civil law is gender blind. The ability to fulfill the civil contractual obligations, rights and responsibilities imposed by the legalities of marriage is no more a matter of genitalia than it is skin color, caste, class or ethnic background -- though those factors too have been upheld as legal impediments to matrimony. This is an issue of equality before the law -- civil law -- not canon law, not sharia, not the laws of Moses nor Levitical injunctions.
And as such, it is good law.
Not God's law -- just good.
They sign in as Party A and Party B rather than bride and groom -- just in case you were wondering.
The first couple to tie the knot were, appropriately enough, a San Fransisco couple, Del Martin, and Phyllis Lyon, Del is 87, Phyllis is 84. They've been together 55 years.
Talk about long engagements...
At least they were married in time to have the legal right to make funeral arrangements for each other. The legal right to be there when the other dies.
Fundamentally, that's what this is all about -- legal rights enforced by a contract that they have been allowed to enter into.
A contract -- not a sacrament. Theirs is a union sanctioned by the state, not necessarily a church. It is an act of man, not of God.
Which is how it should be. Civil law is gender blind. The ability to fulfill the civil contractual obligations, rights and responsibilities imposed by the legalities of marriage is no more a matter of genitalia than it is skin color, caste, class or ethnic background -- though those factors too have been upheld as legal impediments to matrimony. This is an issue of equality before the law -- civil law -- not canon law, not sharia, not the laws of Moses nor Levitical injunctions.
And as such, it is good law.
Not God's law -- just good.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
What we do and how we do it
There was a long piece in the paper across town this weekend -- plus a column and an editorial -- excoriating the city of Winona for how it has presented information concerning the closure of the Interstate Bridge and subsequent developments.
In short, they complain they've been left out of the loop, nobody's been telling them anything and they don't like it. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence in the depths of City Hall.
Sorry, folks, that isn't quite the case.
At the Daily news, we got first notice of impending problems with the bridge about 7 p.m. Tuesday in a fax from MnDoT (not, as was claimed by Ms. Cynthya Porter, in an email, phone call or secretive phone call from city staff on a cloak and dagger mission). The fax announced an 8 p.m. briefing. Far from a secret conclave, except for the agrieved paper across town, all local media outlets plus some area TV stations were represented, along with members of the city council, county board, state legislature, city staff and a number of citizens who'd gotten wind that something was up. The session went on until no one had any more questions. The meeting set for Wednesday morning was announced, reannounced and announced again.
Just for the record, news of the Tuesday night meeting was posted on winonadailynews.com within minutes of our receiving the fax. A capsule account of the briefing, including an announcement of the Wednesday morning meeting was posted shortly after the session adjourned. That information was available in the newspaper and online.
Hardly a secret session.
All the unhappy folks at the paper across town needed to do is pick up their mail or read the daily newspaper and they'd have known all about what they insist was being kept from them. They might even have made it to that meeting. Our reporters were there -- we had an update on it online just after it wrapped up.
Ms. Porter goes on to claim that "In Thursday morning's edition, the Minneapolis Star Tribune scooped all local media with announcement of a ferry system." Apparently, neither Ms. Porter nor her editors read the banner headline and sub head over Winona Daily News reporter Mark Sommerhauser's Thursday morning story -- "Waiting for answers: City reels from bridge closure, plans shuttle system by Monday." Scooped? Hardly.
Ms. Porter might not have had a clue, but nobody beat the Daily News to the story -- and I'm not about to let the paper across town claim otherwise.
Now I don't care if the paper across town wants to whine and make excuses for itself, but I do mind when Ms. Porter claims the city is "under fire" from news organizations "who have been excluded from the information circle." It has been our experience that during these difficult days Mayor Miller, city staff, council members, area legislators and state officials have been open and fortcoming with information, sharing what they know when they know it and frankly admitting when no information is available.
All a reporter has to do is show up and ask.
Mark, Kevin, Amber, Nolan, Kari, Matt, Fred and Sarah have been out there showing up, asking questions, getting answers. There's no magic information circle to be let in on -- just hard work, tenacity and good, solid reporting.
That's how they got the story, Ms. Porter. Any perhaps, why you didn't.
In short, they complain they've been left out of the loop, nobody's been telling them anything and they don't like it. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence in the depths of City Hall.
Sorry, folks, that isn't quite the case.
At the Daily news, we got first notice of impending problems with the bridge about 7 p.m. Tuesday in a fax from MnDoT (not, as was claimed by Ms. Cynthya Porter, in an email, phone call or secretive phone call from city staff on a cloak and dagger mission). The fax announced an 8 p.m. briefing. Far from a secret conclave, except for the agrieved paper across town, all local media outlets plus some area TV stations were represented, along with members of the city council, county board, state legislature, city staff and a number of citizens who'd gotten wind that something was up. The session went on until no one had any more questions. The meeting set for Wednesday morning was announced, reannounced and announced again.
Just for the record, news of the Tuesday night meeting was posted on winonadailynews.com within minutes of our receiving the fax. A capsule account of the briefing, including an announcement of the Wednesday morning meeting was posted shortly after the session adjourned. That information was available in the newspaper and online.
Hardly a secret session.
All the unhappy folks at the paper across town needed to do is pick up their mail or read the daily newspaper and they'd have known all about what they insist was being kept from them. They might even have made it to that meeting. Our reporters were there -- we had an update on it online just after it wrapped up.
Ms. Porter goes on to claim that "In Thursday morning's edition, the Minneapolis Star Tribune scooped all local media with announcement of a ferry system." Apparently, neither Ms. Porter nor her editors read the banner headline and sub head over Winona Daily News reporter Mark Sommerhauser's Thursday morning story -- "Waiting for answers: City reels from bridge closure, plans shuttle system by Monday." Scooped? Hardly.
