Wait just a doggone minute.
I read this earlier today:
Now, wasn’t it just 2-3 months ago that Ken Martin, Governor Klink and Co-Governor Flanigan, the brodudes in the MNDFL Communications office and the chattering hamsters of the DFL Legislative caucuses telling us they’d “fully funded” education?
Why yes.. It was:
And yet they never actually defining what “full funding” meant…
…oh. Yeah. Now it makes sense.
…an academic who is also one of the architects of modern “woke” culture not publishing any academic work in four years is…well, raising eyebrows:
Boston University Professor Ibram Kendi has not published an academic paper in at least four years, according to his Google Scholar profile.
The professor, who popularized the term “anti-racism,” wrote at least two children’s books in the same period.
Professor Kendi is currently “on leave” from his job as the director of his own Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, which he founded after leaving a similar role at American University.
On the other hand, among leftist academics, four years is kind of a piker. Get back to us when he’s gone a solid decade or more, like this old friend of ours.
Overdoses.
Public solicitation and delivery of prostitution.
Open drug dealing.
Gang activity. Robberies. Muggings. Assaults
No, I’m not talking about the House DFL Caucus offices. I’m talking about the big Metro Transit stations in Minneapolis.
And what’s the remedy?
According to Metro Transit and its big government stakeholders: murals.
Metro Transit is turning to murals in an effort to make its bus and light-rail stations more welcoming.
The latest installation is at the I-35W and Lake Street Transit Station in south Minneapolis, a busy hub that’s been plagued by graffiti and where two people were wounded in a shooting this spring. Police data also show there have been two robberies near the station this year.
Local artist Kada Goalen spent six weeks and 90 gallons of paint transforming gray and beige concrete walls and pillars into a vibrant spectacle featuring giant songbirds against a backdrop of color.
Let’s cut to the chase: what this is is not a serious attempt to make Transit less onerous at best, dangerous at worst.
It’s yet another transfer of money from taxpayers to the favored clients of the political class.
The part of me that works with engineers knows that for every decision where engineering meets design, there is an elaborately calculated rationale.
And the other part of me thinks that the eighth-grade prankster in so many engineers has just pulled the prank of a lifetime.
In the game of cheap rhetorical card tricks, the latest card up your average garden variety Leftists sleeve is saying “Define ‘Woke'”, and then plastering a sanctimonious smirk on their face as the good guys try to arf up a definition for something that isn’t really meant to be definite.
To some extent, Big Left uses terms like “woke” as a game of “Bring Me A Rock” – trying to answer a question whose parameters you don’t understand – or, ultimately, one of those greased pig contests at the county fair, where kids chased after a slicked-up piglet as the adults laugh at the hijinks.
But I love seeing smirks decaying into dejection, or better yet rage; it’s one of my life’s great joys, in fact.
So what the heck: let’s define “woke”, once and for all. For the ages.
Con Text: First, the rules:
So let’s give this a ahot.
Rough Draft: Here’s Take 1.
“Woke: Noun: A pseudoreligious social and political philosophy that ascribes all dissent from social progressive beliefs to “systemic” problems, demands acceptance of those beliefs rather tha toleration of dissent, and calls for conversion of non-believers by social persuasion or coercion.
Go to it.
A friend of the blog emails:
Should we start a list?
The friend started with the list below, which includes Minnesota companies that are abandoning operations in Minnesota, or moving lots of jobs out of state.
Any more?
I’d like to make this a running list.
“Civilians shouldn’t have guns. Leave it to the experts”.
Some people are asking “why are IRS agents shooting?”
Those people would probably be a little alarmed to know that the Departments of Energy, Education, Interior, even HHS, have armed agents, and even access to “SWAT” teams.
I had an avocational acquaintance once upon a time who worked for the Department of Justice. He was a nice enough guy – and a preeningly arrogant old-school east coast liberal Democrat who’d gone to an Ivy League school and grad school as a third-generation legacy. His contempt for the law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms was legendary.
