Across the Great Divide

Keep it Simple, Stupid.

Robert Wright, writing about potential New York U.S. Senate candidate Mort Zuckerman, might well have been talking about our local GOP braintrust here:

[W]hen Zuckerman’s electoral opponent’s oppo-research team scours his trail of utterances, they’ll be looking for an unguarded remark that offends some interest group or an opinion that, taken out of context, terrifies or enrages the easily terrified or enraged. The last thing they’ll be looking for is something truly indicative of his way of thinking and directly relevant to his future performance. And, should they stumble upon such a thing, they’ll rule it out if it requires much explanation.

The Advantage of Being Half as Good.

Alert readers will note that I've moderated my blogging in a concerted effort to focus on a novel I'm writing. Haven't given up the ghost here, but will be picking my battles and serving up more tidbits from my reading, like this from Cory Doctorow:

The interesting bit isn't what it costs to replicate some big, pre-Internet business or project.

The interesting bit is what it costs to do something half as well as some big, pre-Internet business or project.

[...]

This is the pattern: doing something x percent as well with less-than-x percent of the resources. A blog may be 10 percent as good at covering the local news as the old, local paper was, but it costs less than 1 percent of what that old local paper cost to put out. A home recording studio and self-promotion may get your album into 30 percent as many hands, but it does so at five percent of what it costs a record label to put out the same recording.

What does this mean? Cheaper experimentation, cheaper failure, broader participation. Which means more diversity, more discovery, more good stuff that could never surface when the startup costs were so high that no one wanted to take any risks.

h/t Hal Davis

Minnesota's Safer Streets for Bikes and Pedestrians.

Minnesota is one of the safest states for cyclists and pedestrians according to this table [click to enlarge; full list at link]. Minnesota ranked fifth safest, with about one-fifth the rate of fatalities in overall worst Florida.

Of course, you might argue we're safest, given our frequency of cyclists and pedestrians compared to Wyoming and the other top states.

[via a link from Ed Kohler]

New Definition of Marriage Rights?

The Onion takes a stab at the Minnesota-based movement to ban loveless marriages, which could be a blow to the already struggling cruise ship industry.

New Law Would Ban Marriages Between People Who Don't Love Each Other

We Don't Need No Stinkin' ID.

A suspect described as an Hispanic in his 20's brought a 40-0z. bottle of beer to the cashier at a Grand Junction liquor store and pulled a gun when the clerk asked him for identification. He also pulled out his wallet, paid cash for his purchase, and left the store.

Some local liquor store clerks are not pushovers, however.

My hometown has state representative named Steve King who might some day give the Iowa Congressman a run for his money. King recently dodged an ethics probe after paying back some double-dipping on his state expense account. Meanwhile, he's introduced legislation to come down on public masturbation, or as the local paper wrote: King seeks stiffer penalty for lewdness.

Concrete Poetry and other Public Art in the Twin Cities.

To follow on the discussion of public art in Minneapolis, here's a cool St. Paul project I had somehow missed. 

 

The Everyday Poems for City Sidewalks project works in tandem with St. Paul’s sidewalk maintenance program and installs poetry where city sidewalks are replaced. The cost of the art installation is negligible, since the material has to be laid anyway. A stamp, inspired by contractor's stamps, impresses the text into the wet concrete.

In its first year, the project had the goal of one hundred stampings of twenty poems written by St. Paul residents, chosen from 2000 submissions.

Here's a map of locations so far. Minneapolis lists where its public art, such as these manhole covers, can be found. You may have to wait awhile before enjoying either of these projects, though.

The Shelter Report: Being Monstrous.

Some time during the hour we spend in the gym, one of the kids will come up to me and say those three special words: "Be a monster."

As I've written before, I take my monster duties seriously. If a monster becomes too familiar, it loses its monstrosity after a while; yet it can't keep getting scarier and scarier, either. These are four-year-olds, and chances are they may have run into some borderline monsters already.

