A few weeks ago, Nekima Levy-Pounds went to the Minneapolis park and recreation board, and did what she does best; made a lot of noise, claiming the Park and Rec board was…

wait for it…

wait for it…

racist.

Unfortunately – according to the City Pages – the facts don’t exactly bear out her charges of  “Racism” against the park board (emphases added):

Parks and Rec breaks down its budget into North, Northeast, South, and Southwest service areas. North has 49 park properties and 59,119 residents, according to the 2010 census. Parks and Rec allocated $243 per person in north Minneapolis from 2010-14…During the same time, Southwest received $85 for each of its 120,376 people, and South received $83 for each of the 136,160 residents

Oh yeah, and the Park Board has big plans – and they don’t include the southside:

While parks all over the city will get some funding to maintain what’s already there, neighborhood parks in areas of concentrated poverty will be the only ones getting any funding for improvements — amenities like playgrounds, wading pools, fields — during the first five years.

Parks in wealthier neighborhoods won’t see a cent more than what it costs to prevent them from breaking down.

I’m not sure what the race-relations version of “all moo / no cow” is, but I’ll be looking for it.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Americans of my generation are dreamers.  We grew up believing the future held flying cars, any boy could become President or even better, an astronaut, and we’d eventually find the Perfect Girl.  We grew up believing America was the greatest nation on Earth, prosperity was here to stay and things would only get better, for ourselves and for our children.

 What do people like that do when flying cars turn out to be crappy little tin cans, when American astronauts have to hitch rides on Russian rockets, when The Girl leaves, taking the children with her?  What do we believe in when the President tells us “You didn’t build that,” sends jobs out of the country, brings in millions of welfare leeches and not only lets our sworn enemies have The Bomb, he pays them $100 Billion to do it? 

 What is left to believe in, when mental illness becomes constitutional right, when a lifetime of savings and equity evaporates, when college students are afraid of chalk and seemingly sensible people can no longer figure out which bathroom to use?

What do you do when your dream dies?  White Male suicide is skyrocketing.  Is losing the dream, the reason why?

 Doesn’t matter – you DESERVE to die.  Because Privilege. 

 Joe Doakes

And people ask why Trump is doing so very very well these days.

You might recall Minneapolis City Councilor Alonda Cano; last winter, she was abusing her access to city data to “shame” people who criticized her support for Black Lives Matter.  Then, when called for alleged laziness by (of all outlets) the City Pages, she…

…well, that actually brings us up to this week:

Tuesday evening, it was Cano’s turn to join the public conversation, doing so in the form of a Facebook post on her city council page. Cano wrote it was “hurtful and disappointing” to read the words “lazy,” “always late,” and “clueless” used to describe her work ethic on the council.

“It is important to illuminate,” Cano went on, “that these words, when used to frame women and people of color, carry a history of coded language that serve to create negative racial stereotypes.”

That could be.

Those words, when referring to someone who’d rather grandstand than learn their damn job, are also not-coded-at-all terms to refer to lazy, inconsiderate people who don’t do their homework, whatever their skin color.

Cano wrote that the negative story “weighed on me heavily,” and she went back and forth on whether she should respond to it. After all, she and her south Minneapolis constituents in the Ninth Ward have far greater concerns: wage theft, slumlords, a lack of paid sick time for workers, even working moms.

Which Cano, apparently, isn’t doing jack for.

“However,” Cano continued, “when loaded and biased attacks occur, it is vital that we stand up and speak the truth. In this case, this story was racist, sexist, and it was an attempt to smear all of the things I stand for.

Well, no.  It was an attempt to tell the public that Cano – who reportedly has ambitions to run for Mayor or the Legislature – isn’t doing a very good job, when her job doesn’t involve granstanding, or taking spiffy trips on the taxpayer’s dime.

I want you to know that I am unabashed in my commitment to continuing to advance a racial and social justice agenda no matter the backlash.”

