Bogus Brook

Click the links above for recent blog posts

2010-10-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

I don't blog on Blogger anymore, but the links above will bring you to my Mille Lacs Messenger blog posts.

Hot day

2010-08-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Ran four miles on the trails this morning. Barely. Not sure if my lack of energy was due to humidity, lack of water this morning, or recovery from the 11-miler I ran this weekend.

Anyway, I felt better after an hour and rode my bike 6 miles to the county board meeting.

Not much to report, except that it looks more and more like they'll try to rescind the state building code in Mille Lacs County.

Now I'm working on a story on murder sentences, after a recent murder in the Mille Lacs area that we've been covering. I'm looking back at 20 years of Mille Lacs area murders.

I'm sad to say I've sat in on portions of four murder trials over the years, and that's not half of them, if you count criminal vehicular homicide.

Tonight I'll head to St. Cloud with Cedar to meet Diane for supper. Reckon I'll stop at Aldi while I'm there.

Leif's off at camp in California. Diane's folks took him out to the camp where his Aunt Carole works.

Eve wrote a column about all the people in the editorial department at the Messenger. I didn't realize that I bellow, that I have an opinion on everything, and that I seem so stressed at work I should think about quitting. I've been feeling pretty happy at work. Guess I should try to show it more.

Let’s face it America: We don’t like each other | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-12-11T05:03:00.003-08:00

Let’s face it America: We don’t like each other | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

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Let’s face it America: We don’t like each other | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-12-11T05:03:00.001-08:00

Let’s face it America: We don’t like each other | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

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Let’s face it America: We don’t like each other | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-12-11T05:02:00.001-08:00

Let’s face it America: We don’t like each other | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

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Obama's Big Sellout : Rolling Stone

2009-12-11T04:59:00.001-08:00

Obama's Big Sellout : Rolling Stone

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I almost forgot Ron Howard and Jim Carrey! | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-12-01T04:41:00.001-08:00

I almost forgot Ron Howard and Jim Carrey! | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

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Government is not the only problem | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-11-18T17:45:00.001-08:00

Government is not the only problem | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

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Father Hennepin

2009-10-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

Most mornings I go for a walk down to the river, but when it's dark like it's been, sometimes I don't make it, so I go for a walk during lunch or after work at Father Hennepin State Park. I park at the picnic area, walk the gravel trail to the boat landing at the campground, then take the paved trail through the woods to the beach. I follow the sand to the swimming area, turn around, and head back.
Last night I took my walk at about 5 p.m., as the sun was hanging just over the trees. When I got to the beach, the orange light on the sand and the small waves lapping against the shore and the footprints and the endless horizon and the changing leaves ... It was like I was in some magnificent place, not little ol' Isle in boring ol' Minnesota.
This morning it was still dark when I left the house at 6:30. Most of my walk was in the dark, but as I came back toward the house from the river, the sky was just starting to turn orange and green and pale blue, and Venus (or some other planet) was bright and bold in the East. This is why Diane and I chose to live in a rural area instead of the city. Sometimes when I'm visiting friends in the Cities, I think it would be nice to walk to the coffee shop or the grocery store, but mostly I feel lucky every day.

Cedar on Penny

2009-10-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

Snow pics from Father Hennepin

2009-10-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

I took these on Monday, Oct. 12.

The finish line was only the beginning | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-10-17T13:46:00.003-07:00

The finish line was only the beginning | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

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The finish line was only the beginning | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-10-17T13:46:00.001-07:00

The finish line was only the beginning | Mille Lacs Messenger - Mille Lacs Messenger

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Lots of crime

2009-10-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

Reading through the Mille Lacs County court calendar each week, I get a real sense of how much serious crime there is in the county. This is the calendar for Friday, Oct. 16. These are only the felonies. There are several other cases on the docket as well.

Omnibus hearing for David Wayne Sam, Jr., 40, of Onamia, who is charged with 18 felony counts of criminal vehicular homicide or operation from an accident on Dec. 5, 2008, in which Sam's 1996 Dodge Ram pickup turned in front of a southbound 2005 Dodge Caravan.

omnibus hearing for Julie Lynn Bassett, 47, of Milaca, on a felony charge of overwork/mistreat animals from Jan. 13, 2009.

Omnibus hearing for Shane Thomas Davidson, 40, of Onamia, on felony burglary charge from July 15, 2009.

Omnibus hearing for Kelly Jean Friend, 19, on gross misdemeanor charges of child endangerment from June 21, 2009. Friend allegedly left her child, Tila Friend-Ballinger, at the home of the child's father, Lance Ballinger, after the two had been drinking. The child was found dead in Ballinger's home several hours later. Ballinger has been convicted for assaulting the child in November of 2008 and endangering his three children on June 21, 2009.

Omnibus hearing for Robin Paul Heryla, 52, of Princeton, on felony charge of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult on Aug. 2, 2007.

Omnibus hearing for Sarah Frances Hindsley, 33, of Cumberland, Wisc., on felony DWI charge and other charges from Aug. 16.

Revocation hearing for Justin Lee Mitchell, 27, of Onamia, for felony assault charges from Aug. 11, 2007. Omnibus hearing for violating no contact order, a felony, from May 21, 2009. Omnibus hearing for felony assault with a dangerous weapon from May 11, 2009. Settlement conference for felony charge of violating no contact order from March 5, 2009. Settlement conference for gross misdemeanor assault charge from Jan. 10, 2009. Settlement conference for felony domestic assault charge from Feb. 7, 2009. Settlement conference for felony burglary and assault charges from Nov. 30, 2008. Among other things, Mitchell is charged with burglarizing a home on Nov. 30, 2008 and hitting a 20-year-old man in the head with a piece of wood, and with punching his girlfriend in the face on Feb. 7, 2009, after accusing her of cheating on him while the two were in the car with Mitchell's infant child.