This week, I was going to add to my repertoire the Toilet Paper Fang Monster™, inspired by a funny Mimi Kennedy scene in "In the Loop." But a spork I found at snack time gave me another prop to use, inspiring the Nice Monster.

The Nice Monster started out scary, but a girl brought it a Nerf ball offering, which inspired a hug from the monster. After that, it gave hugs to the kids who wanted hugs and chased the "bad" kids.

Most kids wanted to be chased for awhile, but hugs won out, until there were only two bad kids left. I suppose I don't have to tell you they were boys.

These kids don't have control over very much in their lives. But once a week, they get to control their very own monster.

Wasteful Spending on Artful Fountains? Hellier is all Wet.

I enjoy art, I admit. As a commuter cyclist and former thirsty urban  runner, I value public water fountains. As a consumer of city life around the world — especially in places that encourage people to be out on their streets — I appreciate how public fountains provide gathering points, from Rome to Las Vegas to Minneapolis.

And as a former marketeer, I don't oppose spending that generates PR for a good product, in this case, Minneapolis water as an alternative to overpriced, litter-producing bottled water. 

Put it all together — artful places, fresh water without plastic trash, walkable streets and promoting the city  — and it sounds like a good deal to me. Especially when the $50,000 cost per art fountain is amortized over 25 years.

Luke Hellier (a little fresh air, exercise and free water wouldn't hurt you, man) doesn't like beautiful fountains in cities run by DFL-leaning mayors.

In that blank-minded-bullying practiced by Hellier and his Twittering dragoons, the GOP has been ragging on Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak for contributing to the beauty and functionality of his city. They persist in positioning this expenditure as profligacy.

Screw art, they say. Our money is better spent locking up sex offenders forever.

(Let's hope Hellier someday googles the difference between a capital cost and a recurring cost.)

These artful fountains would be paid for out of capital funds dedicated to art and the water fund, which must be used for water projects. The money can't be spent for cops or road repair or whatever other public expenditure the GOP might pretend to support. Any "savings" here are political eyewash.

[From top: Fully amortized Portuguese public fountain, getting its picture taken centuries later; Lisa Elias Minneapolis fountain design; Andrew MacGuffie design.]

The fountains would be adopted and maintained by private volunteers instead of city crews. Try getting 25 years of free labor with your regular fountains. And building them would employ local artists and craftspeople.

Politics, though, has cut the initial 10 fountains to six and now to four, for a total cost of $200,000.

My hometown, a place so conservative I don't know why Hellier doesn't move there right now, has a vibrant public art program. It places sculpture along the city's main street and gives artists lots of exposure.

Wherever you go in the world, there will be sex offenders, prisons or not. But beauty and civic life are not that easy to find. And the reason is on display right now.

In Search of Completely Clean Streets.

Some Minnesota legislators are introducing a "complete streets" bill that would design and build roads "right the first time" for multiple users, instead of exclusively for moving vehicles.

Winter helps illustrate the idea that pedestrian- and bike-friendly streets also work for cars, especially when heavy snow and ice build up around the city.

It's obvious that streets without icy intersections are safer for stopping vehicles as well as for pedestrians  making their way across them. Likewise, streets cleared curb to curb create safer passing zones and bike lanes, leave better, more consistent parking zones.

It works the other way, too. If the emphasis is on clearing just enough for vehicles, cyclists must ride in the main lane or follow an unpredictable path.

On my ride downtown today, I stuck mainly to major streets and the riding was decent.

The worst spots were created by street parking that had impeded plows and by taxpayers who cleaned their own driveways by moving the snow into the streets after the plows had gone through.

In other words, wherever car owners treated the street as their exclusive domain.

Dentist Appointment in Minnesota.

This photo shows one reason I think Minnesota is great, even in the winter time. Cars are barely moving on the freeway due to snow, and here, we expect the dangerous convergence of walkers, bikes and skaters/skiers.

My dentist called to confirm an appointment for tomorrow. The caller said, "Do you plan to come despite the snow and everything?"

Absolutely, I said.

I didn't bother to say it would be on a bike.