Across the Great Divide

How Should Baseball Honor the Fourth?

The Twins beat the Tigers today wearing caps that honored the five U.S. military services. We will now proceed to a new paragraph to make one thing very clear.

I am all in favor of professional sports teams honoring the armed services, active military and veterans.

And baseball, especially, should do all it can to remain America's game and retain its anti-trust exemption.

Veterans Day falls too late for a baseball observance. But the entire month of May was National Military Appreciation Month, followed by Flag Day on June 14th.

So why now, should Independence Day weekend be devoted to armed services appreciation?

Shouldn't the country's birthday honor more than the military? Perhaps the Twins promotion department could show some imagination next year and include caps for: Peace Corps. Americorps. ACLU. NAACP. Federalist Society. Or maybe: Washington. Lincoln. Parks. King. Norquist.

But if they insist it has to be a military promo, how about: Jobs. Education. Housing. Mental Health. Peace.

They'd have the entire month of May to build up to it.

Self-Defense Overkill.

One of the parties in a road rage shooting incident two years ago has pleaded guilty to reckless discharge of a firearm within a municipality.

I read a lot about the case at the time and wrote several posts about the confrontation that occurred between the shooter, Martin Treptow, a security guard with a concealed carry permit, and Landen Beard, an undercover police officer.

But I never came across this bit of information about the sequence of events reported in today's Strib story.

Beard admitted passing illegally on the shoulder in a line of traffic on Woodcrest Drive heading south toward 99th Avenue, causing Treptow to get upset and follow Beard. Treptow said Beard was driving erratically and yelling at Treptow and his wife. Treptow honked, and the feud continued, culminating as the two vehicles were stopped behind other cars at a traffic light.

Beard said he pulled his gun and identified himself as an officer after seeing Treptow brandish one. Treptow, who had a handgun permit, said he fired after Beard pointed his gun toward Treptow and his wife, who was in the front passenger seat. The couple's children were in the back.

The cop in an unmarked car drives past on the shoulder of a suburban boulevard, and a guy with his family in the car takes it on himself to chastise the driver. A chase ensues and guns are drawn. This looks to me like Treptow put himself and his family in danger.

I'll be interested to see what Joel Rosenberg, who takes this case very seriously, has to say about this account.

*****

This is not beat up on stupid people with guns week, but here's a case from Oklahoma City that seems a bit clearer because there is video.

Two masked teens burst into a pharmacy. One has a gun, the other appears to have sack for loot. A man behind the counter shoots the unarmed robber first, then chases the fleeing second robber.

Then, he comes back in the store, gets another weapon from behind the counter and shoots the unconscious kid five times in the abdomen, killing him.

"I believe the majority of Oklahomans believe that what he did was justified,” said Jerome Ersland's attorney.

She's Not Quitting. She's Just Transferring to Another Institution.

"Palin has a better resume than Obama had this time a year ago..."
– Mitch Berg

Right.

After all, she has gone to more schools.

Not all Palin fans are so deluded.

Ed Morrissey's entire post is worth a read.

If it’s her duty to always “protect” Alaska, then that strongly implies not walking away from the responsibility of governing it — a responsibility she sought, and with which her constituents trusted her to execute.  No one leads by quitting.  No one leads by quitting.  Palin’s abandoning  her post, and at least from her own description, doing it because she doesn’t want to deal with the issues of being a “lame duck,” a status all politicians have to handle at some point.

July 4th Bike News.

The Bicycle Film Festival hits Minneapolis July 8-12, with cycling related films and events at different locations during the week.

Here's the trailer for THE THIRD WHEEL, a documentary about pedicabs in New York City, and the efforts by the taxi, hotel and theater industries to run them off the streets. (Says a guy who looks to be a big cigar in the cab license bureau: "It's not the American way. It's not the New York way.")

There are several films with local connections.

