How About Some Gossip, Innuendo, and Snide Remarks?

When I saw the picture of Minnesota Governor Tim “Toolittle” Pawlenty—“The Next President Of The United States”—hold up that huge denizen of the deep he caught on the opening of the Minnesota fishing season, I just couldn’t contain myself. What does that 1.5 pound Northern Pike say about a Minnesota politician? I immediately thought of Alice Roosevelt Longworth’s famous line to a friend: “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” Well, move closer.

I just can’t think of any other Minnesota politician (except our governor) holding up such a minnow and suggesting with his triumphant pose and expensive fishing costume that he just provided 5,000 fish for the tables of poor Minnesotans. Poor Toolittle is so infected with the swinish thought he has a shot at the 2012 Republican nomination for the highest office, he seems to have lost whatever logic he once had.

He has tried his best to turn Minnesota into Mississota since he made his “No New Taxes” pledge to his millionaire and billionaire handlers in Wayzata, Minnetonka, and Lakeville. Now poor towns throughout the state have to raise their property taxes to confiscatory levels to keep schools, libraries and parks open. I really don’t have anything good to say about a politician whose only goal is self-preservation.

“Hammer Handles” should always be released quickly so they have a chance to grow up and become fish. They deserve better than to be held up in the harmful sunlight by a politician full of himself.

Why Not Support Libraries By Selling Booze To The Rich At The New Gopher Stadium?

I see the president of the University of Minnesota wants permission to sell alcoholic beverages in the luxury suites and other premium seating in the new Gopher TCF Bank Stadium (to the exclusion of the peasants, pissants, and other poor, thirsty beggars relegated to the cheap seats by income and class). I think President Robert Bruinincks should be charged with cruel and unusual punishment by the human rights police.

In the first place, a fan has to be drunk to watch the Gophers beat up on The Little Sisters of the Poor and the Northern Slippery Rocks for the first six games and then watch them get slaughtered by real football teams for the last six. But, I digress. It’s a chance to make some real money off our betters to support valuable programs that Pawlenty and his crowd always veto. Some legislators want to exhibit their passion for equality to the voters by offering a bill which would allow the U to sell booze to all legal drinkers in the stadium. I’m opposed to that. Too many students would get the idea that booze is absolutely essential in greasing adult bragging situations and business deals.

I have a slightly different solution, because Toolittle will never raise taxes on his rich buddies. I would suggest that alcohol be sold only in suites and premium seating and at the following rates: $10 for a 12-ounce beer, $15 for a six-ounce glass of wine, and 20 bucks for a mixed drink—with all profits going to the purchase of books and materials for public and school libraries across the state of Minnesota. Perhaps such a program could be called “Rotgut for Readers” or something as instructive as that.

Why Not Turn Fargo Into Monument City?

I see the Red River Freethinkers are again taking on the city fathers, mothers, uncles, SOBs and religious advisors in Fargo over the Ten Commandments monument on the city hall mall. I think it’s funny that something that started out as a publicity stunt by Cecil B. DeMille has made millions of dollars for lawyers defending and attacking the position of pieces of granite placed on public property across the land. The only people who have been “saved” by these rocks are lawyers behind on car and mortgage payments.

I am not a member of the Freethinkers, but I’m certainly simpatico. Over seven years ago, I wrote a column about the case: “I’m sure millions of words have been written… about the Ten Commandments monument on city property… If the volume keeps up and the citizens keep absorbing the lessons of the Commandments, I can soon see the day that the metro area can get rid of most law enforcement, just retaining enough cops to control the infidels, heretics, columnists, atheists and agnostics coming into the promised land…Why, I haven’t seen such an outpouring of Christian tolerance and love since Billy Graham hit Fargo two years ago. Ever onward, Christian soldiers.”

But the Fargo Chief of Police has to keep asking for more cops. I guess not enough miscreants and doubters pass by the monument to make a difference in the overall crime stats in Fargo.

DeMille had the idea that if he could get organizations to pay for Ten Commandment granite monuments and distribute them to cities around the country, his remake of the movie “The Ten Commandments” in 1956 would become a huge hit.
 
It was quite evident that DeMille never read the Ten Commandments. He was partial to the Jewish side of his family anyway. DeMille once boasted to a reporter that he had never spent a Saturday night at home with his wife and family. DeMille had a large collection of erotic art and often staged sexual orgies for his male guests with willing young actresses and call girls. He was also a supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy when McCarthy was naming names for the Un-American Activities Committee.

