A family near Waseca wants – get this! – to use its own land the way it wants to, legally, to make some money and have some fun!

 How un-Minnesotan of them!

Tony Borglum has a thing for tanks. So much so that last fall, after he and his father traveled to England to buy one, they bought four more with the idea of opening a tank-riding business and obstacle course in their back yard.

“We were there a day and a half, and I got to thinking: ‘There’s nothing like this in the U.S.,’ ” said Borglum, 20, talking about the obstacle course in England where he bought the tanks and an armored personnel carrier. “I said, ‘I think people would be interested. So let’s bring some back and see what happens.’ ”

What happened has turned Waseca County into a battleground, pitting the Borglums and their plan against dozens of residents who are less than thrilled by the idea of seeing and hearing tanks and an armored personnel carrier rumbling across the land.

The great Minnesota plague – dozens of neighbors, terrified over…

…well, febrile emotions and untrammelled myths, really:

“There’s a lot of emotion in guns and tanks,” said Charlie Mathern, a hardware store owner and a member of the Planning Commission. “And it brings out a lot of fear in everybody.”

And like much fear – especially when it comes to guns – it’s wrong:

Safety is among the foremost concerns of critics, some of whom say they fear damage from stray bullets from the outdoor ranges.

Oh, for the love of…

…can anyone find any actual records of serious damage ever being done nearby outdoor ranges?

Still others are concerned about noise, vibration and pollution from the tanks, most of which were built in the 1950s and 1960s and used by the British government.

“Who is going to monitor all this?” asked Sue Stangler, who lives about a half-mile west of the proposed course.

Vickie Hill, who lives down the highway from the Borglums, worries that tank and gun noise could spook her horses.

“It just scares me to death,” Hill said. “We don’t know if we even dare pasture them if this gets approved.”

I can’t say which’d be worse; the occasional tank and gun noises, or the fumes and flies from all of Vickie Hill’s horses’ droppings.

“I guess you can say it’s controversial, but we don’t think it is,” Marie Borglum said. “We just wanted to have some fun.”

Others, however, don’t see the fun. “I don’t have anything against guns or tanks or anything like that,” Stinehart said. “I just don’t want it in my back yard.”

Or, as Stangler put it: “They’re good people. It’s just a bad idea.”

Mark my words; if this gets approved, I will be there.

Hack partisan journalism!

The “Center for Independent Media” – which until recently shared office space with George Soros’ “Media Matters for America” – is setting up another paid rentablog operation in Iowa, to “cover” the caucuses.

But have no fear!  They have a code!

Like Minnesota Monitor and Colorado Confidential, the Iowa site has hired a slate of New Journalism Fellows who are being trained in investigative reporting, follow a code of ethics based on that of the Society of Professional Journalists, and are supported by journalistic mentors and editors.

That’s right, Iowa!  Trained investigators with real mentors and everything!  Who would never hide their financial support from scrutiny to see exactly how it might affect their credibility – or, for that matter, pretend as if there’s just no rational issue!  Who follow the highest standards of journalism!  Who never mix editorializing with reporting!  With editors and all!

Let the hackery begin!

Hard to believe it’s been ten years since the Grand Forks flood.

To give credit where it’s due, Nick Coleman writes an excellent column on the subject:

The apocalypse came with ice and fire. I was among the many journalists who covered the disaster and I will never forget the sensation of standing in freezing water in hip boots while ashes fell on my head from the sky. All we needed was Charlton Heston to send Egyptian chariots into the water and I would’ve sworn we were all extras in a remake of “The Ten Commandments.”

Ten years later, it still seems like something biblical happened.

Read the whole thing, and check out the Grand Forks Herald’s coverage of the anniversary.

Backstory: In 21 years of living in the Twin Cities, I’ve met quite a number of fellow expat North Dakotans. Whereever they’re from, no matter what the age difference, it matters not – rarely can we talk for more than a minute without coming up with at least one common acquaintance or friend.
So I was on a date the other night. In and among the other conversation, my date mentioned “my sister’s husband is from North Dakota”.

ME: “Really? Where?”

SHE: “I don’t know. But his last name is [very common name in ND]

ME: “Really? What’s his first name?” [I ask, remembering that I knew a Todd [very common name in ND]]

SHE: “James”

ME: “Ah, Well, it could be…”

SHE: “But everyone calls him Todd”

I made her call her sister on the cell phone. Sure enough, it was the very same Todd [very common name in ND] that I used to walk to school with, thirty years ago. He lives in the Metro, runs a business, is apparently quite a guy.

