Category: mitch
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Perfect Storm Of Blah
Not really an update. Just venting.
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Dad
Bruce Berg, 1936-2025
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Design Notes, Week 2
Nah, I don’t like it either.
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All That’s New
“Hey, Merg – why haven’t you gone over to Substack?” I’ll tell you why!
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Details, Details
I’ve been running this blog under its old design template for (checks watch) 16 years, now. Not just the visual design (more in a bit) but the code that runs the whole thing in the background. I’ve been patching it and updating it for literally a decade and a half – longer than most blogs…
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Commitments
Back during blogging’s glory days between about 2004 and 2011, people new to the medium used to ask me what it took to write a successful blog. I told them “stick to a schedule”. Didn’t matter if it was two pieces a day, or once a week, or twice a month – but pick a…
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Overload
My eyes groaned and squeaked open around 6:15 Saturday morning, after a little less than four hours of sleep. My band had been at a gig, and I hadn’t gotten home until after 2AM, and it took a while to get to sleep after that. A dim little echo rattled around my sleep-fogged mind: “I’ve…
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By The Way…
I’ve actually started doing some writing for HotAir.com. Those who’ve been paying attention may remember that I actually did write for HotAir, between 2009-2012. But this time I’m actually getting paid. Which is kinda cool. This shouldn’t affect SITD.
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Nobody Home
Sometime after 1900, a recent graduate of what would become the university of Minnesota school of pharmacy, Sven Hendrickson, who as a 15-year-old young man had moved by himself from Steigen, Norway to Minnesota to work on a farm , moved from Minneapolis to Dunseith, North Dakota. He set up a pharmacy, and along with…
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Things That Snuck Up On Me
Not sure what reminded me, but today is this blog’s 23rd birthday. It’s kind of amazing how life evolves – too slowly to perceive, yet startling, even overwhelming over time. On February 5, 2002, I was a fairly newly-single parent, working at a company that was visibly circling the drain faster and faster every day. …
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Options
I’ve been doing this blog for a long time – 23 years in February. It’s still a part of my day every morning – I’m usually up doing some kind of writing or another, before 6AM every weekday. And it’s the bulk of my radio show prep. And it’s also kind of a quick reference…
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Thanksgiving 2024
Among the things I’m thankful for is that life has evolved. I was looking at some past Thansgiving pieces on this blog, and I found this one, written in 2002 – when this blog was nine months old. And it took me back. I moved from North Dakota to Minneapolis in October of 1985. It…
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Answering The Big Questions Before Breakfast
Back in college, I did a little acting. The highlight? I played Henry II i “The Lion in Winter”. And I had a blast. One part of the role involved using makeup to turn 20 year old Mitch into 55 year old Hank Deuce. And since this was a small college theater, at a school…
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A Time For Choosing A Movie
I saw the Reagan biopic last week. The movie was…good. Not the great movie the subject or the time of history deserves; Philip Klein points out some of the problems I couldn’t quite articulate, while Jim Geraghty echoed the reasons I left the show so excited anyway: Reagan is ultimately deeply satisfying for those of…
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Solo
Tonight’s the anniversary of my first. night ever “soloing” on the radio. I’d been at KEYJ, learning the job a couple of weeks; I’d worked a couple of shifts with DIck Ingstad over my shoulder making sure I knew what I was doing. And tonight, I was on my own, working the evening shift. The…
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Decay
Minnesota’s gross domestic product growth – which has long run far ahead of national averages – isn’t anymore: I’ve been observing this for a while now – when I decided to move to Minnesota, the state was simultaneously a mecca of opportunity in the Midwest, a place that Fodor Travel Guides called “The Athens of…
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Quiet. But Not Too Quiet.
It was six months ago today that I got tired of presiding over a junior high locker room in my comments section. I shut down comments for two weeks. Some ‘problem’ commenters went away. So, unfortunately, did some memorably good ones. The vibe is different. I think I’m OK with that. Thoughts in the comments.
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Clearing The Decks: 4/19 Edition
In one sense, this blog hasn’t changed much in the 22 years I’ve been running it. I get up early, I write stuff. For the past 20 years, it’s doubled as show prep for the Saturday NARN. But one thing that has changed is the pace. I used to shoot for four posts a day,…
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Controlled Demolition
Given the way the MSM obsesses over the “happiness” of countries like Finland and Denmark, I have to confess I’m a little surprised that the US was in the Top 20 for happiness in the first place. Serves me right for believing any MSM narrative, really. My bad. I’m working on it. But this is…
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The Merriest Christmas You Can Manage!
I’ve probably written this before. And that’s OK. I make a point of being – in modern parlance – “radically joyful” during the Christmas season. Let me explain. As I pointed out in memorializing my mom last year, her and my father gave us what I now know to be a priceless gift; a boring,…
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Submitted With Comment
The comments have been off for, if I’m counting right, two weeks. I’ve missed them. Well, most things about them. I’m going to bring them back. But there will be some changes. Call Me “Pollyanna”. Once. As I pointed out last week, the goals of the comment section, like the blog itself if you think…
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Gratitude
It’s Thanksgiving. I’ve written before about what Thanksgiving means to me, personally – on this blog’s first Thanksgiving (checks notes) twenty-one years ago. It’s still true in every respect. I was on the road, driving somewhere the other day when the notion of listing the things for which I’m grateful popped up. I started trying…
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Things I’m Thankful For Today, Part 1
We’ll start with this thread on Twitter. I urge you to read the whole thing; it distills the response I have to the modernes attempt to cheapen and undercut everything Western Civilization stands for into a hot red crystal of truth:
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Misplaced
One of my great strengths is I’m a very loyal person. If you’re a colleague, a romantic partner or a friend, I’ll stick with you – sometimes to absurd lengths. One of my great weaknesses is I’m a very loyal person. I’ve stuck with some friendships, and other relationships, that didn’t deserve it. If you’re…
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Submitted Without Comment
I had a long drive over the weekend. I spent it listening to Jordan Peterson. I caught an excellent episode with Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation. It’s a sprawling 97 minute discussion of everything conservatism is, everything it should be, where it falls short, how to make up the difference… Here’s the episode: …and,…