Omnibus hearing for Sheri Ann Storer, 48, of Keewatin, on felony charges of selling narcotics from April 28, 2009.

Omnibus hearing for Ricki Arlene Boswell, 26, of Onamia, on felony charges of burglary from Aug. 16, 2009.

Sentencing for Edward George Cooper, 44, of Zimmerman, on felony domestic assault charges from June 21 and Oct. 25, 2008.

Sentencing for Tyler Jay Eastlund, 35, of Princeton, on felony charges of criminal sexual conduct in the second degree with a victim under 13.

Sentencing for Michael Dean Fahey, 29, of Brainerd, on felony drug possession charges from Oct. 3, 2008.

Settlement conference for Benjamen John Kegg, 43, of Onamia, on felony DWI charges from Aug. 7, 2009.

Settlement charge for Mario Montes, Jr., 29, of Onamia, on felony charge of violating a no contact order from May 12, 2009. Sentencing for April 20, 2009, felony charge of domestic assault.

Contested omnibus hearing for Edward James Dorr, 42, of Onamia, on felony charge of violating order for protection from FEb. 6, 2009.

Contested omnibus hearing for Jody Susan Gronlund, 44, of Aitkin, on felony charges of receiving stolen property and possession of drugs from March 29, 2009.

Revocation hearing for Lee Robert Arndt, 30, of Milaca, on felony criminal sexual conduct charge from June 1, 2003. The case was reopened after a probation violation report in October of 2008.

Contested omnibus hearing for John Michael Hildreth, 39, of Isle, on felony charge of receiving stolen property from Jan 26, 2009.

Revocation hearing for Frank Edward Sonczalla, 21, of Princeton, on felony charge of tampering with a witness by threatening injury from April 7, 2008.

Contested omnibus hearing for Andrew Garret Walters, 21, of Foley, on felony charges of criminal sexual conduct from Feb. 25, 2009.

Contested omnibus hearing for Andrew Allen Carwell, 43, of Milaca, on felony assault charge from May 7, 2009.

Settlement conference for Brittany Ann Davis, 20, of Onamia, on felony charge of fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle from June 7, 2008. Settlement conference on felony charge of assaulting a police officer from May 30, 2008. Pre-trial on several lesser charges. Sentencing on felony drug possession charges from March 23, 2007.

Is the GOP a cult? | Salon

2009-09-10T04:37:00.001-07:00

Is the GOP a cult? | Salon

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Thought for the day

2009-08-24T16:41:00.000-07:00

After seeing this headline on Salon: "What went wrong? It's almost Labor Day. Healthcare reform is struggling, the public option is near dead. Why couldn't Obama deliver?"

It occurs to me that you have to say ridiculous things to break through the clutter. As a result, the ridiculous looks more and more normal.

Hope he's wrong

2009-08-19T18:22:00.000-07:00

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-unbearable-weakness-o_b_261651.html

"
A Rasmussen poll now has the Republican Party as more trusted on the health care issue than Democrats. That's insanity.
The Republicans have killed all efforts at health care reform before, they're killing it as we speak and they almost exclusively
represent the interests of the private insurance companies who want to continue to jack up our rates (private insurance premiums
have gone up 119% in the last ten years).

So, how are they winning? Because the Democrats brought a scalpel to a gun fight.
The Republicans have attacked and attacked and attacked. Meanwhile, what has been the Democratic response?
They're reaching out in a spirit of bipartisanship. Why?

Why do the Democrats continue to help the Republicans in killing this thing?

It is the unbearable weakness of Democratic being. They cannot find it in their hearts to strongly argue for their own position.
To be fair, in this case, the weakness is mainly Obama's. Frankly, it's pathetic.
"

health care

2009-08-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

Great letter written to www.bartcop.com

hi,

my 10 yr old son told me he had some kind of sore on the roof of his mouth.
he had been eating some hard candy and it may have cut or irritated the tissue there.
usually, after a couple of days, mouth sores go away but his hadnt... it was getting painful for him to eat.

i told him that he might have an infection and that we should go to a doctor. so around 2 o clock,
we walked over to the local clinic, about 200 meters, and asked if there was a doctor on duty.

we were told that the doctor was still out for lunch but the dentist was in, which was perfect for us.
the dentist examined my sons mouth. indeed, there was a small infection on the wound so the dentist
prescribed a childrens dose of antibiotic and told him to swish with salt water several times a day.

we walked over to the nurses station and gave her the written prescription and she returned
a moment later with the medicine. i paid the bill, we left the clinic and went back home.

total distance traveled... about 400 meters.
total time spent... about 30 minutes.
total cost... about 3 dollars.

by the way, we live in china.
Frank M

Back | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-08-18T06:42:00.001-07:00

Back | Mille Lacs Messenger

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Tackling their own quarterback.

2009-07-28T17:10:00.001-07:00

From www.bartcop.com, one of the crazies lefties I like to read:

"We defeated the other team, so what do our nutty-assed Democrats do?
They turnaround and tackle their own quarterback when he gets the ball."