Let’s take a moment to go over what just happened.  Alondra Cano – an elected member of a power bloc with absolute one-party control of a major city, a person with in effect a lifetime sinecure either in government or non-profits for her and (likely) her entire family, one who wields the kind of power that mere citizens don’t even know how to dream of – is trying to paint herself as a victim.

Cano – like Nekima Levy-Pounds, another person with immense power and privilege herself – is perfectly fine using her position to shame critics who don’t buy newsprint by the trainload; when someone – even the lowly City Pages – comes along and hits her from the level, she cries “victimization”.  

Question, Minneapolis:  Do you deserve better, or not?

I finally found a “public servant” I can get behind; Minneapolis Park Board member Liz Wielinski cut Nekima Levy-Pounds off at the knees when the local NAACP leader interrrupted, out of order, at a Park Board meeting:

“I’m tired of this. You keep interrupting our meetings,” Wielinski shouted after Levy-Pounds began to speak. “You’re a crude, interrupting adult.”

Any bets on how Levy-Pounds responded?

No bets?

I never get any bets on the response.

With good reason (emphasis added):

Levy-Pounds, who has been involved in multiple protests over racial disparities in recent months, accused Wielinski of exercising white supremacy and speaking to her as a slave. The exchange was recorded on video and later posted on Facebook.
“I’m not your child. Don’t ever talk to me like that again,” Levy-Pounds, a law professor, told Wielinski.

Levy-Pounds is a child; more accurately, a spoiled, entitled teenager, used to stomping over whatever she wants and crying “racist” at anyone who raises a finger at her.

“I was berated and yelled at like a child,” Levy-Pounds said Thursday.

If only.

As for Wielinski?  She’s go the right perspective:

Wielinski said Thursday that she has apologized to the board for an exchange she compared to “The Jerry Springer Show,” but said she has no apology to make to Levy-Pounds. She said Levy-Pounds and others could avail themselves of the board’s regularly scheduled public comment period at other meetings.
“I think I shouldn’t have lost my temper, but we were within our rights to ask people to respect the process,” she said.

One wonders how Ms. Levy-Pounds would react if someone interrupted an NAACP meeting.

Ever notice how many liberals say they’re “moving to Canada” if Trump wins?

Why do none of them say “I’m moving to Mexico?”

(Hat tip to a meme from Facebook)

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Whole Foods suing the hoaxer who lied about the cake.

It was all a lie, just like “hands up don’t shoot” or “he was cuffed when they shot him.,”  Why does the media believe it’s okay to substitute a desired result for objective truth?

I’m not talking about mindlessly parroting The Narrative on climate change, or gun control.  We expect that.  I’m talking about breathlessly reporting gay-threatening rainbow nooses (turned out to be an art project to raise awareness of LGBT suicide) or campus rape hoaxes, like Mattress Girl.   Their attitude seems to be that the fact the incident did not occur doesn’t mean it might not have occurred.  So falsely accusing someone of rape is simply a way to raise awareness of a problem that doesn’t exist, but could exist. 

Same idea with forged documents claiming Bush not serving in the military – fake but accurate, per Dan Rather.

And now gay-slur cakes.  Same idea.  Didn’t happen.  But could have.  So it’s all good.  The fact that an honest business had its reputation trashed doesn’t even cross their radar.

Liberals seem to believe an untruth told in furtherance of The Narrative is not a lie, it’s a Greater Good than the actual, verifiable truth, so you should be happy to be slandered. 

I hope Whole Foods pounds this guy into the dust for spreading lies about their business.

Joe Doakes

I expect an eventual, not-too-onerous settlement.  Fellow travelers and all.

A friend of this blog writes:

So there was a letter to the Villager editor, which I thought made quite a bit of sense regarding paid family leave. Then, I happened to see a discussion on Twitter about that letter. The responses on Twitter seem to be what is wrong with the entitlement generation/class. (I suspect the discussion is by mostly millennials.) 