Ms. Porter might not have had a clue, but nobody beat the Daily News to the story -- and I'm not about to let the paper across town claim otherwise.
Now I don't care if the paper across town wants to whine and make excuses for itself, but I do mind when Ms. Porter claims the city is "under fire" from news organizations "who have been excluded from the information circle." It has been our experience that during these difficult days Mayor Miller, city staff, council members, area legislators and state officials have been open and fortcoming with information, sharing what they know when they know it and frankly admitting when no information is available.
All a reporter has to do is show up and ask.
Mark, Kevin, Amber, Nolan, Kari, Matt, Fred and Sarah have been out there showing up, asking questions, getting answers. There's no magic information circle to be let in on -- just hard work, tenacity and good, solid reporting.
That's how they got the story, Ms. Porter. Any perhaps, why you didn't.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Parent gripe hits a sour note
It looks like we couldn't make it to summer vacation without another set of parents getting their undies in a bunch. This time folks across the creek in the GET school district are all affronted because there was too much sacred music in a recent high school choral concert.
I want to weigh in here before the Christian Taliban grabs onto this one and replays the typical rant about God-hating liberal secularism taking over our schools and putting us all on the road to Perdition and $5 a gallon gas. This silliness should be held up to proper public ridicule, not because it's an affront to the Almighty, but because whoever's doing the griping has no taste for or understanding of choral music.
Look, unless the kids are going to sing endless variations on a polyphonic Pop Goes the Weasel choral music is fundamentally sacred music -- from plainsong to Bach to Bernstein to George Harrison -- God just keeps creeping into those lyrics. I suppose if the schools wanted to be sure the kids weren't O.D.ing on spirituality, they could require the texts be sung in their original language -- which of course none of the students, much less their parents, would likely understand, but doubtless the tasteless oversensitive would still chafe.
As a former high school chorister, I can assure those concerned parents that the repetition of sacred lyrics by high school juniors eager for lunch is no more prayer than my forceful invocation of the deity upon walloping my thumb with a hammer.
It appears the GET administrators and school board are going about this in the great tradition of public education -- serious deliberation followed by a vaguely worded policy. What is needed is a sternly worded rebuke, tuition for Music Appreciation 101 and a year's membership in Minnesota Public Radio.
Enough of this silliness.
I want to weigh in here before the Christian Taliban grabs onto this one and replays the typical rant about God-hating liberal secularism taking over our schools and putting us all on the road to Perdition and $5 a gallon gas. This silliness should be held up to proper public ridicule, not because it's an affront to the Almighty, but because whoever's doing the griping has no taste for or understanding of choral music.
Look, unless the kids are going to sing endless variations on a polyphonic Pop Goes the Weasel choral music is fundamentally sacred music -- from plainsong to Bach to Bernstein to George Harrison -- God just keeps creeping into those lyrics. I suppose if the schools wanted to be sure the kids weren't O.D.ing on spirituality, they could require the texts be sung in their original language -- which of course none of the students, much less their parents, would likely understand, but doubtless the tasteless oversensitive would still chafe.
As a former high school chorister, I can assure those concerned parents that the repetition of sacred lyrics by high school juniors eager for lunch is no more prayer than my forceful invocation of the deity upon walloping my thumb with a hammer.
It appears the GET administrators and school board are going about this in the great tradition of public education -- serious deliberation followed by a vaguely worded policy. What is needed is a sternly worded rebuke, tuition for Music Appreciation 101 and a year's membership in Minnesota Public Radio.
Enough of this silliness.
So long Julius C. Wilkie
It appears Winona Main Street Winona
It was past time for the city to be done with this misbegotten building, but with the flood control dikes between the river and the city, the pre-1965 version of
But the Wilkie did look nice perched up there on the levee -- particularly in the winter when snow blanketed the worst of the decay and cold kept folks from coming close enough to see what shape it really was in. It is a wise move for the City Council not to prematurely demolish the hull-shaped foundation and reflecting pool or remove the utility hook-ups that powered the steamboat before it finally ran out of steam.
Let me offer a modest proposal... Send a bright young scholar -- an unemployed historian would be well-suited and likely willing to work on the cheap -- equipped with a notebook and tape measure to record the dimensions of the concrete hull. Then send that scholar off to research the river-packets that plied the
But let’s do it right this time. Let’s not try to turn it into a restaurant -- everybody knows
Let’s not try to turn it into a conference center. In this town, Mike Rivers, not the
And let’s not try to do it overnight, on the cheap. The levee isn’t going anywhere -- if it does, we’ll have a lot more serious problems to deal with than what to do with a fake riverboat. For the time being, preserve the Pearson’s paddle wheel with a commemorative plaque detailing the sad story of the poor old boat and its successor. Put a couple umbrella tables up on the patio, let the folks from the Winona Island Cafe set up a snack and soda pop kiosk and make the area as pleasant and attractive as we can while we turn our attention to a lasting solution, worthy of the time, effort, and locale.
Putting up an accurate replica will take time for research and planning. Recreating a structure that is historically authentic in feel and appearance, but also in compliance with contemporary building codes, safety standards and accessibility requirements will require the services and imagination of creative and experienced designers and architects, working in cooperation with historically knowledgeable scholars. It will take time and money to acquire the artifacts and furnishings needed to bring the replica boat to life.
And building and furnishing will only be the first step. While we plan for construction, we also need to plan for what we will do with the thing once it’s up there. How will we coordinate the steamboat center with the William Thompson on exhibit at the
Let’s take the Wilkie for what it was ... a hard lesson in how not to do things. This time, let’s take the time, do the planning, raise the funds and, sometime in the future, create an attraction we can be proud of for generations.
We can do this. Let’s do it right.
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