So Into You

2009-07-19T18:23:00.001-07:00

So Into You

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Pull your pants up, staple face | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-07-10T09:39:00.001-07:00

Pull your pants up, staple face | Mille Lacs Messenger

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Candide blog, chapter 1: | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-07-01T12:30:00.001-07:00

Candide blog, chapter 1: | Mille Lacs Messenger

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Pics from my trails, June 26, 2009

2009-06-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

090626 trails

COMMENTS SOUGHT ON ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT WORKSHEET FOR PROPOSED WASTEWATER-TREATMENT EXPANSION IN PRINCETON

2009-06-30T08:02:00.001-07:00

For release: June 29, 2009

Media contact: Stephen Mikkelson, 218-316-3887

Brainerd, Minn. -- The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has prepared an Environmental Assessment Worksheet for a proposed expansion of the city of Princeton's wastewater-treatment facility. Citizens are invited to comment on this EAW until July 29, 2009.

The city is proposing to expand its existing wastewater-treatment facility and add a discharge pipe to discharge treated wastewater to the Rum River. The existing facility is a mechanical treatment plant, designed for an average of 635,000 gallons of domestic wastewater per day. The proposed expansion includes constructing additional treatment units, including effluent filtration, that would enable the plant to treat an average of about 1.9 million gallons per day.

The EAW is a preliminary environmental review looking at how a proposed project could potentially affect the environment. Comments on the EAW must be submitted in writing by 4:30 p.m. on July 29 to Nancy Drach, MPCA, Environmental Review, 520 Lafayette Road N., Saint Paul, MN 55155-4194; by e-mail to nancy.drach@state.mn.us; or by fax to 651-297-8683.

The MPCA will use the comments on the EAW to evaluate the potential for significant environmental effects from the project and determine if an Environmental Impact Statement (a more comprehensive environmental review) is needed.

Copies of the EAW are available for review at the MPCA St. Paul office, 520 Lafayette Rd. N., or on the MPCA Web site at http://www.pca.state.mn.us/news/eaw/index/html.

Broadcast Version
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has prepared an Environmental Assessment Worksheet for a proposed upgrade and expansion of the city of Princeton's wastewater-treatment facility. The
proposed project will expand the facility's current daily capacity of about 630 thousand gallons of wastewater to about 1.9 million gallons. The treated wastewater will be discharged to the Rum River.

Citizens are invited to comment on this EAW until July 29th. More information about the project, including review documents, contact names and phone numbers, is available on the MPCA Web site at www.pca.state.mn.us.

###

The mission of the MPCA is to work with Minnesotans to protect, conserve and improve our environment and enhance our quality of life.

During these tough economic times | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-06-30T07:58:00.001-07:00

During these tough economic times | Mille Lacs Messenger

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This Modern World | Salon Comics

2009-06-30T04:28:00.001-07:00

This Modern World | Salon Comics

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Phooey | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-06-28T10:05:00.001-07:00

Phooey | Mille Lacs Messenger

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YouTube - 090609 glenn viking

2009-06-26T16:28:00.001-07:00

YouTube - 090609 glenn viking

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Facebook | The Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-06-26T13:14:00.001-07:00

Facebook | The Mille Lacs Messenger

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Father charged with assault, neglect | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-06-26T08:31:00.001-07:00

Father charged with assault, neglect | Mille Lacs Messenger

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I’m watching chick flicks from now on | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-06-26T05:27:00.001-07:00

I’m watching chick flicks from now on | Mille Lacs Messenger

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Does, fawns, moyers | Mille Lacs Messenger

2009-06-25T13:11:00.001-07:00

Does, fawns, moyers | Mille Lacs Messenger

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Mille Lacs Messenger | News of the Mille Lacs area since 1913

2009-06-25T12:48:00.001-07:00

Mille Lacs Messenger | News of the Mille Lacs area since 1913

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Fight on, Jammie

2009-06-23T05:38:00.001-07:00

've been really bothered by the jury that awarded the record companies 1.92 million from Jammie Thomas-Rasset, who is from Brainerd and works for the Mille Lacs Band DNR. The reality is that just about everyone has violated copyright, either by taping albums in the old days (see Dennis Vanderpoel's cartoon in the June 24 Mess), or by pirating VHS tapes, or by sharing CDs of downloaded songs with friends, or by photocopying. Yes, in many cases, photocopying is a violation of copyright!

So who are these jurors who decide to make a woman pay such a ridiculous amount for doing something (maybe — she still says she didn't do it) that millions of others have done, that gave her little or no personal benefit, and that hurt the RIAA to the tune of $24 (if you consider each download being worth a buck on the market).

If you're out there, juror, tell me what you were thinking.

O days, movies, Sherlock Holmes

2009-06-08T03:50:00.000-07:00

've been reading Sherlock Holmes lately. Never really read any of those stories until recently, and I've been surprised how enjoyable they are. They don't have that old-fashioned literary style that sometimes puts me off. Clear and straightforward prose, good characters, good plots.

Leif and I went to two movies: Land of the Lost and Up. Land of the Lost was a disappointment, for the most part. Will Ferrell had some priceless scenes, but on the whole it was pretty weak. We do a remake of a cheesy kids' show and make it so it's inappropriate for kids?

Up was pretty good but to me didn't deserve the five-star reviews I've read.

Did a lot of running around this weekend. Friday night went to Onamia graduation then stopped by the carnival, which was cold.

Saturday went to see Jim Cummings carve arrowheads at Father Hennepin, which was great. Leif and I went for a walk along the shore trail and I was once again struck by what a great park it is. If I lived in Isle, I'd probably be there every day jogging or biking. Surprising number of trails.