The most striking comment from the person who assumes that she pays twice as much in student loan debt as the money the editorial writer set aside to raise a family. This from a person who, per her Twitter account, is a lawyer and who apparently owns a house not just in St Paul, but also in Mexico.

But, all of the comments assume we have no choice in how we spend our money. The entitled confuse needs with wants, lack control in their own lives. It is where they decide the rest of us need to be in the cycle of debt in which they find themselves.

Misery loves company.

“Democratic” socialist misery requires it.

…but Mark Zuckerberg and his Zuckerminions can’t ban me from my blog for posting this:

Or…can they?

Stay tuned.

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is shopping in the dairy aisle at Target in Roseville.  

Suddenly, Avery LIBRELLE rounds the corner.  With LIBRELLE is Ashley FIGG, a young woman of apparently mixed but minority-ish ethnicity.  

LIBRELLE:   Merg!  It’s time for you to admit your privilege!

BERG:  OK.  I was born into an intact family who made sure I stayed in school, kept my pants zipped until I could support a family, and ensured I grew up knowing that actions had consequences.

LIBRELLE:   No, no, no.  You’re white!  I want to introduce you to Ashley Figg.  She is a student at Macalester College.

BERG:  Ms. Figg.

(FIGG glowers at BERG)

LIBRELLE:  We’re going to have a debate!

BERG:  A debate?

LIBRELLE:  Yes.  First, Ms. Figg.

BERG:  …I”m not really…

FIGG:   You are white.  You have privilege.

LIBRELLE:  Your turn, Merg.

BERG:  Um, OK.  Ms. Figg, what is it you would have us do about this “privilege” you talk about.

FIGG:  The fact that you even ask is racist.

BERG:  Um, how do you figure?

FIGG:  That’s racist, too.

BERG:  Seeking clarity in the discussion is “racist?”

FIGG:   You’re using your power over me.  That’s racist.

BERG:  That’s just bizarre.

FIGG:  F**k you.  I hate you.  I hope you die.

BERG:  (Turns to LIBRELLE):  Er, Avery?  What’s the…

LIBRELLE:  We should stop the debate…

BERG:  …um, yeah?

LIBRELLE:  Because clearly, Merg, you are racist.

BERG:  What, now?  I never mentioned race.

LIBRELLE:   You were using your power, being a racist.   Being a racist, race is endemic in everything you say, and do, and don’t say, and don’t do.  Right, Ashley?

(FIGG glowers)

BERG:  Lavrentiy Beria called.  He said “dial back the kangaroo”.

LIBRELLE:   And now you’re mansplaining.

BERG:  (Looks beyond FIGG and LIBRELLE).  Hey, look – it’s Hillary Clinton!  And she’s giving out suckers!

(LIBRELLE and FIGG wheel around, as BERG slips away)

(And SCENE)

(LIghts fade up in screening room.  BERG is sitting in the middle of the room.  A few rows behind, covered in popcorn debris and spilled soda, are Edmund DUCHEY and CAT SCAT, bloggers with “MinnesotaLiberalAlliance.Blogspot.com” a possibly fictional Minnesota liberal blog.  )

(DUCHEY leaps to his feet, scattering popcorn debris in all directions)

DUCHEY:  Merg!  Unless you can prove every word in that film short was true, you’re a liar!.  (Pauses to wipe drool from his chin).

BERG:  It’s satire.  It’s meant to illustrate larger truths through a caricature of people and events.  In this case, that the left’s social justice warrior class has become simultaneously obsessed with virtue-signaling, McCarthyistic witch-hunting and public shaming of dissenters, while simultaneously becoming less able to state a coherent case.

SCAT:  The fact is, the law says you have to have a degree in satire from an Ivy League school to practice it!

BERG:  You’re making that up.

DUCHEY:  So you’re saying it never happened?  Hah!