It’s hard to explain to other people, sometimes…

North Dakota reclaims its rightful place as Snow Angel Capitol of the World:

More than 8,900 people flapped their arms and legs on the state Capitol grounds Saturday in an attempt to reclaim the record, which was snatched away about a year ago in Michigan.

The Guinness Book of Records still must confirm the number. The snow angel category was created in 2002 when 1,791 people made snow angels on the Capitol grounds in North Dakota.

Marilyn Snyder, curator of education for the State Historical Society of North Dakota, said 8,910 people registered for Saturday’s attempt to break the record of 3,784 snow angels set by students at Michigan Technological University in Houghton.

“That’s more than 5,000 more people than what Michigan had,” Snyder said. “It’s going to be tough to top.”

Stay out of this, Hewitt…

(Via Red)

Alfonso Rodriguez the death penalty for the 2003 kidnapping, rape and murder of Dru Sjodin.

“Today is the most difficult day of my life,” U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson said this morning in handing down the sentence.

He rejected a motion for a new trial.

Rodriguez abducted Sjodin in November 2003 from the parking lot of a mall in Grand Forks, N.D. Her body was found about six months later by a ravine near Crookston, Minn.

The case was tried in federal court because state lines were crossed when the crime was committed, which is why Rodriguez was eligible for the death penalty. Neither North Dakota nor Minnesota allow the death penalty in state prosecutions.

Rodriguez, 53, could be on death row for several years as appeals are made by his attorneys.

Sjodin was a native of Pequot Lakes, Minn.

While, as I’ve mentioned, I oppose the death penalty for one and only one reason – the systemic inevitability of eventually executing the wrong person – suffice to say I don’t think Rodriguez has any claim to be convicted in error. 

I won’t be celebrating his execution, but I won’t picket it, either.

Sisyphus, from City-Pages (R)-endorsed Nihilist in Golf Pants, notes:

Whenever the mercury dips below zero here in Minnesota, two things are certain:
1. Minnesotans will whine about the cold
2. Mitch Berg, of Jamestown North Dakota, will mock said Minnesotans for being weather wimps on his blog and radio show

Dang skippy.

Now, Sisyphus trumps up some bogus “evidence” of his claim that southern Minnesota is warmer than North Dakota; cooking the case with all the grace of the Broward-County Democratic Party, he takes temperatures from Saint Cloud (which, given that city’s inferiority complex, are probably cooked to begin with), and ignores wind-chill (note to Minnesota conservatives, or City-Pages-endorsed “conservatives”:  pull your collective head out of Joe Soucheray’s butt.  Wind chill is cold, if it’s real wind and not these dulcid little south Minnesota breezes you’re talking about).

So let’s settle this the right way. 

If you are a North Dakota native transplated to the Twin Cities:  Compare and contrast.  Where did you genuinely feel colder, there or here?

If you’re a Twin Citian or Southern Minnesotan transplanted to NoDak:  Ditto. 

I’m talking southern Minnesota, here, not Embarass or Hinkley or International Falls. 

Sound off.  What’s colder? 

A Wisconsin fella survives a drunken 16-story fall after a night of drinking:

After a night out drinking, Joshua Hanson was horsing around with two friends on the 17th floor of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Minneapolis early Saturday morning when he apparently lost his balance and crashed through a floor-to-ceiling window.

He fell 16 stories.

Hanson, 29, landed feet first on a roof overhang near the hotels main entrance along the Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis police said, and he was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center.

Hospital officials werent reporting on his condition Saturday night, but police and fire officials said he had multiple broken bones and internal injuries.

He must have “an angel on his shoulder or something,” said Minneapolis police Lt. Dale Barsness. “Hes a lucky guy.”This is one of the most amazing reports Ive ever read,” said police Lt. Amelia Huffman.

I wish Mr. Hanson well. And if you’re in town for a convention for a game where drinking is a part of the culture, please don’t lurch drunkenly through windows.

I love this site, especially this story.

(Via Red)

What do you get when you take Minnesota drivers – the types who tailgate at 60 mph on glare ice while telling their friend via cell phone “I’m a good driver”) – with ice?