Then Sunday I went to State Parks Day at Kathio and on to the parade at Onamia Days. Cold again. The crowd seemed pretty thin for the parade, but afterwards the carnival was pretty crowded.

It's amazing what these towns accomplish putting their festivals together.

We'll have lots of pics up of the weekend events on the website.

Dylan hearts Buffett?

2009-04-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan, asked for some of his favorite song writers, names JIMMY BUFFETT first? I mean, I like Margaritaville, too, (and even sang it at a gig once after three or four), but can you see his Bobness hanging with the Parrot Heads?

Here's the article:

In anticipation of the release of his 33rd album, Together Through Life, Bob Dylan sat down with rock critic and MTV producer Bill Flanagan for a rare and unusually candid conversation. The first three portions of their meeting can be read at bobdylan.com, and the fourth installment can be read here on the Huffington Post).

In the fifth installment, published below, Dylan reveals his favorite songwriters, discusses whether he's a cult figure, and gives his thoughts on trading on nostalgia and if he's a mainstream artist (to view a slide show of Dylan's favorite's, click here).

Bill Flanagan: Going back to that song you wrote for the movie that you mentioned earlier, "Life is Hard," has the formality of an old Rudy Vallee or Nelson Eddy ballad right down to the middle eight ("Ever since the day..."). Do you figure that if you start a song in that style, you stick with the rules right down the line?

Bob Dylan: Sure, I try to stick to the rules. Sometimes I might shift paradigms within the same song, but then that structure also has its own rules. And I combine them both, see what works and what doesn't. My range is limited. Some formulas are too complex and I don't want anything to do with them.

BF: "Forgetful Heart" - how do you decide to put an Appalachian banjo on a minor key blues? Is it something you think of ahead of time or does it come up in the session?

BD: I think it probably came up at the studio. A banjo wouldn't be out of character though. There is a minor key modality to "Forgetful Heart." It's like Little Maggie or Darling Cory, so there is no reason a banjo shouldn't fit or sound right.
Story continues below

BF: You wrote a lot of these songs with Robert Hunter. How does that process work?

BD: There isn't any process to speak of. You just do it. You drive the car. Sometimes you get out from behind the wheel and let someone else step on the gas.

BF: You must have known Hunter a long time. Do you remember where you first met?

BD: It was either back in '62 or '63 when I played in the Bay area. I might have met him in Palo Alto or Berkley or Oakland. I played all those places then and I could have met Hunter around that time. I know he was around.

BF: Didn't Hunter play in a bluegrass band with Jerry Garcia?

BD: Yeah, it was either that or a jug band.

BF: Have you ever thought about composing anything with those Nashville songwriters?

BD: I've never thought about that.

BF: Neil Diamond did an album years ago where he co-wrote with different Nashville songwriters.

BD: Yeah, that might have worked for him. I don't think it would work for me.

BF: You don't think it would work for you?

BD: No. I'm okay without it. I'm not exactly obsessed with writing songs. I go back a ways with Hunter. We're from the same old school so it makes it's own kind of sense.

BF: Do you listen to a lot of songs?

BD: Yeah - sometimes.

BF: Who are some of your favorite songwriters?

BD: Buffett I guess. Lightfoot. Warren Zevon. Randy. John Prine. Guy Clark. Those kinds of writers.

BF: What songs do you like of Buffett's?

BD: "Death of an Unpopular Poet." There's another one called "He Went to Paris."

BF: You and Lightfoot go way back.

BD: Oh yeah. Gordo's been around as long as me.

BF: What are your favorite songs of his?

BD: "Shadows," "Sundown," "If You Could Read My Mind." I can't think of any I don't like.

BF: Did you know Zevon?

BD: Not very well.

BF: What did you like about him?

BD: "Lawyers, Guns and Money." "Boom Boom Mancini." Down hard stuff. "Join me in L.A." sort of straddles the line between heartfelt and primeval. His musical patterns are all over the place, probably because he's classically trained. There might be three separate songs within a Zevon song, but they're all effortlessly connected. Zevon was a musician's musician, a tortured one. "Desperado Under the Eaves." It's all in there.

BF: Randy Newman?

BD: Yeah, Randy. What can you say? I like his early songs, "Sail Away," "Burn Down the Cornfield," "Louisiana," where he kept it simple. Bordello songs. I think of him as the Crown Prince, the heir apparent to Jelly Roll Morton. His style is deceiving. He's so laid back that you kind of forget he's saying important things. Randy's sort of tied to a different era like I am.

BF: How about John Prine?

BD: Prine's stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs. I remember when Kris Kristofferson first brought him on the scene. All that stuff about "Sam Stone" the soldier junky daddy and "Donald and Lydia," where people make love from ten miles away. Nobody but Prine could write like that. If I had to pick one song of his, it might be "Lake Marie." I don't remember what album that's on.

BF: A lot of the acts from your generation seem to be trading on nostalgia. They play the same songs the same way for the last 30 years. Why haven't you ever done that?

BD: I couldn't if I tried. Those guys you are talking about all had conspicuous hits. They started out anti-establishment and now they are in charge of the world. Celebratory songs. Music for the grand dinner party. Mainstream stuff that played into the culture on a pervasive level. My stuff is different from those guys. It's more desperate. Daltrey, Townshend, McCartney, the Beach Boys, Elton, Billy Joel. They made perfect records, so they have to play them perfectly ... exactly the way people remember them. My records were never perfect. So there is no point in trying to duplicate them. Anyway, I'm no mainstream artist.

BF: Then what kind of artist are you?

