Senator John Marty is apparently working hard to burnish his cred as a progressive extremist.

Yesterday, he introduced a bill to require licensing for gun owners.

And in it, he proved himself a word the successor to Wes “Lying Sack Of Garbage” Skoglund and the “Reverend“ Nancy Nord Bence, in that nut a shingle claim he makes is it simultaneously substantial, original and true.

Seriously:

“For young people, the 15-year-olds who can easily access guns now and commit armed carjackings and murders and other things, you know, they would have to go through training and they would have to go through a process to do this,” said Marty. “And, we would have limits so that some of these 16-year-olds couldn’t go out and buy guns.”

Anyone see the problem in the Senator’s statement?

Anyone at all?

I don’t want to keep seeing the same hands, here.

I never watch the Oscars. Literally, not once since, maybe, college.

And I’m not about to start.

But I will say that I wanted to say this; in the entire history of standup comedy, I don’t believe anyone…

…has handled a heckler quite like that.

I wanted to.

But I won’t.

I will, however, say this: It’s entirely possible that the entire episode – the miked-jiust-well-enough audio, Smith stepping into the exact right “mark” to “throw” the “punch” so the camera angle couldn’t see the “impact”, Rock’s cool, calm, collected “response” to the “hit” – wasn’t a perfectly constructed “stage punch”, straight out of a community theater production of West Side Story.

But if it were, it wouldn’t have come across any differently.

As much as the climate panic crowd wants desperately to believe in the dream that we can glue solar panels to the roof of our vehicle, nail a 3-inch diameter battery-operated fan on the back bumper, do away with all fossil fuels and still toodle down the road at 70 mph and heat our homes with a windmill in the back yard and notice no economic impact, the world runs on petroleum products. Without them, we’re living in the Little House on the Prairie.

With 41% of their gas imports coming from Russia, Europe knows full well how dependent they are Russia. Go figure but they like staying warm in the winter. (And yet, with eyes wide open Germany still embarked on ending their nuclear program. Pro Tip: Never let leftists run your country) They are in a bind when it comes to imposing meaningful sanctions on Russia imports, and everyone knows it.

A significant portion of that gas transits through Ukraine. Though the percentage has dropped over time, according to Statista at least a third of Russian imports comes through Ukraine.

The defining jape of the current economic contortions may have been a piece from last week by Teresa Ghilarducci at Bloomberg, had some “advice” for Americans making “less than $300,000 a year” and coping with inflation:

Inflation stings most if you earn less than $300K. Here’s how to deal:

➡ Take the bus

➡ Don’t buy in bulk

➡ Try lentils instead of meat

➡ Nobody said this would be fun

Ignore, for a moment, that the price of Lentils is apparently outstripping the price of meat:

…and that very few Americans live where buses are, much less get them to where they need to be, and that no s**t it’s not “fun”, seeing your retirement savings getting chewed up and spat out by the inflation that your party brought on.

This particular line needs to be held up against every Democrat, everywhere, this fall.

Last week the International Crisis Group unveiled their op-ed entry in the “Deep Fake: This Is Not The Babylon Bee” competition. Entitled “Another deeply gendered war is being waged in Ukraine,” it is a blinkered attempt to prove that even in the raw violence of war, the Left can still count beans, at least until hungry people taking refuge in a cold basement eat them.

But the Western supporters of Ukraine, especially the US, NATO, and the European Union, who have insisted for more than two decades now that women’s security shapes their approach to dealing with war, have done little to show that gender will be their framework, or even a framework, for addressing Ukraine’s predicament.

The author, Ms. Moaveni, is based in London. She has the freedom and safety to write sentences like the following, freedom bought by other people, many of them men, who were holding weapons, not “Give Peace A Chance” signs.

What might prove most challenging for a traditional gender-sensitive approach to this war is the emerging and dominant glorification of the militarisation of an entire society.

What the author calls the “glorification of the militarisation of an entire society” might also be called a will to survive. Ukraine is being invaded by an army that puts shells through the windows of maternity hospitals and apartment buildings. If the Ukrainian people, men and women alike, want to fight back and preferably not die cold and hungry under the treads of a Russian tank, I say we should salute them, not harangue them about why their first thoughts don’t run to identity politics.