But he went to a session the BATFE threw at a government shooting range, to orient Federal employees to various kinds of firearms. He spent a day at the range, firing a bunch of handguns and a Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun, under (purportedly, given the story above) close supervision from the BATFE agents involved.
And, voila, he considered himself one of the chosen people with the secret handshake that should be allowed to be armed.
Because he’d “had training”.
Unlike all of us hoi polloi who’d been plinking away for decades, naturally.
With redistricting, former senate minority leader With the “party of women“, Melissa Lopez Franzen, got pushed out to make sure Ron Latz didn’t wind up unemployed
But no worries about Melissa. She’s DFL. Once they are elected to something, the system takes care of them:
The University of Minnesota on Wednesday announced it has hired former Senate Minority Leader Melisa López Franzen as its next chief lobbyist at the State Capitol.
Beginning Aug. 28, López Franzen will be the U’s executive director of government and community relations, where she will oversee lobbying efforts for all five of the U’s campuses and lobby her former colleagues.
I did say they take care of their own, right?
With her new role with the U, she will join a growing list of former Minnesota lawmakers turned lobbyists, including former Sens. Tom Bakk, Patricia Torres Ray, Chuck Wiger and Jeff Hayden.
By the way, – go ahead and read the story, in the “Minnesota, Reformer”, yet another publication, sponsored by progressives with deep pockets.
See if party affiliation is mentioned even once.
UPDATE: but I will give this to the reformer: some of the inconvenient facts did make it in:
Nothing weird there at all.
Remember – it’s the most transparent regime in history.
Ping: Scalia warned after the Obergefell same-sex marriage decision that it’d open the doors to use the law to de-normalize things that’d been normal for all of human history.
Pong: Massachusetts – the Caliifornia of New England – rejects an adoptive couple, Mike and Kitty Burke because, as practicing Catholics, they would merely love a gay or transgender child, rather than aggressively affirm the child’s orientation:
“Kitty expressed that she does not believe in gender affirming care for children,” the report noted, adding that she referred to such care as “chemical castration” and said she doesn’t believe that people can choose their pronouns.
Mike Burke, meanwhile, told the social worker he has many friends who are gay or lesbian and has attended several same-sex weddings. He told the social worker he would likely attend his child’s wedding if they married someone of the same sex.
He also said he would likely not consider any type of gender affirming care for a child under the age of 18….In a later email, the social worker noted that the Burkes “have a lot of strengths” and “really seems to understand adoption/foster care.” However, she wrote, “their faith is not supportive [of LGBTQ+ youth] and neither are they.”
Is there anything Scalia wasn’t right about?
Transgender woman deadlifter breaks Canadian women’s record.
You can tell it’s a woman. It’s the pink socks.
Mary Moriarty broke with a couple decades of Henco Prosecutor tradition and used the State’s sentence enhancement for using a gun in a crime:
Wait – wut?
A north Minneapolis man has been sentenced to 15 1/2 years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for illegal possession of a firearm after engaging in a shootout in north Minneapolis.
Charges in the Dec. 20, 2021, case say police found Dominique Marquise McCaskel with a gunshot wound to his neck and shoulder on the 3600 block of Aldrich Avenue North after responding to a report of a shooting.
According to the charging document and dispatch audio at the time, police subsequently located surveillance video that showed McCaskel walking at the location as a suspect vehicle rounded the corner. McCaskel was seen on video running toward the suspect vehicle and an exchange of gunfire ensued. Casings were initially located by police, and a witness came forward and showed police where the gun was that had been in McCaskel’s possession at the time of the gunfire exchange and shooting. Police also found that McCaskel had several suspected fentanyl pills and cash on his person.
The Feds did it?
Yep. I was just yanking your collective chain. Moriarty has never used the state’s sentence enhancement for using a gun in a crime. Either did Freeman before her. I don’t know that Klobuchar ignored it when she was Henco prosecutor, so I won’t say one way or the other, but let’s be honest, probably not.
In Ramco? Choi has never used it – his office even specifically denied it was an appropriate charge in a case where it was clearly precisely appropriate. Either did Susan Gaertner before him. Either did Tom Foley before her.