DOWN BY THE WEEP HOLE: THE STORY OF THE STUPOR BOWL is "the story of Minneapolis' Stupor Bowl, the world's coldest and most inebriated alley cat race. The movie chronicles the race's development from a twenty-person local event in 1997, through 2009 when over four-hundred national and international competitors made the harrowing journey through the Twin Cities' frozen streets."

Film maker and friend Mike Hazard has a short taken from his documentary MR. POSITIVE, called SOMETHING BRIGHT TO BE SEEN IN OUR WORLD. Carl Bentsen is a light in the neighborhood, in more ways than one.

*****

More Midtown Greenway mischief last week. Kids tossing rocks off one of the overpasses struck three riders (only the two without helmets were injured).

But things are dangerous for cyclists all over, including near downtown Wayzata, where a rider was struck by a four-time loser drunk driver. He was hit in a crosswalk when the driver backed over him.

That location is a dangerous spot even without drunks, where streets, train tracks and a bike path coverge where almost everyone is making a turn.

Dark blue on the left is the bike path; light blue is a downhill stretch of the popular Ferndale Road loop into town, where most bike and vehicular traffic is turning right.

*****

More bike trail news, the Luce Line extension through Golden Valley to Wirth Parkway has been completed. A nice paved trail winds through the south end of Wirth Park and comes out near the Par 3 golf course. I'm waiting for the first injury report of a biker hit by a duck hook.

Wear your helmet.

*****

Not exactly bike news, but "False Witness! The Michele Bachmann Story" is in stock at Big Brain Comics, 11th and Washington Avenue S. They have plenty of bike parking.

Palin Out. But Damned if We Know Why.

Sarah Palin has announced her resignation as Governor of Alaska. The video clip at the New York Times story either starts part way into her remarks, or Palin is even more incoherent than usual.

Near the end of her rambling but perky statement, she says, "I'm doing what's best for Alaska, and I've explained my reasons."  I wouldn't say they were explained. It's hard to know if they were even stated. As best I can tell, they're some amalgam of beating a full court press, spending more time with her family and being able to effect change more if she isn't the chief executive of her state. Without saying she wants to campaign for president full time.

It's possible she's trying to trump Pawlenty in the presidential derby by resigning from office as a sign of her conservative, anti-big-government purity. After all, that trick helped her win the governor's job the last time she pulled it.

Memo to politicians holding back yard press conferences: Make sure there are no geese in the background.

A few times during Palin's speech, it sounded like a gaggle of critics was making commentary.

Ewww, a Bug! Melting Ice Cap? Whatever..."

Nicholas Kristof rounds up some research on why people gack about gay marriage but can't get worked up over climate change. John Haidt, who we've quoted here before, says evolution has prepared us to fear some things and ignore others.

“The objects of our phobias, and the things that are actually dangerous to us, are almost unrelated in the modern world, but they were related in our ancient environment,” Mr. Haidt said. “We have no ‘preparedness’ to fear a gradual rise in the Earth’s temperature.”

Daniel Gilbert, another professor of psychology

argues that the threats that get our attention tend to have four features. First, they are personalized and intentional ... Second, we respond to threats that we deem disgusting or immoral ... Third, threats get our attention when they are imminent, while our brain circuitry is often cavalier about the future ... Fourth, we’re far more sensitive to changes that are instantaneous than those that are gradual.

[...]

In short, we’re brilliantly programmed to act on the risks that confronted us in the Pleistocene Age. We’re less adept with 21st-century challenges.

Things I Learned Tonight.

"Public Enemies": Waste of talent. Waste. of. Time.

There's a liquor store in Crystal that sells a no-name brand of beer for $2.99 a six pack and $4.99 a twelve, but if you're looking for Surly, you're out of luck.

The New Hope Cinema and Grill, on the other hand, has Surly on tap.

Denny Hecker Truck Gardens?

Just discovered this post was gobbled before it made it to the blog. Too busy to reconstruct my part of it, but here's the quote from Bill Lindeke that prompted some musings about adaptive reuse of our dying malls, foreclosed subdivisions and abandoned car dealerships.