The reference to “two decades” in the first quote is not a random one. In October 2000, U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1325. The text of it is here. The resolution called for, among other things, the increased participation of women in conflict resolution and in peacekeeping activities.

Paul Waldman, at the Washington Post…

Over the multiple days of her confirmation hearings for a seat on the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson will have to sit attentively for hours while the 22 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee speechify at her, testing both her endurance and her ability to refrain from rolling her eyes when the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) ascend the heights of inane demagoguery at her expense.

Amid all that pontification, there’s a particular phrase you should watch out for that will likely be repeated dozens of times: “judicial philosophy.” The phrase should raise red flags because it’s a signal that the person using it is about to pull a fast one, either to claim they themselves believe something they really don’t, or to pretend that an attack they’re making on Jackson is far more high-minded than it actually is. … The alternative to all this hogwash would be a little candor.

Our current vice president is a dopey gigglebox whose morning calisthenics consist of struggling to find a coherent thought. Feel the burn! She was picked solely on the basis of her skin color and gender.

Now, our current president, whose Biden Doctrine “I can’t have oatmeal before 8 am because I get gassy” will soon be of interest only to the nurses who wheel him down to the solarium, has nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, the Left’s favorite unaccountable super-legislature. What’s more, she was picked for the exact same reasons as Harris. Given that first steaming example of affirmative action, as fresh as objets d’art on a San Francisco sidewalk, and how that is working out, might Jackson be worth a few pointed questions from a co-equal branch of government before she takes her lifetime appointment, Mr. Waldman?

Click.

In part 1 and part 2, we looked at some of the stories that can be found in Roman Britain and what they had to say to us today.

Let’s begin our final visit to Roman Britain by retasking our Keyhole satellite to the north of England. This is York.

Let’s do the exercise we started with. Just by looking at the street patterns, can you see where medieval York was? Here’s a rough outline.

There’s more to it though. York was founded by the Romans in 71 AD, about 30 years after they first arrived in Britain. Some of the local tribes were becoming increasingly hostile and Rome felt it needed a military presence in the area. A legion (the Ninth Legion, the so-called Lost Legion) marched up there and built a fort, and built it like they knew how. It’s a bit harder to see, but here’s a very rough outline of where what they called Eboracum was, at the point where the two rivers come together. York’s magnificent cathedral sits within the footprint of the fort.

In part 1 we touched on how the past can influence the present in ways that might be easy to overlook, and how the past can remind us of the importance to defend that which we hold dear.

We had looked at part of the story of Colchester in England and I had said there was something else there that could add to our discussion. It is here, just outside the southwest corner of the old Roman fort, next to the traffic circle and next to the police station.

This is likely the earliest known church in Britain. It’s hard to date with exactness, but it probably dates to the mid 4th century.

Here’s a closer look, courtesy of VisitColchester.

While Christianity had likely come to Britain some time before this church was built, the ease with which Christianity could spread and flourish throughout the Roman Empire was greatly facilitated by Constantine the Great and the Edict of Milan. In a sense though, the Good News was too late for Britain. This church was a symbol of a hopeful future, but a future that ultimately was overtaken by events.

Cities have memories, especially old cities. If you were walking down a street in a city you’ve lived in all your life, you probably wouldn’t stop to think this street has been here for as long as I remember. It was here in my parents’ time, it was here in my grandparents’ time. This street has been here for centuries, but if we went back far enough, there would be a time when the street didn’t exist. So why is it here, in this place? What influences dictated that this street follow this path?

This is Colchester, in the southeast of England. It was known to the Romans as Camulodunum. The Romans invaded England in 43 A.D. and made Britain a Roman province, and Colchester is not far from where the Romans came ashore. For a time it was the administrative capital for the Roman occupation. Initially it was fortified with walls, but the walls were taken down and Colchester became a kind of retirement community for legion soldiers.

