Off On The Right Foot
By Mitch Berg
I was briefly at the Capitol yesterday for the signing of the Medicaid payoff bill. It was terribly crowded, and I could only get as far as the outer lobby; it was that crowded.
Toward the end of the speeches, a baby started squalling.
Doug Grow in the MinnPost takes up the narrative, noting that Democracy is noisy:
It was, it should be noted, especially noisy from the lungs of one toddler, who screamed throughout part of the ceremony.
“His mother couldn’t get him out of the room,” Brase said.
That’s how tightly packed the room was, and how unwilling many were to even make room for a mom and screaming kid.
It wasn’t just any baby; it was the youngest MOBster, Baby Moose!
January 6th, 2011 at 7:19 am
Disruptive, immature, covered in drool – coulda been any one of the Mitchketeers.
January 6th, 2011 at 7:49 am
It was the Baby Moose, all right, and he was screaming because someone showed him how much the bill was going to cost him when he grows up.
Governor Dayton’s response: “The first one’s free, kid.”
January 6th, 2011 at 7:54 am
Ya sure it wasn’t ’cause Grandpa pinched him, NW? :^)
January 6th, 2011 at 8:43 am
Disruptive, immature, covered in drool – a typical New Yorker.
January 6th, 2011 at 9:09 am
Disruptive, immature, covered in drool – coulda been any one of the Mitchketeers.
Wait — Lenny Dykstra is a Mitchketeer?
January 6th, 2011 at 9:55 am
For my entire life, the conservatives just sit and bitch, but never do anything. They let the left take over their schools, their churches, their gov’t. The last 2 or so years is the first time I have seen the common man/woman finally particapate in democracy (other than just voting).
January 6th, 2011 at 10:12 am
The last 2 or so years is the first time I have seen the common man/woman finally particapate in democracy (other than just voting).
Better late than never.
January 6th, 2011 at 10:29 am
Disruptive, immature, covered in drool
Perhaps, but at least he waited until he was finally clear of the room to download any angryclown comments.
January 6th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
They let the left take over their schools, their churches, their gov’t.
Not entirely, Chuck. I left my ELCA church because they decided to ordain homosexuals in direct opposition to the Bible they supposedly preach. I joined a different Lutheran church that has severed constitutional ties with the ELCA.
We vote with our feet.
January 6th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Disruptive, immature, covered in
poopdrool.Oops, I almost thought AC was describing AC Jr. coming home from a bad day “on the job”.
January 6th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Kermit…same here, I also left the ELCA. But my entire family stayed. It’s hard to get someone to leave what in many ways has become just a social club, if their families have been in the same congregation for 100 years.
That’s my point. There are a ton of traditional Christians who just sit and complain, but never do anything about it. Or may not know what is going on. How many people who drop big bucks in the collection plate know that their church was allied with Yasser Arafat.
January 6th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
I had a Lutheran pastor once. I asked him “Is Hamas a terrorist organization?” He said “No”.
It’s not hard to see how these idiots supported Hitler.
January 6th, 2011 at 9:52 pm
I too grew up in (what became) the ELCA, but I tell ya- I went to a friend’s daughter’s baptism a few years back, and the pastor saw fit to use the occasion to state how we need abortion to save the lives of mothers (two infant baptism=promotion of abortion), because, you know, “some people in the Netherlands had to ‘bear false witness’ to save Jews from the Nazis during WWII”.
By the way, has anybody seen anything like a “Road to Serfdom/Free to Choose/Mystery of Capital” for babies? Maybe a Thomas Sowell Nursery Rhyme audiobook? I’m already planning on immunizing mine to the approaching hippie teacher apocalypse.
January 6th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
I highly recommend the Mark Helprin/Chris Van Allsburg picture book trilogy, Swan Lake, A City in Winter and The Veil of Snows. One or more of these books may have gone out of print (I had a little trouble completing the set) but you can now get the whole cycle in one book entitled A Kingdom Far and Clear: The Swan Lake Trilogy.
It’s an allegorical fantasy told in a fairy tale style and beautifully illustrated. Helprin is known for his Buckleyesque subversive conservative themes in adult novels but does a delightfully pointed tale here that is understandable by astute 10-year-olds and fully appreciated by especially astute adults. Both my daughters read these and I was preserving my copies for the Baby Moose, but now I may just have to buy the new release!
January 7th, 2011 at 8:08 am
Thanks, Night Writer! Any more recommendation?
January 7th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Well, now that you asked, you might consider the G.A. Henty books which are well-known for their character-building stories, even though from a British Empire perspective. Since they were written in the 1800s you will likely be called a racist if you read these because of some of the descriptions of the natives throughout the Empire, reflecting the accepted knowledge of the time. Here’s one source: http://www.visionforum.com/browse/productlist/?cid=69
January 7th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Happy New Year AC!
So, Mitch, while you were in the area……..did you have a chance to stop over to the Sec State’s office to verify those 103 Dinkytown ballots that your GOP Candidate source appears to have fabricated his comments about? You remember…the one who sent you an email that you sared as if it were fact here on SitD. Because if you have time to make a special trip for this, you must have time to fact check that post, right?
January 7th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Nope, DG, I didn’t!
Did you have a chance to find out how David Strom is liable in any way in the Kiely scandal? Completely alone among every talk show in history who’s plugged a product or service he reasonably believed to be on the up-and-up, but turned out to be a scam (ask me about the Iraqi Dinar deal somtime)? Or, more appropriately in Strom’s case, one degree of separation removed from a scam (or have you managed to show that there was any material connection, beyond people, that’d make Strom liable in any way?
(Go ahead and ask your anonymous lawyer friend – how many is it that you and Penigma keep in your Rolodex? – how it is that any commercial media manages to stay on the air at all if they’re materially liable for the faults in the products or services they advertise, whether defective (restaurants and groceries with e coli, the Ford Pinto), criminally tampered with (Tylenol), falsely advertised (Activia), or outright scams (Enzyte, get rich quick plans, Kiely)? If your “lawyer friend” were correct, Public TV and Radio would be the only broadcast media left in America.)
Oh, and how about that “avalanche of violence”? One conviction for a crank phone caller and a propane line that looks more and more like it was cut by a lawn mower or a drama-queen brother of a pol, versus two debunked liberal Congresspeople and a genuine pattern of consistent violence and depravity from the left is where the score currently stands. To paraphrase Cuba Gooding, show us the avalanche!.
0h, not to worry. I won’t hold my breath. You got nothing, and I know it now as I believe I made clear back then 🙂
Whatever the results of any individual complaint, Minnesota’s election system is a travesty, and warrants investigation. Which is exactly why the DFL sets its bloggers (knowing and otherwise) focusing on small, ambiguous issues; to draw attention from and, eventually create fatigue for the larger issue.
Fortunately, the adults run the Legislature now.
January 7th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Troy – my first response to your question is in moderation limbo, but the gist of it is that you may want to look up some G.A. Henty books, especially for boy readers. They are action-packed tales – often with a historical basis – with a strong moral code of high character and self-government.
If the boys are more visually-oriented, you might check out the movie series I did based on a class I’ve taught a couple of times: http://thenightwriterblog.com/category/nightwriter/movies/fif/