It’s been a dud of a winter, but now the weather service is predicting 25-35 cm (10-14 in) of heavy, wet snow tomorrow, turning to rain in the afternoon, and then freezing and turning back to snow on Monday. It’s maximal yuck.
I’ve already sent an announcement out to all my students that class will be held over Zoom on Monday. The weather forecasts are usually a bit overblown, but let’s play it safe.
According to the official date, it is. This is not what February in Minnesota should look like, though.
That’s what late March might look like, or better yet, April. Fog and naked trees and patches of dirty snow are not at all appropriate for this time of year.
Have I been dislocated to Kansas?
Here’s a fascinating old photo.
Farmer Olof Öhman (center), who reported the artifact’s discovery in 1898, at a carnival held to raise funds to buy a park for the Kensington Runestone, 1927.
I’ve seen the Kensington Runestone, it’s in a local museum just north of here. I’ve been to that park several times — it’s nicely maintained, it has a large, mostly empty building used for presentations (it’s always been locked when I visited), and it’s a bit out of the way, several miles away from a town of any size. It’s notable only because a fair amount of money and time has been invested to enshrine this fraud in local culture. It was probably an even bigger deal in 1927, when that photo was taken, and when the old farmer who ‘found’ it was the center of attention.
What I just learned is that there were other runestones all over the country. There’s the Yarmouth Stone and the Narragansett Runestone in Nova Scotia and Rhode Island. The Heavener Runestone in Oklahoma. The Poteau stone, and Shawnee stone, also in Oklahoma. The Braxton Runestone and Grave Creek Stone, in West Virginia. They even found a second runestone in 2001 near Öhmon’s original ‘discovery’ to ‘corroborate’ it. You’d think there were armies of Vikings tromping all over the eastern half of the US in the 14th century, all busily chiseling rocks and scattering them about to entertain tourists in the 20th and 21st.
The article gives a couple of explanations for this curious phenomenon. One is that the Viking sagas were popular at the time. I don’t find that convincing — you’d expect every literary fad to generate a pile of phony artifacts if that were the case. The second is that the wave of Scandinavian immigrants were trying to build validation. I can sympathize with that a little more. If Italian immigrants could take pride in Christopher Columbus, well, Swedes and Norwegians would hold up Leif Ericson as their hero.
I’m inclined to favor their third explanation.
The third factor was the urge to assert European prior claim to land, which predated the Columbus expedition of 1492, and furthermore, gave it a northern European character. At times, this involved the expropriation of Native American monuments as part of a process which sought to belittle Native American cultural and monumental achievements by claiming Viking ancestry for them—and at times, claimed that those responsible were just about anybody, so long as they were not Native Americans.
The Mormons did it. The Mississippi valley settlers who denied that indigenous peoples could have been the Mound Builders did it. All those batty von Dänikenites who claim aliens built every bit of non-European architecture do it. Why couldn’t my Scandinavian ancestors have done it?
The Runestone park is a pleasant little spot, but fundamentally it’s an embarrassment.
I fell for another tease. Remember Matt Grossell, the Minnesota state representative who was a sullen drunk picking fights in hotels and bars and hospitals when he got arrested for being falling down snockered? Here’s a non-update.
There was talk at the time about taking him off his committee assignments. Surprise: they did not. The Democrat in charge of that sort of thing is sill waffling. Worse yet, this bozo has a history of this sort of behavior.
Grossell had previously been arrested in 2019 on charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing after a drunken incident at a hotel bar in St. Paul.
The House Democratic leadership stripped Grossell of his committee assignments following his 2019 arrest. Part of the reason was that after he got out of jail he walked into St. Paul police headquarters and announced to officers that he was a state representative and that there would be “hell to pay.”
His committee assignments have since been reinstated. Grossell is a member of the public safety, judiciary and capital investment committees.
He’s done this before? He got a little temporary slap and was then reinstated? I think we can guess how this is going to go.
I did learn something in this non-update.
Alcohol is a factor in more than a quarter of Minnesota traffic deaths each year, according to state data, and drunk driving costs the state more than a quarter billion dollars annually. But neither the lawmakers getting arrested on alcohol-related charges, nor the voters who keep sending them back, seem to care a whole lot.
Yeah, you learn fast that going for a drive on these remote rural roads late on a Friday or Saturday night isn’t a great idea.
The city of Morris, my little town, has disbanded its police force. Yay!
Local leaders in one western Minnesota city have voted to disband the police department, which has dwindled to just two officers, including the chief.
The City of Morris, like other communities across the country, is dealing with changing attitudes about policing and challenges in recruiting and retaining officers.
Morris, with a population of about 5,200 residents, has budgeted for eight full-time officers and an administrative specialist.
The Morris City Council plans to sign a contract for law enforcement services with the Stevens County Sheriff’s Office and shut down a police department that has been around for more than 140 years.
Aww. I don’t think anyone will miss that relic. And yes, the county sheriffs will now take over any necessary peace-keeping duties, or more likely, ticketing traffic violators, which is mainly what they do.
“It’s a sad day. Nobody wants to see that happen,” said Blaine Hill, city manager. “People ask, ‘How in the world could a town the size of Morris not have a police department?’ We live in a different world now.”
Nobody? I wanted to see it happen, so Mr Hill is wrong. Also, again, the police don’t do all that much around here.
Commenters on the Fox News story are predicting dire consequences.
There are several banks in town. I don’t see what the police would do anyway; lounge around outside the buildings waiting for the bad guys to go away? We don’t have much of a crime problem here — there’s some drug trafficking, like everywhere, and occasional vandalism and theft, like everywhere. The police don’t play much of a role in preventing any of it. They’re more likely to take reports after the fact. Or maybe shoot a few bystanders. This isn’t the Roaring Twenties of a century ago, and we don’t have Bonnies and Clydes shooting up banks with tommy guns. It’s so much more profitable and safe to be a Republican and loot towns at your desk, and the police do nothing about that.