Suburban growth seems like a terribly wasteful way to operate a national economy. Much of the time, it means constructing brand new homes, shopping centers, schools, and sewers at the outskirts of town while simultaneously depopulating and tearing down homes, shopping centers, and schools in the middle of the city or in the first-ring suburbs. The network of real estate developers, banks, home construction firms, food corporations, big boxes, and auto dealers line US freeways in an endless loop of new construction and obsolescence, peddling giant homes and an endless stream of shiny products that nobody really needs... Is this really all we have to offer? Shouldn't there be another way to make money? Isn't new retail development just vulturing away the old retail development? Does economic growth have to come at the expense of our cities?

And here's another good read, about Surprise, Arizona, and how it illustrates how the housing boom went so wrong.

Generally, people move to a community for a specific reason -- jobs, climate, scenery -- creating a demand for housing. If the demand exceeds supply, then prices go up, and someone builds new houses to meet the need. Something else seemed to be happening on the fringes of Phoenix. Instead of being lured by jobs or amenities, people came in large part because houses were relatively cheap. "Phoenix and Las Vegas became the ultimate suburbs of Southern California," says Christopher B. Leinberger, a real estate developer and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he studies urban planning. "They became the place for folks in California who could no longer afford the late 20th century American dream."

Just because a place is relatively cheap doesn't make housing affordable, however. That brings us back to the Guerros. They wanted a nicer house than they could afford, so their lender offered a solution: An adjustable-rate mortgage. Their monthly payments were $2,700. Of course, the bank would jack up their rates after two years, but it didn't matter. With home values climbing steadily, they could refinance before the rate reset, pull out enough cash to buy a jetski or a new car, and keep their mortgage payments in check. In other words, the banks were creating affordable housing where it didn't really exist; with easy and tricky loans, they were creating purchasing power, or demand. Tens of thousands of such loans were issued in Arizona, and the major homebuilders even got into the game, offering financing in a manner more often associated with car manufacturers.

This artificially inflated demand did the trick. In just five years, Surprise gained another 50,000 people, and added more than 7,000 homes in 2005 alone. Maricopa County -- which contains the bulk of the greater Phoenix metro area -- grew faster than anywhere else in the country, and the Phoenix area issued more than 62,000 residential building permits. The economy responded: In 2006, Arizona's gross domestic product grew by 6.7 percent, compared to 3.1 percent for the nation as a whole. The construction industry provided 9 percent of all non-farm jobs in Arizona, making it by far the biggest employer in the state. Those jobs drew more people, who took out more loans to buy more houses, creating more demand … you get the picture.

Housing prices soared -- nearly doubling, on average, over two years -- to create almost instant wealth. Speculation was so rampant that it threw population estimates for a loop. Last year, with the bust in full swing, state and local officials discovered that their method of counting people -- by starting with 2000 census numbers and then estimating population using the number of houses built and sold -- didn't work. They had assumed an occupancy rate of 98 to 99 percent, when in fact at least one of every 10 new homes was sitting empty, even before the bust. A lot of people were making a lot of money. A lot of people would lose money, too.

Coleman's Concession is "Gracious" by Half.

After his third (or was it fourth?) defeat in his appeal process, Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman may have been "gracious" in finally conceding the election to new Sen. Al Franken. But Coleman is doling out the graciousness selectively.

I heard an MPR reporter say that cameras from The UpTake were excluded from livestreaming Coleman's announcement. Instead, the news service shot shaky video from a neighbor's yard and posted it here — a mute commentary on the snub.

The UpTake has provided the most in-depth video documentation of the various proceedings associated with the recount, but has been systematically stiffed by Coleman's staff. If Coleman does decide to run for office again, he's certainly not paving the way with citizen media.

UPDATE: David Brauer has a good account of what went on.

Water: Simple Solutions to a Basic Problem.

When we built our house in Colorado, we decided putting a cistern under the driveway to cache rainwater was going to cost too much. But it also would have made us lawbreakers.

Harvesting the rainwater that falls on your property is now legal on Colorado.

