{"id":1911,"date":"2008-01-07T06:05:33","date_gmt":"2008-01-07T11:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1911"},"modified":"2008-01-07T10:02:45","modified_gmt":"2008-01-07T15:02:45","slug":"asked-and-answered-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1911","title":{"rendered":"Asked And Answered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fundraising for Minnesota’s Sesquicentennial “celebration” seems to be lagging<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As Minnesota enters its sesquicentennial year today, the state board established to direct the celebration has taken in about $1 million — a quarter of what had been anticipated and far less than the $8.5 million that Wisconsin raised for its sesquicentennial in 1998 and the $1.1 million ($8 million in today’s dollars) that fueled Minnesota’s centennial 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

“For many of us, it’s a lifetime opportunity to honor the state we love and do some things that promote us for the future,” said Jane Leonard, executive director of the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission. “I do think we’re doing a remarkable job with what we’ve got, but we could use more help.”<\/p>\n

State organizers last year had talked about $4 million for the yearlong celebration — half from the state, half from private contributions — and Gov. Tim Pawlenty included $2 million for the Sesquicentennial Commission in his recommended 2008 budget.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why, oh why, could that be<\/em><\/a>?<\/p>\n

Some Minnesotans already are arguing — on opinion pages and in letters to the editor — over the Dakota War. If you thought the Sesquicentennial was going to be a Whiz Bang party celebrating Wheaties and Scotch Tape, you have been eating bad lutefisk. I mean, really<\/em> bad lutefisk.<\/p>\n

Minnesota was baptized in blood, and reminders are scattered across a vast landscape: A monument in a cornfield that marks the spot of a small settlement whose settlers — all of them — were surprised and killed on the first day of the war. A marker in a woods where more than 1,000 Indian women and children were imprisoned in a pen. A barren place on the Missouri River where hundreds died of starvation and disease after being “deported” by a new state that exiled the people whose language gave the state its name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Dear crackers; we’d like to have a state-financed orgy of recrimination.\u00a0 Please send us money to make this possible.\u00a0 Thanks.\u00a0 Signed: Native American activists and their Guilty White Liberal friends”.<\/p>\n

The Dakota War deserves a look.\u00a0 It’s one of the key events in Minnesota’s history.<\/p>\n

One <\/em>of them.<\/p>\n

On behalf of my ancestors – dirt-poor Norwegian farmers who came to America 40-50 years after the Dakota wars and raised bumper crops of rocks until they learned better trades, let me respectfully point out that there is more to the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fundraising for Minnesota’s Sesquicentennial “celebration” seems to be lagging: As Minnesota enters its sesquicentennial year today, the state board established to direct the celebration has taken in about $1 million — a quarter of what had been anticipated and far less than the $8.5 million that Wisconsin raised for its sesquicentennial in 1998 and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-midwest","category-history-and-its-making"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}