Balanced Dialogue, my ass

You know what pisses me off? OK, a lot of things, but right this moment in particular? When well-meaning people take the concept of Presenting A Balanced Perspective to new levels of stoopid, that's what. Case in point: In my never-ending search for cheap or free activities to take the kid to, I've signed up for a weekly email from GoCityKids, which conveniently assembles local stuff and dumps it in my inbox for my perusal. I'm browsing this weekend's options and I stumble across this little entry:

The Great Global Warming Swindle
To foster a balanced dialogue within the community, the nature center presents a screening of The Great Global Warming Swindle, which offers an alternate viewpoint on global warming to An Inconvenient Truth, which the center showed earlier in the year. The 90-minute film is followed by a discussion. Children must be accompanied. Advance registration is required.

The location of this fine, balanced event? Why, the Westwood Hills Nature Center, of course! Because who has more interest in giving crackpots a bully pulpit than the very places those crackpot ideas will destroy? Gah. From the wording of the entry, it's clear that the Nature Center is showing this in a (misguided) effort to avoid the charge of ... what? Liberal bias, I guess. But this, of course, is absurd. Say the center presented a talk on, oh, the lifecycle of the salmon, for example. Would anyone expect them to offer equal time to a presentation called "The Great Salmon Swindle: They Really Swim Downstream"? OF COURSE NOT. Balanced dialogue means offering people or groups of differing opinions equal say. OPINIONS. Like, in circumstances where multiple valid viewpoints can be expressed. The tastiness of liver, say, or the possibility of a "just war." You can have a debate about these matters because it's possible to be rational and sane and still have differing viewpoints on them. You know what's not like that? GLOBAL WARMING.

Ah-Choo

When a baby panda sneezes, a mama panda says, "WFT?"

Surreality

At our house, we watch the Today Show pretty much every morning. It is beyond weird to wake up and have Matt Lauer not 3 miles from your house, interviewing your mayor because a major disaster has just happened in your city. My sister takes I-35 W every day to get from her job in downtown Minneapolis to her home in St. Paul. Yesterday she decided at the last minute to run an errand on the way home which took her on an alternate route. I don't like close calls that are that close.

So far, everyone I know is safe and accounted for. Hope all you Snackers out there are the same.

Bridges of Hennepin County

It seems weird not to have posted on the biggest news in the Twin Cities since KG was traded to Boston, but holy crap is it depressing to even think about yesterday's bridge collapse. So far as I know, none of your friendly hosts here at After School Snack have been directly affected by the disaster, though it looks like a friend-of-a-friend of the blog might be among the missing.

Small Town Livin'

Northfield may look quiet, collegiate, and even pastoral, but dizzamn, peeps, we have it going on now! Possible heroin use in the high school and a rising crime wave downtown; a police chief who announced the heroin problem and is now on leave to deal with unrelated (wink wink) health issues; that same chief hinting that he's been investigating his boss, the city administrator, for corruption; townies using the Carleton Arb to grow pot and shoot up; the mayor's hardware store being evicted from its downtown building... Some of these topics are covered in an article in today's Strib. Others will be discussed at the Taste of Northfield tonight, from 5 - 9 in Bridge Square. Good food will be on hand; you have to bring your own smack.

That'll Show the Cable Guy

I read and reread this story, trying to figure out the narrative, but finally gave up. It's too crazy.

A satellite TV installation last year ended with Savage police handcuffing Julie Pyle in the belief that she was holding the installers hostage. Now she wants $75,000 in damages.

Listiness

One of the great things about the Internet is finding great sites that you've never seen before, and then having the pleasure of reading all the previous posts. Case in point, the blog "A Play A Day," written by Brendon Etter, a member of the staff down here at Carleton. He's done writing a play a day, and on to great lists like this one:

Important Reasons Why You Must Stop Having Sex Right Now1. Scientists have linked sex with children. You must stop linking sex with children, pervert.
2. A customer just walked in the front door of the bakery.
3. You can only remain underwater for a few seconds at a time.
4. The director said "cut."
5. Just like epilepsy and paranoid schizophrenia, it may lead to frighteningly uncontrolled muscle spasms and vocalizations.
6. Because chances are good your cellmate is not truly your soulmate.
7. He only paid for a twenty-minute session.
8. Need to reframe the shot and make sure the flash is on.
9. Ran out of batteries.
10. Must get in line for holy communion.
11. Your "girlfriend" popped.
12. May cause an outbreak of painful childbirth in men and women everywhere.
13. Excessive blistering.
14. While the third time's the charm, the three hundred and thirty-third is somewhat less so.
15. If you stop now, you may still be a semi-virgin.
16. Because that's not what the zoo needs volunteers for.