BD: I'm not sure, Byronesque maybe. Look, when I started out, mainstream culture was Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Sound of Music. There was no fitting into it then and of course, there's no fitting into it now. Some of my songs have crossed over but they were all done by other singers.

BF: Have you ever tried to fit in?

BD: Well, no, not really. I'm coming out of the folk music tradition and that's the vernacular and archetypal aesthetic that I've experienced. Those are the dynamics of it. I couldn't have written songs for the Brill Building if I tried. Whatever passes for pop music, I couldn't do it then and I can't do it now.

BF: Does that mean you create outsider art? Do you think of yourself as a cult figure?

BD: A cult figure, that's got religious connotations. It sounds cliquish and clannish. People have different emotional levels. Especially when you're young. Back then I guess most of my influences could be thought of as eccentric. Mass media had no overwhelming reach so I was drawn to the traveling performers passing through. The side show performers - bluegrass singers, the black cowboy with chaps and a lariat doing rope tricks. Miss Europe, Quasimodo, the Bearded Lady, the half-man half-woman, the deformed and the bent, Atlas the Dwarf, the fire-eaters, the teachers and preachers, the blues singers. I remember it like it was yesterday. I got close to some of these people. I learned about dignity from them. Freedom too. Civil rights, human rights. How to stay within yourself. Most others were into the rides like the tilt-a-whirl and the rollercoaster. To me that was the nightmare. All the giddiness. The artificiality of it. The sledge hammer of life. It didn't make sense or seem real. The stuff off the main road was where force of reality was. At least it struck me that way. When I left home those feelings didn't change.

BF: But you've sold over a hundred million records.

BD: Yeah I know. It's a mystery to me too.

To see a slide show of Dylan's favorite songwriters mentioned above, click here.

Tea party reflections

2009-04-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

It was interesting attending the "tax day tea party" in Milaca today, and fun to get the story up on the new site, with a photo gallery to go with it. Video will follow.

I was surprised that there were so many people there. Apparently the populist anger out there is real, but I wasn't convinced that it was directed properly. Some of the folks I talked to didn't seem know who they were mad at; others were mad at "the government" (whatever that means). Conservative leaders seem to have tapped into the rage and channeled it away from the banks, the war, and George Bush and toward the "liberal elites," Obama, welfare recipients, etc., ignoring the fact that GW ran up the largest deficits in history, largely due to an unnecessary war in Iraq and massive tax giveaways to the richest 2 percent.

There was also a clear religious dimension to the protest too, at least on the part of the speakers. They still want the U.S. to be a "Christian nation," which I guess is fine, but shows a pretty superficial understanding of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers (imho). They don't like judges making laws (unless they're conservative judges), and there were veiled anti-gay references from Doug Dahl (who, while the Tea Parties pretended to be non-partisan, is or was chair of the Republican party in Mille Lacs County).

There were also plenty of "straw man" arguments about the "other side," painting them as extremists who want everybody to get a handout and don't want anyone to have to work, and want to destroy values and faith and apple pie. In fact, the 12 principles and 9 big ideas they were pitching would be embraced by most people on the left as well, which Obama has been trying to tell them.

The usual rants about the liberal media were trotted out again, in spite of the fact that the tea party folks had two cable networks (Fox and CNBC) carrying water for them, and they've had every major talk radio host on their side for 20 years.

It's amazing how the two sides of the political spectrum can both believe the people on the other side are utterly delusional, paranoid and out of touch with reality. Sad state of affairs. I think Barack has sincerely attempted to bridge that divide, and he's succeeded with folks in the middle, but there are 20-30 percent on the far right who will never see anything positive on the left (or even the center), just like there are 20-30 percent on the far left who will never see anything positive on the right (or the center).

Will hard times bring us together, or drive us farther apart. Sadly, there's a long history of scapegoating when times get tough. Luckily our nation is so evenly divided that it's unlikely either side will gain the momentum to start a real revolution. Thank goodness for the mushy middle.

New Messenger website

2009-04-13T19:51:00.000-07:00

Now that the new Messenger website is up, I'll probably shut down the other inside the mess blog and just post on this one.

More on newspapers

2009-04-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

Another interesting article on the decline and fall of the newspaper industry, from Salon: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/04/13/nonprofit_journalism/

To Newspaper Moguls: You Blew It

2009-04-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

From Huffington Post, by Jeff Jarvis, Author, 'What Would Google Do?', blogger at Buzzmachine.com, teaches at CUNY's J-school

Posted April 7, 2009 | 06:40 PM (EST)

The Newspaper Association of America is meeting in San Diego this week and they're preaching up at their own choir loft with angry, self-righteous fire and brimstone about their plight. They need to hear a new message, a blunt message from the outside. Here's the speech I think they should hear:

You blew it.

You've had 20 years since the start of the web, 15 years since the creation of the commercial browser and craigslist, a decade since the birth of blogs and Google to understand the changes in the media economy and the new behaviors of the next generation of - as you call them, Mr. Murdoch - net natives. You've had all that time to reinvent your products, services, and organizations for this new world, to take advantage of new opportunities and efficiencies, to retrain not only your staff but your readers and advertisers, to use the power of your megaphones while you still had it to build what would come next. But you didn't.

You blew it.

And now you're angry. Well, gentlemen - and that's pretty much all I see before me: angry, old, white men - you have no right to anger. Instead, you are the proper objects of anger. The public should be angry with you for the poor stewardship you have exercised over the press and its service to society. Your journalists are angry at you for losing their jobs. Your pressmen and drivers and classified-ad takers are angry at you for the same reason (and at the journalists for paying attention only to their own plight). Your advertisers were angry at you for using your monopolistic power to overcharge them and for providing inefficient platforms and bad service for so long. But they're not angry anymore because they left you for better advertising vehicles and better prices in a competitive marketplace.

