modern arth

secretsofthecity:

Minnesotans love their community celebrations both large and small, so it’s not necessarily serendipity that both the Strawberry Fest in Cottage Grove and Tater Daze in Brooklyn Park kick off today. And while these weekend-long events are clearly much more family friendly than, say, Wiz…

 two defining memories from my hometown’s annual tater daze festival…

1. 1986 - while stalking the game booths with a neighborhood chum, i happened by a pen housing maybe 30 rabbits. probably 15 white, 14 black, 1 lonesome-looking tan. along with the pen was a child’s wading pool filled with floating glass bowls. the game: bounce a ping pong ball into a bowl, win a rabbit. sparing you the drama, i won. i had to run home to asak permission from an adult, as the humane society (or whomever was putting this particular game on) did not want the bun to go to a home where it’d be eaten. for the record, i was appalled even at the suggestion, but i digress… a new hutch was erected, and within two hours, the lone tan bun who’d looked so lonely was home with me. we named him Carl, and he was the greatest. a big boy, he grew to well over 12lbs. i had him until i was 21. my heart is still shattered from the day i had to have him put to sleep.
2. 1991 - the manager at the local domino’s — who also happened to be my boss — concocted the wonderfully awful idea to load up delivery drivers with $4 small pizzas and have us walk the parade route selling them to lawn-chaired (and often home-snacked/igloo-coolered) parade watchers. it was a catastrophic failure. people were there to see a parade of go-karted rotarians, child bikes with streamers, high school bands, festival royalty … not the poor bugger in the domino’s outfit, shilling crappy pizza. also, the pizzas only stayed hot for maybe 15 minutes. by the end i couldn’t sell them for a dollar, and those that did sell had their crusts hurled back at me as i made another pass. the manager fumed that it was due to lack of effort on my part, but that’s not what sits ill with me … no, what sticks like glue is the robust memory of my entire community staring at me like a leper in blue pants.

thanks for the memories, tater daze. the very good and the very humbling.

 

The security guard has since been reprimanded, but continues to work at the stadium, says Kevin Smith, a spokesman for the Twins.

“That behavior just is unacceptable,” Smith says of the biblical put-down. “That security guard has received both a verbal and written reprimand that will be put in his personnel file, and he understands that that is not an acceptable behavior.”

But that may not be enough. Campione and Culpepper are filing a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, accusing the security guard of discriminating against them for their sexual orientation.

“I want a zero-tolerance harassment policy instituted at Target Field,” says Culpepper. “I think it’s pretty pathetic that there isn’t one everywhere already.”

i could type a thousand thoughts in my head on this, and very few are constructive. i’ll just say that this makes me sad.

minnpost:

Sen. Michael Jungbauer is fond of making pronouncements from on high regarding the scientific weakness of global warming and climate change.

The problem is, he is not a scientist. Even though his published biography lists multiple higher education credits and that he is working on his master’s degree in environmental policy and that he has a background in biochemistry, it turns out he has never graduated from college. He doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree.

i wonder, then, if his GOP peers, both local and national, will call for his resignation. probably not. definitely not. though to me, a person falsifying his resume in order to forward regressive policy is far worse than a tweeted dong. the idea of morals is so totally messed up in the country.

sure the kardashians are famous for being famous, but the blame lies with the same public that buys people, star, in style, entertainment weekly; reads tmz, gawker; watches E!, and whatever shows probably have sprung up since “a current affair” or “entertainment tonight”.

when we demand better, we’ll get better. until then, this is the very definition of hating the player, not the game.

oh, and additionally:

“I just don’t understand what these people did to be in a position of having everyone ask their opinions about stuff.”

falco might want to remember that many people hold this opinion about all of hollywood. a person’s vocation (or lack of) has no bearing on whether their opinion should count. it’s merit is up for judgement by any and all who hear it, but saying one person’s feelings about this or that is invalid simply because they are vapid is discriminatory and ignorant. if people give it more weight that it deserves, see above.

then again, she may have been kidding. i don’t give a fuck, i’m just bored at work.

while this site is amusing for showcasing stupidity, it’s annoying for obscuring their identities. if these are public facebook posts, the offenders obviously don’t have the fucking mental wherewithal to change their own security. therefore, public is public, and these shitheads should be exposed for the bigots they are. take the kid gloves off, i say.