Hennepin County is letting the Feds do the heavy lifting.
Huh. Wonder why?
Mike Norton the vice chair (and maybe acting chair, after this fiasco) tweeted this yesterday:
Mayor Mompants and the “Ban the Cops” City Council are “Conservative”, according to Mr. Norton.
Well, no .
“Less Communistic” works.
Also true for movies, literature, art, theater, even standup comedy:
I’m not inclined to care much about whether someone who produces something I want, need or enjoy “hates” me – least of all with anything remotely artistic. Especially with music – consuming which gives the artist almost no money unless you buy merchandise or go to a concert.
You produce some piece of music I love, but you hate me? Laugh’s on you.
But the cartoon is correct in that the left has grown as entitled about art as they have about, say, minority, female and gay voters.
The German left is trying to push the German right out of the public square.
Actual classical liberals call it correctly:
By the way – one of the “gotchas” that isn’t, that the left likes to throw around these days, is “conservatives can’t even define “woke”[1]”.
I like to ask them in response “define ‘far right””.
[1] It’s nonsense. “Woke” in its white “progressive” context is the attempt to impeach society for a set of ills endemic to the human condition, to prescribe political and social “fixes” for them, and to persuade, bully or gaslight society into acquiescing.
I pride myself in being able to turn DFL English into Honest English.
Example:
Translated into “Honest”
While other states are getting agenda-porn out of middle schools, MN is writing a different story.
And by “writing”, we don’t mean the actual kids. They can’t write for s**t now, and it’s not gonna get any better.
And by “story”, we mean “checks that shovel more money into the greedy maw of an unaccountable Dept of Education that’s already made countless corrupt DFL-linked nonprofiteers wealthy.”
I’m happy, as alwatys, to help.
“
“
Every DFL politician’s social media feed is raving about this puff piece from HuffPo which christens Tina Smith “the Velvet Hammer”.
The Velvet Hammer?
I can think of lots of adjectives to add to Smith’s hamfistedness. Velvet ain’t one of them.
And what usually happens after you see DFLers posting “attagirls” over inexplicable media. puff pieces?
Some dirt comes out on them. .
For example – during the session, the DFL noise machine broke out into a round of praise for Rep. Finke. It went from zero to 60 in three seconds, as if the Representative had just pulled someone from a burning building Clearly something had happened.
That something was Finke had charged across the House floor at another representative over retweeting a trans-skeptic account.
So am I too cynical in asking “what dirt is coming out about Smith?”
“Don’t Create False Idols” is a Biblical commandment; essentially saying don’t turn God into a token object.
It is important enough to the Christian faith to rate as one of the ten standing orders for the faithful.
And, really, it’s great advice for life in general.
For example – I’m not one who creates an artificial separation between faith and science.
But if you do? If you claim to exalt reason over “blind” faith, and adulation of physical objects or people over empirical rigor?
Even the mainland media is covering the complaints about Hawaii’s government’s response to the wildfires that, as this is written, have killed nearly 100 people:
Residents of Lahaina, the historic former Hawaiian capital that became an inferno, criticized what they called inadequate warnings of the sudden firestorm and said they are now being left to fend for themselves in its wake.
“I feel like the citizens of this island have been called upon, maybe by a higher power, to actually help because no one else is helping,” said Kai Lenny, a professional surfer.
Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez (D) said her department will launch “a comprehensive review of critical decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during and after the wildfires.”
One thing government did do was prevent people from deterring the worst among us.
While rescue crews make their way across the island with water, food, and first aid, locals told Insider supply drops are being diverted and anguished residents are taking matters into their own hands.
“There’s some police presence. There’s some small military presence, but at night people are being robbed at gunpoint,” Matt Robb, co-owner of a Lahaina bar called The Dirty Monkey, said.
“People are raped and pillaged. I mean, they’re going through houses – and then by day it’s hunky dory. So where is the support? I don’t think our government and our leaders, at this point, know how to handle this or what to do.”
Reports of gunpoint robberies and supplies being hijacked are filtering out – which just can not be, as Hawaii has “comprehensive gun safety laws”.