A study in 2007 proved crucial to convincing Colorado lawmakers that rain catching would not rob water owners of their rights. It found that in an average year, 97 percent of the precipitation that fell in Douglas County, near Denver, never got anywhere near a stream. The water evaporated or was used by plants.

As growth continues in the arid west, water rights will provoke a bigger fight than gay rights.

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Elsewhere in the world, access to water may produce greater conflicts than over access to oil. And clean water in third world countries may do more to extend lifespans than vaccinations.

Hal Davis sent me a link to this video awhile back. It shows the winner of the 2008 Innovate or Die design contest sponsored by Google and Specialized bikes.

The Aquaduct, like a Detroit concept car, is slick and visionary and so far out of sync with the realities of the market — in this case ensuring clean water in developing countries. They designers say they are "working to evolve the concept into a viable solution," but the hurdles of cost and maintenance seem pretty high.

Segway inventor Dean Kamen has another device he showed on The Colbert Report that uses vapor compression distillation but requires much less power than conventional technology. His solution to the cost problem is micro-capital loans to entrepreneurs who sell water and power in poor communities.

Contrast the Aquaduct solution for transportation with this simple one — and the purification solution with this very low-tech one.

Personally, I can see the entry from Mayapedal working better with the bikes and conditions I've seen.

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And one last related bike link. It looks to me like George is going all right with his current can-hauler.

"You Will Pay, Prendergast! You Will Pay!"

Politics in Minnesota so far has the best take on "False Witness! The Michele Bachmann Story."

The comic is a great format to illustrate the ominous ideas and symbols that Bachmann's linked with -- from the black helicopters to the teabaggers, icons like this deserve a graphic treatment. Two other classes of characters, mainstream journalists and non-sectarian Republicans, get portrayed as happy faces and anxious elephants. Much wrath is justly directed at the journalists, who repeatedly failed to get Bachmann's most outlandish comments in print [though perhaps more blame ought to go to their editors].

You can order here.

Transparency Requires Time to Read.

I hate to sound like Michele Bachmann, but sheesh!

Rep. Michele Bachmann was complaining Friday about whether Congress had actually read the "1,200 plus cap-and-trade bill that will impose massive energy taxes on businesses and consumers" — implying, of course, that she had read it.

But that's unlikely, if only because, as The Sunlight Foundation reported:

Today is the day that the House plans to vote on the cap and trade bill that has mysteriously changed this week. Last night, the bill changed again.

Overnight, the House Rules Committee dropped 300 new pages into the bill that was passed on Friday.

I don't believe for a second that even the most diligent members of Congress read entire 1,200-page bills — but even their staffs can't adequately vet 300 pages overnight. And watchdog groups have little chance, either.

Bachmann isn't all that interested in government transparency; she just wants it to disappear. But if you think effective government should allow time for someone to read the bill,The Sunlight Foundation has a petition for you to sign.

The New Retirement: Work Until You Win the Lottery.

A guy works for the same company for 26 years, likes his job and company and finally achieves the American Dream.

Now he can stop working three jobs to support his family.

Clyde Persley [that's his 1977 high school yearbook picture] won $39 million in a California lottery. But the kicker is that he worked part-time as a limo driver and was on-call at Santa Cruz restaurant, while also working full-time for a company operating candy-making machines.

Here's the quote that really stuck with me:

"I really appreciate my life with Harmony Foods," he said of his 26-year stint there. "I can't say enough how much my work has meant to me."

His story started me digging for statistics about the underemployed. How many Americans work multiple jobs just to stay afloat — because of low wages, inadequate hours, seasonal employment or lack of health care coverage? How many good workers hover near the poverty line and never work their way out?

But stories of real people, not numbers, are what brought the issue home for me.

Nearly a decade ago a researcher studied how rural Utah families met their family's needs despite low-paying work:

Jill, a single mother with four children, is a good example of multiple job holding.