Around 60 A.D., about the exact same time the Apostle Paul was beginning his two-year house arrest in Rome, Queen Boudicca led a large-scale rebellion against the Romans. Her forces attacked the undefended town and destroyed Colchester and its inhabitants. Some residents holed up in the temple the town was known for and held out for a couple of days until they were overwhelmed. (The temple was where the castle now sits. The castle was built over the foundations of the temple.) Boudicca and her forces went on to attack what was then London and St. Albans. It is thought that upwards of 70,000 people were killed in the rebellion.

One of the Roman legions had been campaigning all the way over in Wales. When they received word of what had happened, they hurried back and helped put down the rebellion and were rather brutal about it. Having learned their lesson, and now acutely aware of the dangers in Britain, the Romans rebuilt the walls of Colchester, and rebuilt it according to doctrine. (A doctrine recorded by Vegetius in his De re militari, the only known surviving Roman field manual.) Typically their forts were four-sided, either square or rectangular, with a central road connecting two sides, and if it were large enough, another road connecting the other two sides (via praetoria and via principalis).

Just from looking at the street patterns, can you see where the fort they built was? The city remembers. Roads needed to go around these walls, long stretches of which still exist today, and today streets still follow those paths laid down millennia ago. The High Street, or Main Street, through town still follows the old Roman artery through the fort. A rough outline of the old Roman fort is after the break.

One of my hobbies over the past fifteen years or so has been trying to get some of my favorite bloggers from the halcyon days of Minnesota blogmongery to stay, if only a little bit, in the game.

With a few – Johnny Roosh, Bogus Diane – success was fleeting. But it was great while it lasted.

With others – not gonna name names – other priorities called. [1]

With still others – Mr. D, First Ringer – well, it worked, we found a niche, and they still do some writing in this space. My deal’s always been “write whenever the spirit moves you” – and they do. And for that I’m grateful.

And one whose writing I’ve been missing for well over a decade, since he retired Peace Like a River, is Jeff Kouba, one of my favorite writers in a medium and “scene” full of great writers.

And after at least a decade of trying, we’re going to fix that. Jeff starts writing at SITD later today. As with Mr. D and Ringer, it’s all whenever he feels like writing.

And I’ll be thrilled to see him back!

Check back later this morning.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Two weeks. That’s all the longer the Virtue Signaling crowd can follow a story. After that, they lose interest in the story. And they never really care about the underlying causes or long-term consequences, only today’s headlines. That’s a terrible way to run a polity.

Governor Walz suspended the Constitution for two weeks “to flatten the curve.” Nobody questioned whether a state governor had the power to place the entire state under house arrest in peace time; to overrule the United States Constitution’s guarantees of religious worship and political assembly; to take away businesses owners’ livelihoods unequally – deeming some essential, some not, some owned by important contributors and some jailed for trying to make ends meet. Nobody knows and nobody is asking. The people who lost everything? Forgotten. We changed our Facebook pages then, and now we’ve moved on.

The truckers in Canada were a big deal for two weeks, but now it’s all over. Except it’s not – not for the participants. “While the Emergencies Act has been revoked, Justice Minister David Lametti, who appeared with Trudeau — said violations of it that occurred while it was in force would continue to be prosecuted in the justice system.” The answer to whether the Emergencies Act should have been invoked at all (and therefore whether violations of an unlawful order are still unlawful) is: Nobody knows and nobody’s asking. The people who lost everything? Forgotten. We changed our Facebook pages then, and now we’ve moved on.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine was green-lighted by Lesko Brandon, who admitted his sanctions were never intended to deter invasion. The giant column of back-up troops is not attacking. Nuclear power plants are secure. Civilian casualties are being minimized. The United States is still buying oil from Russia, helping to finance the invasion, even as we contemplating sending Vice President Kamala Harris to Poland to rally the troops that we’re not sending in. The invasion is stalled, Nike isn’t selling shoes (but Coke is selling cola) in Russia, and Apple Pay won’t buy groceries for children in Moscow; what’s next? Nobody knows. The people who are about to lose everything? Not forgotten yet, but we’ve changed our Facebook pages. We’re ready to move on.

What’s next?

Joe Doakes

Maybe the effects of inflation on the poor?

No, that’s just crazy talk.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

This author suggests Ukraine should have adopted the Finland model: every citizen a citizen-soldier. Makes sense to me, and also aligns with the “well-regulated militia” concept of the Second Amendment.