A friend of the blog emails:
North Minneapolis residents have voiced concern frequently about the Blue Line extension, which is supposed to “benefit them” per the elites who would never be caught dead on public transit, but in actuality will likely drive residents out to some new location so the elites have a new hipster playground.
A developer for the area says, “I think it’s horribly sad and unfortunate for the community to take out a performing office building.”
I offer him to check out University Avenue following the Green Line project. While that project didn’t demolish any buildings immediately, it has gradually over the past almost 10 years emptied the street. Whether the Blue Line extension demolishes the building that houses KMOJ right now or not, I would guess the area will be gutted within a decade anyway.
Of course, to the Met Council, “lessons learned” are of no more importance than “public feedback”.
Find out more about the new, reorganized Minneapolis City GOP.
Jim Schultz is with the Minnesota Private Business Council.
Today’s bumper music:
To: Rep. Nathan Coulter (DFL 51B)
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous peasant and human ATM
Re: Congrats
Rep. Coulter
I was a little amazed to see that you are in fact a state representative.
Because the optics of a tweet like this are a little…
…well, bad:
Rep. Coulter: speaking as a middle-class empty nester who is getting not a f***ing penny from this so-called refund (let’s call it what it is – targeted vote buying), the idea that tax money is being “Refunded” to the needy – like, say, a State Representative from the mean streets of Eagan – maybe you might wanna stop your eyes spinning long enough to remember where the money came from.
You’re welcome, (REDACTED).
That is all,.
The Shutterfly warehouse in Shakopee is going to close.
A picture products and service company has decided to close its facility in Shakopee, costing around 250 employees their jobs.
Shutterfly said in a notice to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development that it plans to permanently close its location on Deen Lakes Boulevard near the end of June 2024.
A friend of the blogs, right, saying the closing “couldn’t be the new laws just passed”, could it?
The list of possibilities is so rich:
Take your pick.
Why has the DFL been trying to portray itself, its candidates and its agenda as unstoppable and inevitable?
Because it’s neither, and it’s counting on finding lots of voters who can be convinced otherwise.
Duluth’s incumbent mayor – a woman right in the current DFL’s crypto-Maoist sweet spot – lost the city’s DFL mayoral primary.
And lost bad.
Now, this is just the primary. But it’s Duluth, where the DFL primary is in effect the election.
Former state lawmaker Roger Reinert made a bold statement in his return to local politics, easily outpacing incumbent Emily Larson in what was expected to be one of the most-competitive mayoral races the city has seen in the past 16 years.
Reinert was by far the top vote getter in Tuesday’s primary, winning 63% of ballots cast among the five-way field, according to complete but unofficial tallies. Larson also handily advanced to the Nov. 7 general election with 35%.
Now, Reinert is another DFLer.
But in a Duluth that’s kept its neo-Leninist patina even as the rest of CD8 has drifted toward center-right, he may as well be Jack Kemp:
But Reinert remains a well-known local political figure in his own right. The U.S. Naval Reserve officer was elected to the City Council in 2004 and went on to spend eight years in the state Legislature — first House of Representatives and then Senate — before stepping away in early 2017 to pursue a law degree.
Both candidates have been longtime members of the city’s DFL establishment, though Larson easily secured her party’s endorsement as Reinert opted not to participate in the process. In challenging the incumbent, he described himself as “more of a centrist” or “business Democrat.”
Larson has touted a progressive track record at the helm of the city, which includes overseeing development of some 1,700 new units of affordable housing and $19 million worth of renovations to existing units. She oversaw the creation of a dedicated street-repair fund, has pushed for sustainability and pollution-reduction measures and said crime has dropped 22% citywide since she first took office.
Reinert, in comparison, has pegged his campaign on “effective and efficient core city services” message. He has said property taxes and other proposed fees are proving to be a hardship on household budgets, promising to focus on improvements to streets and utilities, public safety, parks and libraries, tax-base development and housing.
I fully expect Ken Martin to take the DFL’s Rescue Wagon off Julie Blaha watch and deploy it, with bags of cash, to Duluth in the coming couple of months, to restore order and obedience.