I do have a suggestion for the Fargo City Commission if they are faced with another decision regarding the moving of the monument. When driving the Alaskan Highway, one finally runs into the tiny town of Watson Lake in the Yukon Territory. Over the years of this historic highway it has become the custom for travelers and towns to have a traffic or identity sign of their city placed in a city park in circular fashion. At last count there are some 40,000 city and traffic signs from all over the world implanted in the park.

Fargo could have a similar tourist attraction by asking religious sects from around the world to contribute a monument outlining their beliefs, creeds, or lessons on granite or other rock indigenous to their area. There are over 2,600 Christian sects alone that might want to advertise their beliefs. Latest statistics indicate that there might be over 10 million atheists in the U.S. I don’t know whether they split into lower, middle and upper atheists or not, so it might be difficult for them to agree on an agnostic message.

If we could get Hindus, Muslims, Buddists, Mayans, Confucians and other world sects to dedicate monuments to our park, we might have a real gold mine. After all, how many pilgrims visit Jerusalem or Mecca? Perhaps we should have a feasibility study on combining the new federal flood program of levees for Fargo-Moorhead with the religious monuments. Tourists could walk on the levees and view the monuments at their leisure. It could be a winner.

Can You Imagine Being On A Cruise Ship With 8,500 Other Souls?

I have never been very interested in tropical cruises, especially on cruise ships with five or six thousand other people wanting to eat, feel the sun, or use the bathroom at the same time. I don’t like to wait in lines or listen to drunks yelling to each other on cellphones.

Perhaps this revulsion stems from once being an unwilling passenger on an old converted Navy transport traveling through an Atlantic storm with 1,500 fellow Marines on board. On the day it was my “turn” to be Officer of the Deck for the Marine detachment, we got caught in a real Northeaster. This ship had a big bow compartment containing 600 souls stacked eight high in bunks to the overhead. Although this ship was about 600 feet long, the bow in a storm would rise and fall about 20 feet.

In a storm, of course, every one is confined to their bunks. Landlubber stomachs can take only so much movement on the water. When you have young Marines stacked eight high and the guy on the top bunk loses breakfast, lunch and dinner in one full cascade… well, just use your imagination. It’s a graphic demonstration of a chain reaction. Yes, the domino theory is operative. There may have been someone with a cast iron stomach who retained his cookies, but I didn’t see one after being forced to inspect the compartment. I never want to see or smell anything like that again.

My idea of a nice cruise ship is about a 60-foot sailer with a dozen passengers. As Americans always seem to run to excesses, I must report we are now building the world’s longest, tallest, widest, heaviest and most expensive passenger ship, which will sail under the Royal Carribbean flag. It is longer than our largest aircraft carrier, will burn 12 tons of diesel fuel per hour to keep the lights burning, passengers will burn up over five tons of ice cubes per day, and it has over 3,000 miles of electrical cables. The Oasis of the Seas will have a crew of 2,165 to take care of 6,295 passengers. Of the 21 swimming pools aboard, two will be wave pools, one will be a beach pool, and one will be a young kids waterpark. The pools will circulate 600,000 gallons of water. I think I would go bonkers if sentenced to this one for eight days.

Drinking Can Be More Complicated Than Wall Street Finance

Back in the good old days when I was tending bar at one of the classiest bars in town—the Treetop Room and the Skol Room at the Frederick Martin Hotel—we had only one kind of ice, the cubed kind. With a wife and three kids to support while going to graduate school, the GI Bill just wasn’t enough to cover all expenses, so tending bar was a great part-time job. The tips were good, we could work flexible schedules, the drunks were culturally refined—and the bar talk and gossip were certainly at least worth a major in psychology.

But now when the bars are pushing eight different kinds of ice to use in drinks, life in the booze lane is getting complicated. Wall Street bankers now have their credit default swaps, hedge funds, selling short and long, derivatives and other snake oils to screw the rubes. The bars have Kold-Draft ice, crushed ice, shard ice, chunk ice, cheater ice, “educated” ice, seasoned ice, and cubed ice of different sizes. Some ice experts are talking about ice micropores that improve the taste of ice.

I really don’t know whether these “ices” provide a taste thrill. I suspect that guys who wear $21,000 suits know the difference. They understand what life is all about.