Point of order: the Finnish (And the very similar Swiss and Israeli) models presume that service in the military is part of a citizens duty to the stage, like paying taxes and serving on juries.

For millions of Americans, you wouldn’t even need to issue weapons. We have them already. Just give us a couple of weeks’ training in small unit movement, ambush basics, sniping, asymmetrical warfare, guerilla tactics. Conquest by invasion would be impossible. The Wolverines would prevent it.

Of course, giving people military training assumes the government trusts its own citizens and vice versa. Can we say that with confidence in America today?

Joe Doakes

We can, of course, assume those such thing; in fact, the Government/Media-Industrial complex has spent the last 40 years demonizing the concept of “the militia“ to a fine sheen – One might assume, to protect itself from any organized opposition. At the moment, the social cost of supporting, much less belonging to, a “militia“, are just too high, whatever the finer points of constitutional ideals, for the average schmuck.

Given the modern left newfound love for an armed populace, maybe this will go over OK:

Oh, not for me of course. I’m about 10 inches too tall to fit in one of those things.

Joe Doakes Como Park emails:

When’s the best time to attack? When the enemy isn’t looking.

Lesko Brandon is focused on Ukraine. Excellent opportunity for China to take Taiwan.

Thanks, Comrade B. Couldn’t have done it without you. Have another pudding cup. The check is in the mail.

Joe Doakes

We shall see.

About a month ago, Open Table released information showing that restaurant reservations were in really bad shape in the Twin Cities.

Another month has passed, and it’s only gotten worse:

Apparently those photos Full of jammed restaurants that Mayor Frey had on his phone were gatherings of Democrats to support free-speech.

Since the 2020 election, where blacks and Latinos voted GOP in numbers we haven’t seen in decades, Berg’s Eighth Law has been getting a workout:

American progressivism’s reaction to one of “their”constituents – women, gays or people of color – running for office or otherwise identifying as a conservative is indistinguishable from sociopathic disorder.

I think the law may well have come about from an earlier wave of utterly racist prate and gabble about Justice Clarence Thomas, from people who aren’t intellectually fit to carry his gym bag.

Seems everything that’s old is new again:

“Nobody that I’m aware of feels that opposing Clyburn’s nomination would be the wise thing to do,” he said. “If you know that a person has been vetted by Jim Clyburn, you know that person won’t go to the court and end up being a Clarence Thomas,” referring to the Black justice whose rulings often resemble the thinking of White conservatives.

Josh Blackman:

The Washington Post wrote the emphasized portion. You know, Justice Thomas, the black justice who thinks like a white person. The Washington Post called Justice Thomas an Oreo. And that statement isn’t even accurate! The Court’s white conservatives issue rulings that often resemble those of Justice Thomas. Thomas is the intellectual leader of the Court’s conservative wing. And he has been for decades. Gorsuch, Alito, and the rest are just trying to keep up with CT. But once again, we get the racist trope that Thomas is Scalia’s clone. Just the opposite. Scalia often remarked that Thomas pushed him to the right. What lazy writing from the Post.

While the WaPo removed the statement, it was more out of political optics than decency.

I’m wondering what’ll happen first: Blacks realizing that they are just votes on the hoof for the Democrats, or Republicans figuring out how to get that message across?

Last week on social media (and, maybe, althought I can’t remember, in this space), I pointed out this excellent thread by Ezra Levant – one of the most cogent commentators on civil liberty in Canada and, in many ways, the US – for some interesting insights on the effect the Canadian trucker’s strike is having on both sides of the border.

The whole thread, like most everything Levant writes, is worth a close read:

A commentator who, to be fair, is lately doing a pretty fair Bill Gleason impression, replied to me saying “I remember when conservatives said blocking bridges was a bad thing” – as if I’m excusing something with the truckers that I condemned with BLM blocking freeways.

It was, of course, an ignorant take at best, and a dishonest one at worst (and I’m leaning toward dishonest); your protest, like any other free speech, has no right to harm others, and blocking freeways does in fact harm others.