But this is kind of huge.
If you havne’t seen the Barbie movie? The following review is submitted for your consideration. .
If you’re going to say “I have no intention of ever going to that movie, because it’s woke crap and I don’t care what you say”, that’s also fine. . If you want to leave a comment to that effect, I respectfully ask you to take it to, say, Fraters Libertas or Anti-Strib.
If you want to tell me I’m wrong about something to do with the movie, by all means, welcome.
Counterintuitive
I was probably inclined to dislike it, initially. Not because of any of its merits (Margot Robbie can do almost no wrong), or even any of what one might reasonably predict it’s flaws might be.
But do you want to know a little secret? I’m tired of popular culture bashing men. 
And no, it’s not just a parochial, knee-jerk, gender, politics response; I hate laziness and clichés, whether Amos and Andy, or speedy Gonzalez, or every villain on “Law and Order: SVU“ (hint: it’s always the Christian conservative.)
It’s become a cliché of modern screen writing and advertising; men in popular entertainment are pretty much, either:
One typical example: from two years ago, a dramedy, called “Single Drunk Female“, a fairly promising concept  about a 20 something advertising exec who drinks herself out of a career and into supervised probation.  A fascinating premise.…
… that apparently couldn’t survive without turning every male in the cast into an impotent, helpless, hopeless buffoon, a one dimensional droog, a villain, or in the case of one and only one characterl, a supernaturally wise voice of reason.
Oops – I just checked my notes, and it turns out that that character, the closest thing to a three dimensional male character, was  actually a transgender woman.
I’d rhetorically ask “imagine what a steady diet of popular culture consistently painting men (who aren’t stars) as buffoons, douche bags and villains does to boys” – but you don’t really have to imagine it, do you? Sometimes it seems boys are living down to the example that popular culture has laid out for them for the past generation.
So yeah. I wasn’t inclined to see the movie, and I started the whole proces with a bit of a chip on my shoulder.
And as I noted this morning, I’d seen a couple of great movies on the previous two weekends – Sound of Freedom and No Hard Feelings. Why harsh the buzz?
I figured I’d do like I’ve done for the last 20 installments of X-Men, 49 Fast and Furiousers and 16 Avengers and Justice Leagues, and let someone else have my seat.
But my NARN colleague Jack Tomczak said it was worth a watch – emphatically .
So I figured – why not?
To keep an open mind, I tried to avoid the reviews – but I got sucked into at least part of Ben Shapiro’s scathing reaction. I will brook no babble about Shapiro, by the way; he’s a very sharp guy, really good at most everything he does. Literally, nobody in the media is covering the Hunter Biden scandal like Shapiro. I don’t get the hate some conservatives have for Shapiro, and I don’t have to worry about it.
And I did read one other, extremely positive review, from someone who’s probably closer to my side of the cultural divide than most.
So with a few misgivings, I went to the movie.
People on the right side of the cultural fence who’ve never seen the movie can be forgiven for assuming a couple of things:
————
“Woke”
Michael Knowles isn’t my favorite commentator, but he nailed this point. If you look at the story behind the story – as the director, Greta Gerwig, urges the viewer to do – it’s a very sly *critique* of “woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” feminism and the collapse of social traditions.
There are so many pointers to this – without giving out any spoilers, I’ll point you to America Ferrera’s [2] understated but brilliant “Harried Mom” character, and her interaction with Rhea Perlman’s character, presented as the woman who invented Barbie and put Mattel on the map, but who I think actually represents…well, I’ll let you figure that out on your own [3], and on and on.
But here’s the connection that sneaks up on you, that is so brilliant and shuts the whole “woke” thing down.
The movie starts in a stylized prehistoric era [4] with little girls playing with dolls – which, narrator Helen Mirren tells us, were always babies, which always left the girls always playing Mommy.
And “then came Barbie”. The little girls then smash their baby dolls and tea sets, as the scene dissolves to perfect, pink, plastic Barbie World, with women doing everything that matters and men demoted to, well, Ken.