But you're the ones who are acting angry.

Yesterday, you delivered a foot-stomping little hissy fit over Google and aggregators. How dare they link to you and not pay you? Oh, I so want Eric Schmidt to tell you today that you're getting your wish and that Google will no longer link to you. Beware what you wish for. You'd lose a third of your traffic overnight. If other aggregators (I work with one) and bloggers (I am one) and Facebook all decided to follow suit, you'd lose half your traffic. On most of your sites, only 20 percent of the audience in a day ever sees your homepage and its careful packaging; 4 of 5 readers instead come in through search and links. In the link economy - instead of the outmoded content economy in which you operate - Google and aggregators and bloggers are bringing value to you; they should be charging you for the value they bring. You should rise up today and give Mr. Schmidt a big thank you for not charging you. But you won't, because you've refused to understand this new business reality.

You blew it.

Your Google snits don't even address your far more profound problem: the vast majority of your potential audience who never come to your sites, the young people who will never read your newspapers. You all remember the quote from a college student in The New York Times a year ago, the one that has kept you up at night. Let's say it together: "If the news is that important, it will find me." What are you doing to take your news to her? You still expect her to come to you - to your website or to the newsstand - just because of the magnetic pull of your old brand. But she won't, and you know it. You lost an entire generation. You lost the future of news.

You blew it.

You had a generation to reinvent the business but you did too little. I by all means include myself in that indictment because I spent my career in our industry: Guilty. I didn't raise loud enough alarms (it felt as if they were too loud already) or accomplish enough change (not nearly enough). I blew it, too. But no last-minute hail-Mary passes will make up for our failings. Having not taken advantage of the last two decades to reinvent the news business, you're not going to manage a rescue in two months, before the creditors come calling. That was your worst hail Mary: stoking up on debt and hoping to milk these cows for years to come. Mad cash-cow disease, that's what too many of you had. Your other desperate moves: suddenly fantasizing that you can fix everything by going behind a wall (to tell with Google and its billions of readers!) and charging us because you think we "should" pay. Since when is a business plan built on "should?" I haven't seen a sensible P&L justifying this dream from any of you. If you have one, please stand up show us now..... I thought so. Other desperation moves: fantasies of white knights from foundations buying you and letting you stay just the way you are.... government subsidies (do we even have to discuss the danger?).... switching to not-for-profit, as if that suddenly takes away the need to sustain the business still... misguided, self-righteousness thinking that Google or cable companies owe you money, as if you have a God-given right to the revenue and customers you lost..... No, none of this will save newspapers and in your subconscious, at least, you know it. You know the truth.

You blew it.

So what can you do? Two years, even a year ago, I would have said that you had time to build the networks and frameworks and platforms that would support the ecosystem of news that will come next. I would have said you could retrain your staff to take on new responsibilities: organizing and supporting that ecosystem, curating the best, training people to be the best. I would have advised you to offer your staff members the opportunity to join that ecosystem, setting them up in business. I would have told you to take advantage of the efficiencies the web allows (do what you do best, link to the rest, I used to say). I would have argued that we need to invent new forms of marketing help for an entire new population of businesses-formerly-known-as-advertisers. I did say that. But the financial crisis only accelerated your fall. It didn't cause the fall, it accelerated it. So now, for many of you, there isn't time. It's simply too late. The best thing some of you can do is get out of the way and make room for the next generation of net natives who understand this new economy and society and care about news and will reinvent it, building what comes after you from the ground up. There's huge opportunity there, for them.

You blew it.

Final fours past

2009-04-07T05:02:00.000-07:00

I only remember watching a handful of Final Fours, but some of them were among the best.

The first was in 1974, when David Thompson and NC State ended UCLA's 7-year run. (It's nice to be able to use the Internet to help with recall.) Thompson was 6-4 and started the semi-final against UCLA by blocking a shot by 7-footer Bill Walton. Dunking was illegal back then, but Thompson and 5-7 point guard Marty Towe would do these beautiful alley oops where Thompson would fly above the rim and sorta drop the ball through. Thompson could knock a quarter off the top of the backboard (but could not replace it with two dimes and a nickel, as the myth said.) My brother Jeff and I used to imitate the Towe to Thompson alley oops on my Nerf basketball hoop (much like we used to play Saunders and McHale).

Drugs and alcohol abuse kept Thompson from reaching his potential as a pro. Some say he could've been Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan.

Other Final Fours I remember: Magic Johnson winning the championship (though I don't remember Bird and Indiana State); Keith Smart's buzzer beater for Indiana; Villanova's timeless win over Georgetown; UConn with Khalid El-Amin from Minneapolis; Duke beating the Fab Five from Michigan (after Laettner's buzzer-beater got them into the final game).

I watched the semi final Michigan/Connecticut game on the weekend, but I got bored with the final last night and went to bed before it was over.

Vegetarian for a day

2009-04-06T03:37:00.000-07:00

Interesting Salon article about a guy who broke a lot of Columbine stories and exploded myths 10 years ago (many of which I didn't know had been exploded). He's written a book about it.

Great Fresh Air interview last week with Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter who won a Pulitzer for breaking the My Lai story, and also broke the Abu Ghraib story. He's talking about a comment he made that Cheney was in charge of an international assassination ring.