At one time I was working four jobs. It was when I was first divorced ... about four years ago. I was working for the bank in town ... thirty five hours a week. And then because ... I have problems getting child support, I was working also in the evenings about three or four days a week ... for a convenience store for minimum wage. I was doing typing for an insurance agent. I was doing his billing and his correspondence at home on my computer and then on weekends I cleaned house for people.

That year, she told me, she "made $9,000 total," several thousand dollars below the poverty threshold for her family; thus, while working four jobs, she qualified for AFDC. After a spell on AFDC, she wasn't eligible for Medicaid without a spend down or for Food Stamps because of her vehicle, and was uninsured for several years as a result. Two of her children have chronic medical conditions for which they need prescription medication, but health insurance through her job at the bank would have cost her over $200 per month and "we needed that money to live on." Food was watched carefully during that time: "we had a gallon of milk ... this has got to last all week, kids. I was really thankful that my kids could get like free lunches at school and free breakfast. So they could go to school and eat and then they'd get a good lunch and we'd work out dinner."

Jill was able to keep up that schedule for about two years because her oldest daughter assumed many responsibilities at home, including meal preparation and child care. But the strategy of multiple job holding exacted some heavy costs on the family. "I was really lucky because my oldest daughter was very, very responsible and one of the reasons I quit was because ... we still needed the money, but my daughter's grades were dropping in school because she was spending so much time helping" with the younger children. Jill quit the job at the convenience store in order to stay home in the evenings with the children. In addition to the effects on her daughter, Jill found those years took a toll on her, as well. "It was really hard emotionally. I really think I aged a lot in two years ... just worrying. The stress of trying to carry on four jobs, make ends meet, you know, wondering how we were going to pay the next bill.... So I had no choice." During the years of multiple job holding, Jill also availed herself of some church-based assistance, mostly for groceries. In her case, low wage work meant she "balanced" her budget by devoting more time to paid employment, depending on family-provided child care, using local resources for groceries, and foregoing health insurance.

Clyde Persley says "I can't say enough how much my work has meant to me" and he seems to be a pretty centered guy. Yet his secure future is a matter of pure luck.

UPDATE: Bob Herbert talks about today's job prospects of the underemployed, and they're not as good as when Clyde graduated from high school.

Bachmann Goes on TV to Demand Privacy.

"Between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up," [Rep. Michele Bachmann] said. "I'm not saying that that's what the administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up."
— Star Tribune

Perfect timing.

Rep. Michele Bachmann gets media play on her stated intention not to complete the U.S. Census Survey. Today, she sends an email blast soliciting donations before the fund raising filing period ends June 30th. An excerpt:

 

She pretty much lays out all her obsessions, but my topic today is the Census. She says:

They don't want you to see me speak out to protect your privacy from invasive census questions. [Actually, we love it, and we understand why you're mad about that mental stability question.]
 
I asked you to read the census for yourself and see what you think.  [Though apparently only Congress members have copies of the new forms, so you'll have to rely on sources like this one: PDF.]
 

Bachmann links to a recent Glenn Beck appearance, in which Beck summons up visions of ACORN members asking Census questions (not true) and the Feds using non-compliance as a "loophole" to take away his gun permit.

Bachmann fumes, "'Are you a U.S. Citizen?' One question they don't ask is resident status."

The short form doesn't ask it, but it appears the longer community survey does. That should satisfy Bachmann's need to estimate the extent of the illegal immigration problem. But she wants it both ways: Let's preserve privacy and root out aliens. But not the way they did it in 1940's with the Japanese, not that I'm saying we would... just that it happened once. I'm not filling it out, but I'm not saying people shouldn't fill it out. But why does the federal government need your phone number?

So ACORN can call you and ask for donations to support terror, of course.

At bottom, this is typical Bachmann — combining fear of the other, paranoia about government, extreme self-righteousness (while criticizing elitists), a demand for personal privacy while refusing it to others and celebrating knownothingism while trying to defeat anything (including the Census) that might challenge this rickety system of self-delusion. Plus asserting a lie forcefully over and over while denying any responsibility should others act in response to the lie.