BERG:  Actually, of the dozens and dozens of these “dramatization” scenarios I’ve written in recent years, this one may be the least fictional of all.

DEUS (EX MACHINA, via thunderstorm).  You’re kidding?

(Urine stain appears on DUCHEY’s pants)

BERG:  (Looking upward)  Nope.    It pretty much happened.

DEUS EX MACHINA:  Wow.

(And SCENE)

Alondra Cano – “third world feminist” (whatever that means) and Minneapolis City Councilwoman – took time off from not bothering with her actual constituents’ real problems to sound off, like every other demigogue, on the Freeman press conference yesterday.

Her Facebook page seems to be set up to disallow copying, so I screenshot the whole dismal lashup:

Let’s be clear, here; I don’t find the inquisition into possible police wrongdoing comical.

I find Alonda Cano – industrial engineer par excellence, social-media bully and frothing-yet-brittle demigogue – comical.

“Political pressure?”   The City of Minneapolis has bent over backwards to accomodate Black Lives Matter.  If a Tea Party or Pro-Life group ever blocked a freeway, the Minneapolis or Saint Paul police departments would rain down attack dogs and billy clubs like the Great Deluge.

Like all wannabe liberal demigogues, she’s making up her reality as she goes along, knowing the stupid and gullible won’t care.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I’ve been informed that as a White Male, I have White Privilege and therefore, my life is easy. It doesn’t seem easy. I decided to check what privileges I got from being a White Male. I’m having trouble finding any and that’s unfair. All the other White Males get to feel guilty, they all have an excuse to wave signs while they stand around on freeways, I don’t get to. I can’t see that I’ve ever gotten a benefit from my White Privilege.

I grew up in a town with no Black families at all. Every boy in school was a White boy. When teachers went looking for the kid who caused the trouble, I got no preference for being a White boy.

To be accepted to college, I had to meet a certain minimum GPA and test score. The college needed Black Males to meet its affirmative action goals so the GPA and test scores were lowered for Black Males. It happened again when I applied to graduate school. I received no preference for being a White Male.

To be hired for a government job, I had to score in the top 5% on the civil service exam to get an interview. The agency needed women to meet its affirmative action goals so they hired a woman who scraped by with a minimum passing score instead of hiring one of the top scoring applicants. I received no preference for being a White Male.

Supposedly, my White Privilege protects me from harassment by the police. When I was a teenage White Boy cruising at night in a bright red Mustang, you can bet I caught the eye of every traffic cop. Now that I’m a middle aged man commuting from work in a sedan, cops never notice me. I’m just as White and Male as ever, but I’m not driving a noticeable vehicle and I don’t drive badly or during high-crime hours. That’s not a privilege, that’s adulthood.

So where do I go to get my share of the privilege?

Joe Doakes

A question I keep trying to ask people who prattle about “privilege”; so let’s say Nekima Levy-Pounds, the boss of Black Lives Matter in Minneapolis, a law professor with tenure and an upper-middle-class income who can pretty much do anything she wants without fear of getting fired, and Billy Bob Bodine, a hot tar roofer from Shreveport Arkansas who sounds like an extra from Deliverance, walk into MPR or Minneapolis City Hall or the U of M.

Who would have the “privilege”?

Saint Paul’s social justice mafia is baying for blood again.

A Saint Paul teacher, Theo Olson, made a perfectly legitimate observation:

“Black Lives Matter” of Saint Paul is threatening to – you guessed it – “close down” Como High School over the posting.

(Note to BLM; if you are a one trick pony, eventually people get bored with that one trick.  It might pay to learn a new one.  Just saying).

Now, if you’ve read this blog, you know I’m no huge fan of the public school system.   I’ve got my reasons.  I don’t cut public schools, least of all the SPPS, a whole lot of slack.

But Olson’s right.