There’s even a sly aside to the modern world’s attempt to repeal biology when Helen Mirren notes that “Midge”, the pregnant Barbie, was discontinued.
A bunch of other stuff happens, and we fast forward to the final scene, the final *line* of the movie.
I won’t spoil it. But there is no way to put the opening – the literal and figurative smashing of traditions and expectations dating back to the beginning of time – and the closing together and *not* see that this movie is a *critique* of “third wave feminism”, and the changes in social norms that they have been about for the past few generations – throughout “Barbie’s” commercial life.
I won’t spoil it. Put on your critical hat, watch it, and tell me where I’m wrong.
———–
“Men / Ken”.
As far as how it treats men – via “Ken”, singular and plural? Yep. Men are vapid, ineffectual, impotent, pointless.
And *that’s the point*. [5] And it may be even more brilliant than the critique of third wave feminism. [6]
Let’s step outside the movie and look at sociology, 2020s style.
What does every sociologist, especially on the right, identify as the problem with young men today? Lack of purpose, goals, meaning?
And that those young men fill in the gap left by the lack of *purpose* to masculinity by asserting it via mindless, deflecting hedonism and pointless violence? [7]
Because society sees them as being about as useful to the world as a bike is to a trout?
Again – no spoilers. But *that* – flopping around without purpose, and then wondering what that purpose *should* be – and its parallels with young mens struggles today, is the point of Ken (singular and plural). When you watch the movie, and see the arc of “Ken’s” behavior throughout, keep that in mind.
———-
So what did the other reviewers miss, that I caught?
To me, the big theme was how very important *purpose* is to life. “Barbieworld” reflects “Modern” society in that everyone has all their material wants met (in fact, to a city full of dolls, they are irrelevant), and all the affirmation they need…
…but there is no purpose.
And it’s when, and how, Barbie and Ken discover that humans (not dolls, literally or figuratively [8]), women *and* men, need *purpose* in their lives that made me sit up in my seat and whisper “holy crap, this is good”.
————
Oh, yeah. The movie is a visual joy.
And not just the Barbieland sets – which are everything you heard they are. They look just like the little Barbieworlds that the girls in the neighborhood would put together out on Mrs. Goehner’s patio, only perfect.
But there are two other visual moments that are much, much better.
The visual change when Barbie meets Rhea Perlman is jarring – and a huge cue as to what lies ahead.
And there’s a scene, near the end of the show, where Ken and Barbie realize what’s missing in both of their lives – neither in Barbie World nor the Real World, but a place that has no visual definition but slowly, subtly shifting lights that are characters in their own right – one of the most striking bits of cinemetography I’ve ever seen. I may watch it again just for that.
————-
Think that review was long? You should see the first one I wrote.
I don’t often urge people to go see movies – but I urge you ignore all the hype on BOTH sides, put on your critical hat, and check it out.
[1] Well, we did. Not sure if they do anymore.
[2] An actress I hate to love, but I love anyway.
[3] Hint: it’s a name the Sixth Commandment advises one not to take in vain.
[4] It’s borrowed from the beginning of “2001: A Space Odyssey”
[5] This is one of several parts Ben Shapiro got hung up on. Shapiro’s brilliant – I push back hard on the conservative hate he gets – but he totally c**pped the bed in his review. Which I *really* don’t get – it’s not like he’s too uneducated to see subtext, allusion and symbolism, especially when it’s *right there on the screen*. Very much the opposite. It’s almost like he c**pped the bed on purpose. Why would he do that? No freaking clue.
[6] Seriously. I may go see the movie again just to put together all the pieces of this subplot.
[7] No spoilers – but there’s a scene I’ll just describe as “Omaha Beach In Saving Private Ryan via Barbieworld” that made me double over laughing, and wince, out loud.
[8] Without getting into politics, much of modern society treats humans as interchangeable widgets whose meaning is to consume. I could write a piece ten times as long as this already huge review on the horrors of that subject alone.
This is todays DFL.
May 2023: Leave the possibility of throwing grandma out on the street very pointedly open.
August, 2023: Pat selves vigorously on the back for not doing it.
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