But my criticism, then as now, was not of the legitimacy or turpitude of the protesters – there are plenty of people covering that turf – but of the local and regional governments in both cases. Local government in Minneapolis and Saint Paul enabled BLM to take over streets and freeways, passively (pointedly ignoring applicable laws) and actively (opening routes and managing not just freeway traffic, but protester traffic, in some cases pointing out foot routes onto the freeways). I pointed out, from experience, that a pro-life or 2nd Amendment group going out on the freeway would have gotten a very different official reception…

…as, indeed, have the truckers, who have turned Big Left’s methods against Big Left, and are getting Big Left’s exposed inner id out there on display:

As I write, Canadian police, many dressed in military garb and supported by armored vehicles and snipers(!), are moving in to enforce several court orders and demands of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and others that the “Freedom Convoy” of Canadian truckers stop blocking the Ambassador Bridge, the major artery between the United States and Canada, and disperse. Some of the protestors are leaving while many others are standing their ground. 

My point – which apparently still eludes the commenter noted above – is that representative democracy can not survive when there are one set of laws for the political “haves” and one for the “Have nots”. ere we

Which, when it comes to political speech in general, is exactly where we are today.

More later.

Say what you will about the practice of blocking streets – the left sowed the wind, they are reaping a whirlwind – but Big Left sure isn’t happy.

One of the great fault lines in American – really Western – politics is with the concept of “Freedom”.

The term means different things to different people.

To “the right”, broadly, it means freedom from government interference in one’s life. Coming from societies where the individual had worth only as a subject of a monarch, and whose human rights were (and, in most cases, are) still considered privileges bestowed by more or less benevolent sovereign (at best!), it’s understandable.

And as Western Civilization has gotten farther and farther from having to scrabble for the right to be secure in one’s home and to not be considered chattel for trade or barter by whatever gangster had managed to seize a sword from a watery bint, the concept of freedom has, at least among people we broadly call “the left”, rotted into the notion of “freedom from material want” and, increasingly, “freedom from social want”.

Which brings us to this op-ed in the Glob and Mail by one Gary Mason . It’s been the subject of absolutely cataclysmic, scathing mockery in the Western right for habitually garbling the meaning of “freedom” that most of us understand.

And mangle it, he does (emphasis added):

Freedom, of course, has not always been a concept usurped for selfish, malicious purposes. It’s been a rallying cry behind great triumphs such as the end of slavery and the civil rights movement. But others have believed freedom is about protecting property rights, even if that has to occur at the diminishment of democracy.

Those who are paying attention note that freedom to enjoy one’s property rights is freedom; without property rights, and the system of legal and social guarantees that make property rights possible, there is no prosperity; without prosperity, freedom is academic. Ponder great thoughts, or farm for your subsistence; pick one.

And he’s also right that it “diminishes democracy”; “Democracy” with a capital “D” is three people deciding who gets to keep the bag of cash they just found, by 2:1 margin, with the “1” out of luck.

Mason seems, beyond that, to think that to the protesters in Canada, and by extension the US, think “freedom” is a synonym for Trump.

Quite the opposite.

I’ll explain.

13 years ago, the Tea Party sprang from an earlier wave of public discontent, over the creeping nationalization of healthcare. The Tea Party minded its manners, cleaned up after itself, was friendly and utterly inclusive and had a place for everyone – whether educated, articulate and polished, or not – at the table.

And the establishment on both sides slandered it back into the shadows.

But that energy remained. And as society got more authoritarian – in Canada even moreso than in Obama’s US – it realized that the other side had made the rules; it was time to make them live by them.

Trump saw this, and capitalized on it. Pierre Poilievre, whom Big Left is currently trying to slander back into the underworld, is capitalizing on it. Ron DeSantis could easily capitalize on it.

You mock your opponents into submission? Trump did it better.

You want to block traffic? Hold our beer while we get our trucks.

The energy is there. The leaders that see it will change, but the energy never goes away.

A friend of the blog emails:

I am in no way in favor of banning books or burning books. I am not in favor of censoring something for others. If I do not want to read something, I simply don’t. This tweet really got my thinking about fascism and the Nazis who burned books.
.