Policing is being turned over to the county sheriff’s department, who will serve multiple small towns in the area. I don’t think it will make much difference, except in maybe being more economical.
Then there’s this bizarre comment…
Errm…”Minnesota Nice” is not a good thing — it refers to a flavor of passive-aggressive superficiality. Please, let it die that slow and ugly death. Also, this is not a “large city”, and it wasn’t “spoiled kids” behind this change — it was a decision by the bean counters and our city council, which is packed with old tiring conservatives.
But it’s a Fox News comment section, what else can you expect?
Yesterday, some of you jeered at the small amount of snow we were getting. It’s a fair cop; here in Western Minnesota, we’re a little dryer than the eastern part of the state, and we get measurably less snow. Where we make up for that is that we’re also colder and much, much windier. We get a small amount of powdery snow and then the wind keeps picking it up and blowing it around. Yesterday, our driveway was completely clear. This is how it looks this morning.
There is a car under the snow on the left side of the top picture.
We don’t go anywhere anymore, but there have been a few occasions when we were unable to travel on Highway 28, the main connecting route from Morris to I94, because drifting snow has completely covered the road to a depth of 8′-10′ in some spots.
I do find the swooping curves of our snow dunes quite pretty, though.
Incremental progress exists, and I should acknowledge that now and then.
We’re taking baby steps in the right direction, let’s keep it up.
I don’t think we got a lot of snow last night, but I can’t tell, because these fierce winter winds scour everything bare. Most of the snow that might have fallen in my front yard is probably in the next county.
It might still be snowing, or the wind could just be pushing it around in the air, I don’t know. I’ve been entertained by watching the birds pumping their wings frantically to try and reach this birdfeeder and essentially hovering in place until they tire and the wind whisks them away. Poor birds.
I’ve been watching the smart people at the top of the university hierarchy slowly realize that there’s still a pandemic going on, and that they should have sane policies in place to protect the students and staff — you know, the people who do the actual work of the university and interact with students, which they, fortunately for them, don’t have to do. So we have restored mask requirements in university buildings and will be imposing a vaccination requirement, all sensible, practical actions that I’m surprised took them so long to do. I’d applaud, except that it could only be interpreted as mockery because it would be a bit like giving the rich kid in the class an “A” because he drove to class in his Maserati one day. You don’t get prizes for doing the bare minimum.
Well, maybe I should praise them a little bit more because jesus fucking christ, look at Morris Area Schools, our public school district, has established as the rules for the coming school year. The school board thinks the pandemic is over!
So, no face masks, social distancing is treated with ambiguity (there isn’t going to be any social distancing), there will be no distance learning option, and oh hell no they aren’t going to require vaccinations for anyone. You may notice that there is a jarring difference in one aspect of the public school experience: the kids have to wear masks on the bus, and they have to be fairly thorough in cleaning them. That’s because the buses are regulated by state and federal laws, while once the kids are released into the schools, local control is imposed.
Here’s what you need to know to understand the basis for this lack of sense: Morris public schools are under the control of an apostolic religious cult. They pack the school board — they can do that, because they all vote as a bloc under the influence of their religious leaders — and they have undue influence because they threaten to pull all their kids out of the Morris high school and send them to another small town district, and enrollment affects state funding. It goes without saying that of course they are profoundly conservative wankers who voted for Donald Trump. They’ve also been expanding their business holdings in Morris, which is worrisome. Stevens County is darned close to becoming a theocracy, where the women are all required to wear dresses and grow their hair long and pin it up into a bun. It’s just weird and rather disturbing.
I guess we can hope they all die off thanks to COVID-19, except…why did they have to start with infecting the kids? The children don’t deserve this.
Here’s one strong response from a mother responding to the similar ineffectuality of the Chattanooga school district:
🔥EMAIL FROM CHATTANOOGA MOM TO @hamcoschools (Chattanooga): “Since you made the mask policy optional, I intend to opt my daughter out of the dress code. Please make note.” @NoogaHoller pic.twitter.com/Xvv26Q1Vnm
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) August 12, 2021
Although it won’t help to be able to opt out of an irrational pandemic response, because the threat requires communal cooperation.
We’re in trouble. Now is the time for people to begin running for office in the little places, like the 7th congressional district where I live, and where a dud of a Republican placeholder is our current representative. And we have a new, fresh face! Mark J. Lindquist is gearing up to run for that office, and he’s certainly enthusiastic and outgoing, which is a good start.
But I think he’s doomed.
Nice website, but it’s all about Mark. It’s like a vanity page for Mark Lindquist: I learn that he’s served in the Air Force as an analyst for the NSA, and when he got out he’s been working as a motivational speaker for Fortune 500 companies, and he aspires to sing the National Anthem at the Superbowl. I could find nothing about policy. For instance, this is is a largely rural district, with a lot of farmers who tend to vote Republican — where does he stand on agricultural policies? Personally, I’m a university professor, and I want to know what he’s going to do for education. I can’t find it! At the top of his web page, it says he is “reinventing American politics”…how? What’s he doing differently?
His big plan is to sell books to fund his campaign, thereby getting big money interests out and changing American politics. It’s not very revolutionary.
If he’s the Democratic nominee, he’d probably get my vote simply because I’ll vote against Republicans automatically, but he’s going to have to work harder at presenting some deeper policy vision if he wants to sway my Republican neighbors, who consistently outnumber me around here.