Came across this on Alternet.org. I've never been a vegetarian, and I love eating meat, but I used to eat a lot less and have considered cutting back for health reasons. Some interesting facts (of course, I have no way of confirming them):

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

● 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;

● 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;

● 70 million gallons of gas -- enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;

● 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;

● 33 tons of antibiotics.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:

● Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;

● 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;

● 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;

● Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.

Next blogs:

2009-04-05T10:10:00.001-07:00

I hate tools.

Memories of Final Fours past

Dogs vs. deer

2009-04-05T09:39:00.000-07:00

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 is brilliant again

2009-04-01T13:01:00.001-07:00

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. No wonder we had 30 years of deregulation and "tinkle down" economics, as my friend Eric Johnson puts it.

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.

Cappuccino

2009-03-31T04:47:00.000-07:00

Diane got us a new cappuccino maker. I'm happy about that, but withholding judgment until we can get it to work better.

I love cappuccinos in the morning. Plain old coffee just doesn't taste good anymore.

And I'm not talking about the cappuccinos you get at Super America and half the coffee shops in the U.S., which have nothing in common with a real cappuccino, which is simply espresso and a little bit of frothed milk. You go to coffee shops these days, especially out here in the hinterlands, and order a cappuccino and they give you a weak latte — one shot of espresso and about 12 ounces of steamed milk.

This problem has arisen through American gluttony. Real cafes give people real cappuccinos, and the response is "Whaaaaaat?! Is that all?! The Super America cappuccinos are 16 ounces, with caramel and chocolate and french vanilla and toffee flavors! This is nothing like that!"

So I often go into a coffee shop nowadays and order a cappuccino, and the barista says, "Are you SURE???" because they're afraid I'm one of those who thinks a cappuccino is what you get in the machine at Super America, and I'll yell at them if they make me a real one.

Ranting at 6:54. Must be the cappuccino.

Rum River pics, March 28, 2009

2009-03-30T18:49:00.001-07:00

Roll 5

Media

2009-03-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

Stuff I watched/listened to this weekend:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: I heard the star and writer (Jason Segel) on NPR's Fresh Air. The interview made me want to see this movie. He seems like a genuinely good guy. It was funny. Refreshing to see some full-fronted male nudity. I really liked the female lead, who I think was the girl from That 70s Show. (Confirmed: Mila Kunis). My overriding impression was that Rob really needs to see this movie. Then I went to town and forgot to bring it back, which I found ironic.

James Bond, Quantum of Solace. Action has become incredibly boring to me. I like Daniel Craig as the new Bond, though I would've voted for Clive Owen, and the movie had some okay parts, but in general, 9 on the snooze meter. They've thrown out all the campiness of the old Bonds and replaced it with non-stop action and serious drama. Doesn't work. Camp probably wouldn't either. Maybe it's time for one of those billion bullets whizzing past his head to hit its target.

I gave up on Man and Boy, a novel by some British journalist named Tony Parsons (I think). Boring and badly written. I picked up The Shadow of the Wind by some Spanish writer, and I'm enjoying it.

On my run, I listened to Fresh Air, an interview with the guy who wrote Clockers and some episodes of The Wire (a show I haven't gotten into yet). He has a novel called Lush Life, which sounds good, about drugs and crime and yuppies on the Lower East Side. I think his name was Price. Then I listened to Bill Moyers interview a Washington Post journalist (Kaiser?) about his book on lobbying. Great interview again. Moyers is the only mainstream media TV guy really digging up good stories that everyone should hear but nobody else is covering. Then he talked to Parker Palmer, which didn't do much for me.

Watched Villanova beat Pitt.

Joe Soucheray's column in Sunday's Pioneer Press: Ragged, disjointed boobery from the Twin Cities' biggest boob. He used to be a good writer but made a conscious decision to appeal to idiots and jerks and thereby make more money as a radio guy. Wish I had the ability to do the same.

Liking "I'm Just Me" by Charley Pride.

"Slow down old world" and "So Much to Do" by Willie Nelson. ("My oatmeal tastes just like confetti...")

Walked to the river and was blown away by the ice sculptures formed by the flooding, freezing, receding, thawing over the last week. Every time I bring my camera down to the river, I expect there to be nothing new. I'm always wrong.

Went to the Cities last Monday night and stopped into the 331 Club to listen to The Roe Family Singers. I really like that Dan Gaarder's voice, and I wish I had 5 percent of his guitar chops. Saw my old buddy Colin and Sneaky Pete Bauer, who was doing sound.

A Bad Country Song

2009-03-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

Rachel getting married

2009-03-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

I like movies about dysfunctional families and addiction. One of my favorite TV shows is Intervention. So I liked Rachel Getting Married. I also like Anne Hathaway, ever since I first took Cedar to see Princess Diaries, but I must say I liked her better before the makeover, when she was the frizzy-haired artsy nerdy girl.

It's a good movie about a girl who gets out of rehab to go to her sister's wedding, and her narcissism and recovery drama infect the celebratory atmosphere. Eventual you realize that the family tragedy goes a lot deeper than Kym's addiction. It's an interesting family of musicians and intellectuals, an interracial wedding, with intimate camera angles, and that cinema verite shakey-camera stuff, which is always a little annonying. Anne Hathaway is great and so is the actress who plays her sister, and the guy who plays the dad, and Debra Winger as the mom.

Diane also got Milk, so that'll be my next review

Memories of kayak festivals past

2009-03-20T05:06:00.000-07:00

This was originally published in Silent Sports magazine. It's a true story.