Is this person tweeting sure that it is the right wing side of the country burning Harry Potter books? Gosh, I am old enough to remember the never ending cancel culture of Liberals going after JK Rowling for questioning the transgender culture and the idea that a man can identify as a woman and be legitimately considered a woman

Harry Potter. Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn. To Kill a Mockingbird. God and Man at Yale. Jordan Peterson.

Here’s the difference: On the right, the people doing the book burnings and the other authoritarian depravity‘s are almost invariably nobodies that you’ve never heard of; school boards in Tennessee, county commissions in rural Louisiana.

On the left, it’s the mainstream and leadership burning the books.

Last year‘s Fourth of July picnic was cheaper than it was in 2020.

Bars and restaurants, closing in record numbers for two years, are “packed full of people“.

Crime, rising to levels we haven’t seen in a generation, is delusion from an alternate universe.

The powers that be have no idea – honest! – why it’s easier to get through the southern border then onto any ride at Disney World.

Joe Rogan and his glorified barroom bull session “spreads misinformation“, while Brian Stelter and Don Lemon are “journalism“.

Why, it’s almost as if they’ve decided their only shot at any traction this fall is nonstop gaslighting.

A friend of the blog emails:

This thread makes me extremely sad as a healthcare worker.
It is so full of people identifying themselves as fellow healthcare workers who are mocking this man for being worried about the Covid-19 vaccine affecting his heart. They claim he’ll get a new one anyway if he just gets the vaccine. He’s worried the vaccine might kill him first. I don’t know what his doctors have told him, but I think it’s a reasonable question. Have his doctors addressed his concerns? Have they mocked him like those on Twitter?
As a healthcare worker, I encounter skeptical people all the time. They don’t believe they have to follow restrictions after surgery, they don’t believe their stroke has affected their safety, they believe there’s a pill for any possible problem and don’t believe they have to do any effort for their health. It’s not my job to laugh, shrug my shoulders and walk away. I want these patients to meet their goals. I need to ask questions and listen to their concerns. I need to give them information so they can at least understand their options and risks and make informed decisions.
Our healthcare system has set up a country of opioid addicts, a country of people who have Type 2 diabetes through diet choices, a country of people with cholesterol and heart problems. All of these issues probably could be reduced through listening to people rather than just telling people what’s best for them and expecting them to follow through because “we are the experts.”
I have been on the patient end myself. Were it not for my own medical background, my experience would be much different. It shouldn’t be that way.
But, if our healthcare system is being run by some of the people in this thread, things are not going to change.

If Arhtur (not Henry) Miller were writing The Crucible in 2021-22, he’d be setting it in a public health clinic.

UPDATE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. On a day like today, I’m lucky I didn’t refer to the Minneapolis Millers.

Joe Rogan on the events of the past week. It’s ten minutes worth listening to, if you have been following the fracas:

I don’t know if <his controversial guests> are right. I’m not a doctor. I sit down with people and talk with them…because I’m interested in talking with people with different opinions…I’m interested in finding out how people come to their opinions, and what the facts are”.

As Rogan points out around the five minute mark, his interviews are completely unplanned. Unlike taped TV appearances where the conversation is edited to a fine sheen, or live ones that are scripted, or the Teri Gross’s interviews that are simultaneously scripted and sound like they’re done off the cuff, Rogan just gets on mic and starts talking.

Which sounds like an awful lot of fun to me. One of the few bits of advice I ever got from Larry King (via a column he wrote in 1986, not in person) was “never prepare for interviews”. You always want to approach an interview with the same level of information as your audience has – which is usually virtually nothing. Ask questions. Have a conversation. Learn the subject along with your audience. It’s advice I took to heart; I never really prepare for interviews, and rely on being mentally on the ball enough to ask the right questions to make it a worthwhile interview.

I have yet to listen to my first full Rogan podcast (this kerfuffle has gotten me looking at committing 2-3 hours to listen to one of his interviews), but it’s one of the things that I think I’ll enjoy about Rogan.

So I’m not sure if this slopover from the “no-prep” style Rogan has, or if the standup comic in him is trolling his critics, but near the end of the clip above, he points out that he’s always been a Joni Mitchell fan; “Chuck E’s in Love is a great song”, he notes.