And this is another example of a particularly ugly form of anti-intellectual know-nothingism that’s sweeping ” progressive” circles in “progressive” cesspools like Saint Paul; shaming and attacking and calling “racist” the very act of questioning BLM.

For any reason!

At all!

Of course, the SPPS’ leadership will be too pusillanimous to react as it should.  It’s sort of baked into their organizational DNA.

Oberlin College – which is sort of the UC Berkeley of small private schools, the school that spawned Lena Dunham, the place where the affirmative checklist for student sex was invented, which has led the academic world in “trigger warning” R&D, a place that makes Carlton or Macalester look like Hillsdale – has been on the “dodgy” list for it’s weaselly approach to free speech on campus.

But it’s nice to know they know where to draw the line, isn’t it?

…that a Trump presidency would be a total loss, there’s always this.

Of course, I believe all those useless mouths will walk away from their federal pensions abojt the time Rosie O’Donnell moves to Canada.

But a guy can dream.

It’s been my theory that Minnesota “progressives” – especially here in the Metro area – are incapable of debating conservatives on a level deeper than ad-homina and strawmen because they never learn what it’s like to deal with dissent.  They grow up in “progressive” families, sure – and then go on to 12 years of public education run by and for the left.  Then 4-8 years at a U of M or a Saint Olaf or a Macalester, where conservatism is treated as a villain in a melodrama, all but twisting its mustache in sadistic glee, and where no realistic debate is tolerated.  Then they go on to careers in academia, public education, non-profits, or public sector unions, where people marinade in unquestioned “progressivism” for decades without a break.

In other words, for Minnesota “progressives”, their entire life is a “safe space”.

Robert Tracinski at The Federalist thinks that’s a bad sign for progressivism – that it will lead, eventually, to “Peak Leftism”.  In fact…

At the beginning of the year, I speculated that we may have reached “Peak Leftism,” the point at which the left has achieved such uniform control of the commanding heights of the culture that they have no place to go but down. Their mania for soft ideological conformity suggests a mechanism for this decline. They are growing so accustomed to living in an ideological “safe space” that they will no longer understand what it means to debate their positions, much less how to win the debate.

And this is bad for “progressive”ism because… (emphasis added):

The most powerful historical precedent for this is the totalitarian creed of the Soviet Union—a dogma imposed, not just by campus censors or a Twitter mob, but by gulags and secret police. Yet one of the lessons of the Soviet collapse is that the ideological uniformity of a dictatorship seems totally solid and impenetrable—right up to the moment it cracks apart. The imposition of dogma succeeds in getting everyone to mouth the right slogans, even as fewer and fewer of them understand or believe the ideology behind it.

Go ahead.  Talk some some Sanders supporters for a while.  Tracinski’s thesis doesn’t seem so far out.

For all the talk about “White Privilege”, there is a much bigger, much more powerful form of privilege in our society; the privilege of belonging to the urban liberal establishment.

Kevin Williamson has a dossier on the slice (and it’s a large, non-diet-friendly slice) of that sector that works for government, and government academia.  There’s far too much to quote.  The conclusion:

For all the talk about “privilege,” this is a much more familiar phenomenon: This is what it means to have a ruling class.

And it cannot be repeated often enough: We are ruled by criminals.

But read the whole thing.  You’re not angry enough yet.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Dear “Protesters:”

Holding a “die-in” at the St. Paul Marathon to let people know that Black Lives Matter is an asinine display of narcissism.  That event is packed full of Volvo-driving Alpaca-wearing Liberals who already support your cause.  Your antics will change no minds and raise no consciousness.  I want to see you laying down blocking traffic on Charles Avenue in Frogtown late at night when the ganstas are busy making deliveries.  Those are the people your message needs to reach.

Joe Doakes

What was it that Dinesh D’Souza said – crediting his high school teacher in India – about the social justice warriors of his day?  “If Gandhi had tried his form of passive resistance under the Germans instead of the British, he’d have become a  lampshade”.