Or this one:

Evidence That My Computer Is Having An Affair
1. Sometimes it carries out millions of my calculations every second like it would really rather be somewhere else carrying out millions of more exciting calculations every second.
2. It remembered my birthday, but only after I put the date into its calendar application like fifty times.
3. Frequently complains to me that it wants to abort functions... our living, breathing, unexecuted functions!
4. Mysterious processor log entries documenting data uploads and downloads that I know aren't mine.
5. Newly apathetic performance on programs that we used to love to operate together.
6. It swears it's just the cooling fan kicking in, but I can tell that it's sighing.
7. My hard drive feels like it's being read in a cold, perfunctory, almost-automated fashion.
8. After returning home unexpectedly early from a business trip, I found it, somehow, had already been turned on.
9. Screen saver seems like it's over-compensating.
10. I'm finding new bookmarks in my browser linking to articles about the benefits of being in an "open source" programming relationship.
11. When I select "shut down", it happens immediately, but, sometimes, when I select "restart", it pauses as if weighing its options.
12. Seems like it wants nothing to do with my flash drive any more.

ICEd Out

When did the Land of 10,000 Lakes become the testing ground for federal anti-immigrant
sweeps? First, we had those horrible actions in Worthington last December (part of a national day o' raids). Last week, we had a big raid in Willmar (followed up this weekend with a vigil in St. Paul):

Agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, have arrested an unknown number of people in Willmar, Minn., today and Tuesday. A spokesman for the federal agency confirmed the arrests, but declined to give details.

“We are conducting an enforcement operation in Willmar,” said Tim Counts, ICE spokesman in Minnesota. He said his agency is targeting specific individuals suspected of criminal activities or backgrounds.

Other sources have indicated that the arrests may be related to ID theft or use of other documents. Counts declined to confirm, insisting that the arrests “are not random.”

I want to know where these raids are being planned and coordinated. Do they get thought up in Washington? Chicago? Minneapolis? And have they ever caught significant numbers of the "felons" whom they say they're after? And who doesn't think "ICE" sounds like the secret police in a crummy sci-fi novel?

Beer

Many of you know that I enjoy beer… really, really enjoy beer. I enjoy exploring the science and social elements behind brewing and pubs. I’m a bit of a beer nerd… almost all beers have their place and I appreciate the various styles and the needs they serve. How nerdy, well among other things - I've thought about growing my own hops. I enjoy hearing the Clancy Brothers sing about beer.

When it comes to the beverage itself, I’m more than a bit partial to regional brews and Irish imports. Almost any Bell’s, Summit, or anything from the James Gate crowd makes me happy to think about, let alone drink. But I also appreciate Blatz, Falstaff, Grainbelt and Miller High Life.

I’ve often contemplated brewing my own beer-- to be a bit more righteous about the whole beer experience. Until April 7th, I had not. That changed. A recent gift from Pam and Fiona was a gift certificate to brew a batch at beer at Vine Park. Vine Park is a brew-on-premises operation. You brew, with a brew coach, using their supplies and materials. The best part, you don’t get stuck with clean up or exploding bottles in your house. It was a great experience. In two weeks, we return to bottle. I’ll keep you posted on the final test – the taste. I decided to brew an ESB, but may need to return to do an IPA. As hoppy IPAs seem to be my forced-choice favorite style of beer.

So, what’s your favorite beer and favorite beer occasion?

"You gotta have the boots."

If you haven't yet watched Al Franken announce that he's running for the U.S. Senate, you should. He speaks movingly about the middle-class values that shaped his life, and he makes me proud to live in Minnesota.

Esepcially since I might be able to kick Coleman out by ushering Franken in.

Good News for a Blue State

According to the Minnesota Monitor,

A new survey finds that Minnesota is one the most popular destinations for U.S. Muslims. The state comes in at number12 of the top dozen states that are home to more than 80 percent U.S. Muslims... According to the survey, Minnesota is home to 2.8 percent of U.S. Muslims... Ethnic break down [sic] of U.S. Muslims shows that 5.7 percent of respondents are of African descent. But the number is likely higher in Minnesota, where more than half of its estimated 150,000 Muslim population comes from Somalia and Ethiopia.

Now if only some of these new Americans would trouble themselves to open a few restaurants in Northfield. I mean, yeah, vote for DFL'ers like Keith Ellison, and send your kids to school, and do all that stuff, but let's think about my palate for a change, okay?