Which could be a flub, sure. Or it could refer back to a great running gag from the ’80s, where people thought the Rickie Lee Jones song was Joni Mitchell, which would be a pretty epic troll.

Either one would be pretty awesome.

It’s the image that keeps Minnesota DFLers, and “moderate” Republicans of the Dave Durenberger / Arne Carlson, warm on cold nights; the moment when Minnesota’s political class got the national warm fuzzy they so desperately sought and, decades later, so yearned to have reaffirmed:

Governor Wendell Anderson on the cover of Time, proclaiming that all the best things in life could be delivered by “good government” – defined as interventionist, but driven by “compromise” between a DFL that was still very much the party of Hubert Humphrey, and a GOP that was basically the DFL in better suits.

The image encapsulates an era that for decades made the likes of Doug Grow and Lori Sturdevant misty-eyed with nostalgia, with boxcars full of newsprint over the decades devoted to columns bemoaning our inability to reach the acme of their respective youths…

…even as we with eyes for history and current events noted that that gauzy, soft-focus bit of hindsight ignores how much that sort of governance depends on a shared culture of communitarian polity that emigrated from poor, rural Scandinavian towns to poor, rural Minnesota towns – not to mention that the DFL of today would expel the gun-owning, forthrightly anti-Communist Humphrey were he seeking office.

And now comes this piece, by one of the writers behind the original Time article and the original Minnesota myth, nearly five decades ago.

And he‘s revising his view – big-time:

What happened? Minnesota once enjoyed a high degree of social cohesion rooted in the traditions of previous waves of immigrants. But as the region has grown and become more diverse, the Twin Cities in particular developed most of the problems that bedevil much of the rest of urban America (crime, unemployment, drugs and so on). The reasons for this are complicated and widely debated. In any case, Minnesota now ranks among the worst states in the country when it comes to racial inequality.

In 1973, there were two strong political parties in Minnesota, both centrist and in touch with the state’s voters. A profound change occurred in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, especially among the wealthy and young. They contrived to seize political power by leveraging certain idealistic or merely sentimental impulses in the public mind. It was the prospering woke who elected the progressive Minneapolis City Council that supports defunding the police, and it was those white elites who, more than her fellow Somali-Americans, elected Ilhan Omar to the House. A mostly white “meritocracy,” caring more about, say, transgender rights than about job creation, took command in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the country. Both parties have become much more ideological, controlled by angry amateurs—the woke and the antiwoke.

Morrow, currently 80-something, somewhat myopically saves some blame for the MN GOP, as if the Republicans move to the right was in any way symmetric with the DFL’s leftward lurch, and as if moderation itself, rather than enlightened communitarian self-interest, was what brought Minnesota’s near-mythical golden age about.

But the whole thing is worth a read – because the conclusion couldn’t be more correct:

The difference between my 1973 story and the news reports of 2022 amounts to the difference, as it were, between Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Tom gives you the boyish, innocent, sun-shot rendering of Hannibal, Mo., in the middle of the 19th century. Huck’s story is the version of America that includes poverty, murder, alcoholism, child abuse, race prejudice, blood feud and imbecility. Minneapolis today looks a little more like the Huckleberry Finn version, although without Huck’s humor or his rascal charm.

Some of the same DFLers who venerated the myth created by the original coverage have been venting their bottomless barrels of spite at Morrow for turning on him – he’s being compared with Sean Hannity, for Florence’s sake.

But he’s far from wrong.

The Salt Lake Tribune calls for martial law to enforce a mask mandate:

Were Utah a truly civilized place, the governor’s next move would be to find a way to mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.

Why is it that now, as the public health bureaucracy is finally starting to come around to what most of us have known about this pandemic for a year and a half, that Big Karen is getting crazier and crazier?

Outstate Republican: “Minneapolis and Saint Paul are a mess”

DFLer from Crocus Hill/Linden Hills: “Ack-shu-ally, you never come here, so who cares what you think?”

People from Midway, East Lake, NoMi: “No, he’s right”

DFLer from Crocus Hill/Linden Hills: …