Wet, cold, very lucky idiots:

Jacob Schmidt and Russell Omann were trying to reach a fish house last Thursday night when their truck broke through the ice about 200 feet off shore. Omann climbed out through the passenger window and Schmidt got out through the rear window of the cab.

Not sure what this fascination Minnesotans have with driving on ice as the temperatures soar into the 40s.  Maybe it’s overconfidence – the misplaced hubris of a people that considers itself winter people (even though, compared to North Dakotans, they may as well be from Nebraska or some such).

Or maybe it’s that Minnesotans have a streak of “Let’s take a stupid chance”, a gene that bids them to tailgate on glare ice, or snowmobile at 80mph through unfamiliar woods, or vote for a pro wrestler.

In March of 1984, during “Spring Break”, I was on tour with the Jamestown College Concert Choir.  The annual tour was a big fundraising junket that involved cramming 70 college kids into two buses and caravanning around the US, staying with host families and eating at church potlucks and usually givine 12-13 concerts in ten days.  Those trips, every “spring”, were the first times in my life I’d left North Dakota or Minnesota, and the first times I’d been in cities larger than Fargo. 

The highlight of the trip was always the one “Free Day”, usually at the apex of the tour – and usually more like a manic half-day; the demands of fund-raising often led to a morning or evening gig on our “Free Day”, but no matter; we got to spend a day off the bus, and the college even sprang for a hotel (although usually four to a room – but it beat dealing with host families).  In three years, I’d seen Washington, Seattle (and in 1985 I’d see Phoenix)…

 …and now Denver.

Five of us – Kris Erickson, Ray Zentz, Ellen Aafedt and her boyfriend Tom Krohn and I (2nd soprano, bass, 1st soprano, tenor and baritone, respectively) – without much else to do took off walking in downtown Denver.  It felt like a pleasant enough day; warm (in the ’30s), so we all wore light jackets, and didn’t bother with hats or gloves. 

We put in miles.  We wandered down Colfax far from downtown, into a slightly seedier neighborhood.  The snow came down a little heavier as we stopped into a bakery to grab lunch, and then a pawn shop (where I bought a lockblade knife and a copy of Warren Zevon’s Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School  for a buck); it seemed like a pleasant little snow shower.

We took the bus back to the hotel, and started cleaning up for our evening plans (going out to a restaurant and drinking a lot) when someone turned on the TV. 

“BLIZZARD PARALYZES DENVER”, the graphics screamed, as the anchors voiced over footage of endless rows of stalled cars amid the pleasant little snow shower.

We looked at each other, shrugged, and went out into a city reeling from inches of snow.

I think of that day every time I see that Denver is, yet again, shut down by a blizzard. 

Holiday travelers stranded by a blizzard that paralyzed Colorado’s biggest cities lined up at ticket counters in Denver’s snowbound airport Thursday only to learn they wouldn’t be going anywhere for another day.

Is it just me, or is Denver to blizzards what trailer parks are to tornados?

South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson has suffered an apparent stroke.

If Johnson were to pass away, or be forced to retire, the US Constitution delegates the task of appointing a replacement to South Dakota lawmakers, who in turn, often turn that task over to the Governor. The Governor of that state, Mike Rounds, is a Republican, and both houses of the state legislature are dominated by Republicans.

Prayers, naturally, for Senator Johnson.  We’d rather get the Senate at the polls.

There are a few famous people from my hometown, Jamestown North Dakota; Peggy Lee, Louis L’Amour, Darren Erstad, MN Third District congressman Jim Ramstad, disc jockey Shadoe Stevens…

…and, in a deep dig into the trivia bank, Harley Venton, longtime character actor and former soap opera star, a former student of my dad’s. I’d always known Harley was one of those rare critters – a character actor that does pretty well.

I’d had no idea exactly how well he had done:

In 1983, ABC expressed interest in Venton for the role of David Addison in the show, Moonlighting. Venton screen-tested for the role of Addison in September 1984. Cybill Shepherd wanted Venton to play Addison, but producer Glen Gordon Caron ultimately gave the role role to Bruce Willis. Venton was the only other actor to be screen-tested, and that screen test can still be viewed on the DVD copy of the pilot for Moonlighting.

Wow. Who knew?

And while it’s hard to imagine anyo9ne but Willis in that role (and harder still to imagine Harley Venton starring in Die Hard), it’s pretty cool to hear about.