When you’re not very fast – at running, biking, hiking, paddling – you find other ways to distinguish yourself in competition, other badges of honor you carry proudly through life.

The year was 1996. I had taken my new used plastic sea kayak for a weekend of paddling on the north shore of Lake Superior, and saw signs for the kayak festival. Since the waves were bad, I decided to sign up for the 18-mile marathon the next morning, where I would at least have someone to pull me out of the drink if I tipped.

That night we partook of a fish boil at Superior Shores resort, and I met some of the competition – a woman from Madeline Island with a nice fiberglass, custom-made boat, and a photographer from Minneapolis whose arms were as big as my legs. I was undaunted. I’d been paddling every day on Jackfish Creek by my home near International Falls. On weekends, I would take a longer journey out into the islands of Rainy Lake or into Voyageurs National Park.

I spent the night in my tent in the backyard of one of the organizers. By 7:30 a.m. I was lining up for instructions with about 30 other kayakers. One young college student I had met the night before look disparagingly at my paddle, a two piece, $25 Carlyle with an aluminum/plastic shaft and flat, straight blades. “You gotta jettison the log, dude,” he said. “That thing must weigh a ton.”

I looked around at the other paddles. Sleek graphite and wood with fancy aerodynamic shapes. I had seen them in the stores when I bought my kayak, but $100 seemed outrageous for a paddle. How much difference could it make?

At the starting line, I was fantasizing about a strong finish. I had never paddled with anyone else, so I didn’t know for sure how fast I was, but since I’d been kayaking every day, I fully expected to surprise myself.

Everyone seemed to know a guy in a racing kayak would take first, but second place – first in my age division – was still up for grabs. I checked out the rest of the competition. About a third in my age range (late 30s, early 40s) a third older men and women, and a third college-aged or 20-something, including a few cocky, buff boys and two giggling girls who would be paddling in circles within five minutes, I was sure.

The gun went off and we set out northeast along the shore. For the first five minutes, I was feeling good. The boat was moving just as smoothly as usual, and I had a perfect rhythm going in my strokes. But very quickly I began to wonder as I looked around at the other boats. The racer was way out in front, but a handful of others had already pulled ahead, and some that started behind had already caught up. I was paddling fairly hard to get a good start, yet the giggling girls were keeping up with me.

After a half hour, the awful truth had sunk in: I was slow. Not just a little slower than average, but painfully, embarrassingly, humiliatingly slow. Second place was not only a fantasy, but a fantasy along the lines of an Olympic gold medal or a Nobel prize. I was in last place, watching two little co-eds pull off in the distance. Giggling and tossing their curls.

Encampment Island was the midway point of the race. We had to circle the island then head back to Two Harbors. Long before I reached it, the racer passed me on his way down the home stretch. The Madeline Island woman and the photographer were in the next pack of five or six. Less serious marathoners came next, among them the co-eds. By the time I started around the island, everyone else had finished rounding it and passed me going the other direction. It felt like being lapped in a two-lap race.

I labored back to Two Harbors, finishing in something like four and a half hours, a full 45 minutes after my closest rival. As I paddled toward the dock, I saw the organizers taking down the tents. The announcer had not yet closed up shop. She spoke into the loudspeaker as I crossed the finish line. “Brett Larson from Ranier, Minnesota.” I raised my paddle above my head while the crowd cheered politely.

In this shining moment, I had accomplished something no one had ever done – indeed, something no one would ever do again. Not only had I come in last, but I had come in last with flair, with verve, with personality and guts. I was literally last by a mile. Three miles, maybe. I, Brett Larson of Ranier, Minnesota, was the first ever last-place finisher at the Two Harbors Sea Kayak Festival marathon. Take that, Lance Armstrong. You will never sniff my record.

Snake on the rocks, and other photos

2009-03-19T18:18:00.000-07:00

I came home early to go jogging, but the cold weather made jogging seem miserable, so I went for a walk down to the river, where the ice is breaking up. The leaves are melting into the snow as their dark colors attract the heat of the sun. A garter snake had apparently slithered onto some thin ice, broken through and drowned. Reminded me of the canada goose I saw drown a year ago Thanksgiving. And I'm still waiting for the sun to set directly to the west, so it will hang red right over the end of the road.

late winter

He's Better Than Me

2009-03-17T05:21:00.000-07:00

We were the Mulvaneys

2009-03-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

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

About the book

2009-03-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-13T05:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

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

New Album 3/12/09 8:57 PM

Sick day

2009-03-10T06:08:00.000-07:00

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

Next chapter

2009-03-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

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

Michele Bachmann is the woman

2009-03-05T05:19:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-01T14:21:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-26T07:33:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-25T04:41:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-24T07:26:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-24T05:11:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-23T03:50:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-21T07:17:00.000-08:00

Life is way too easy

2009-02-20T18:09:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-19T07:52:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-16T17:37:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-27T07:07:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-27T03:13:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-27T03:09:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-23T04:10:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-22T05:19:00.000-08:00

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

The real issue for Obama

2009-01-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-19T18:54:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-18T17:42:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-14T07:06:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

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

Body language

2009-01-08T16:25:00.000-08:00

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

Big Sur pics

2009-01-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-06T05:17:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-04T18:35:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

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

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

From a campground in Big Sur

2009-01-02T18:28:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-26T04:51:00.000-08:00

New Album 12/25/08 2:47 PM

Best Christmas tree ever

2008-12-24T14:48:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-19T13:44:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-19T07:43:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-19T04:56:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-18T20:21:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-18T20:13:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-18T20:11:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-18T20:05:00.000-08:00

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.