Friends, lighten up, have a heart

True has received a letter from Amanda Plummer about the water-skipping event in the harbor during the 4th of July and Fish Pic. Amanda's arguments seem sound to True: high attendance, jumping through the hoops to get approval, and FUN, fun fun for folks including the almighty Tourists on behalf of whom many a PC sin has now and then been committed.
Ya sure, it probably isn't that good for the fish. BUT, what about those big boats and their ballast? What about the, excuse me, detritus left behind by every single motorized vehicle? What about the city itself and its failure to clean up waste in the harbor?
Hey, we are talking about only a few hours per year at most. How much environmental damage can that do?
As for the conservation easement, which True soundly supports, that has been repeatedly violated by city and developers alike. So why pick on these little kids who just want to have a little fun?
True, it is not my idea of a fun fest, but I don't need to agree with everything that everybody wants to do. This seems relatively harmless and enjoyed by a lot of folks.
Another big issue at play here is the hubris of Homeland Security, who has now taken over the formerly friendly and service-oriented Coast Guard. They claim to own the harbor! This raises my hackles; it would never have happened when the Coast Guard was simply the Coast Guard and not an outpost of the heavy-handed Homeland Security, home of the Unitary Executive.
Plummer's letter shows that some Coast Guard personnel were willing to approve the skipping permit. This apparently got nixed at a Higher Level.
Harbor Friends, please lighten up. Coast Guard emissaries of the Homeland Deciders, please remember that WE remember you fondly as partners in protecting our harbor, not as the Heavies who Rule Jurisdictions.
-True

Reader wants water skips in harbor to continue

Gmail - Disappointed in City Council decision! - truenorthgm@gmail.com:

I am a citizen of Cook County that has been attending the water skips activities in the Grand Marais harbor during various times of the year. I am greatly disappointed in the city council’s decision to not allow this event any longer. I feel that not enough research and time was spent looking into this topic before a decision was made.

The city may not have known that permission was needed from the Coast Guard to have the water skips, but we did. We have worked with them the previous 2 years to make sure it was a safe event that followed their guidelines. We followed their 30 min rule about retrieving a sunken snowmobile, we followed their rules regarding fire extinguishers and buoys attached to our sleds. We even made sure to stay in the area that was roped off for us and to not get to close to the many people who came to enjoy this event. We will now work to try and get our activity back, and I think that the city council should work with us. There is nothing for anyone over the age of 15 do during Fisherman’s Picnic, and now that the water skips aren’t happening, I have absolutely no reason to go downtown or spend any money. This event not only brought local people into town to watch it, but it also brought new people into Cook County who wanted to partake in this event. It also drew more people than any other event during Fisherman's Picnic down to watch. Let's all work together and get this great asset to Fisherman's Picnic back!!

Amanda Plummer

The Gunsmoke Monologues: Oh those f*****g PC Police!

Dear True,

Now the PC police are raising the “bar”: charging bar owners who allow smoking when a play is in progress, a loophole in the new Minnesota ordinance, the so-called “Freedom to Breathe” Act. Yep, in Babbitt. Presumably everybody there was either watching or participating in the play, “Gunsmoke Monologues,” (get it?) and chose not to breathe all on their own.

What the hell? If y’all want to police smokers, if you PLEASE, make them stop smoking right outside the building where I can’t escape the fumes. But, NO. This is considered on the level of “nuisance crimes” like littering our precious forests, that nobody bothers to enforce.

Smokers get to have a life and they ought to get regularly screened for lung cancer—which also attacks non-smokers but usually gets diagnosed too late to save their lives because the PC Police decree that they are Bad, that they Deserve to Die.

I used to be a smoker. In the 20th century there were allowances made. Railroads had smoking cars, clubs had smoking rooms. Now in the 21^st it would be so easy to create comfortable and pleasant rooms for smokers, with our high tech options to mitigate, ventilate, and separate. But, NO. The evil Smokers must be punished. No leeway is permitted, no comfort allowed, no recognition for the social community of smokers (Think, a ciggie after sex? After dinner?). NOT, you say: They are so bad, bad, bad, even if you were once one of them.

Well, except for letting them puff away while I am trying to enter a building, any building, y’all make me want to smoke again (in a comfortable room at home with the window open or lazing on my deck). After 13 years, I Need a Smoke! In Kentucky where I come from tobacco is a good thing. For Native Americans, tobacco is a sacred thing.

Minnesota is one of the worst states in terms of trying to find a sensible solution for non-smokers and smokers alike. Ugh. I wish I could move to Canada, but with Repugs like Pawlenty, Bachmann, Bush & Cheney in charge, the dollar is tanked and so I can’t afford to leave this stupid state. Don’t forget, it wasn’t the best and the brightest who left the old country for the New World (as dear Garrison Keillor has pointed out)!

Last but not least, Minnesota “allows” corporate polluters hundreds of thousands of pounds per year for environmental pollutants discharged in the course of their business activities. The state wants to invest in more filthy coal-powered electrical plants and a copper mine (Polymet) that will destroy all life in local lakes and streams. The state has jumped on the Ethanol Bandwagon even though it is widely understood that the consequences of ethanol production will increase poverty and hunger while destroying wildlife habitat around the increasingly fragile world we inhabit.

Minnesotans, get your priorities straight. Have a little compassion for smokers, give them a filtered space to light up, and think outside the PC Police Law. If you want to be really PC, start charging those corporate giants with the “new sin” of pollution as per the Pope and letting THEM pay the big fines.

Anonymous

It's good because it's good

Recently my nephew Eric turned eight years old and for the occasion I gave him some removable tattoos and $30 in cash. By email he sent his thanks. He was saving the money towards a Wii, whatever that is, which he was sure he would be getting soon. "It's good because it's good," he wrote about my gift.
A couple of days ago, a reader accused me of being "Syndical" in response to my post, "America the Beautiful." I interpreted this to mean a combination of sinful and cynical. The post was about my longing for an idealized America and my frustation and grief at how the Bush administration has systematically destroyed all the best. I'm a Woody Guthrie kind of guy, a "This Land is Your Land" sing-a-longer. I'm a peacenik, a tree-hugger, a Buddhist and a vegetarian. But not a cynic or a sinner, I hope. My heroes are Cindy Sheehan and the Dalai Lama, who are just so good because they are good.
Anonymous and my nephew got me to thinking. There's a lot of stuff in Grand Marais and Cook County that is good because it's good.
For one, our transparent and responsive City Council. It's such a relief to know that they represent the voters, that they resist demands for inappropriate development, that if they have a conflict of interest they don't vote. I don't have to agree with every single action or vote to rest easy, because their interest is the public interest. Thanks, City Council!
Two, we are so blessed to have Harbor Friends. Always vigilant, these watchdogs caught the nasty infill of two harbor wetlands sites. The city is even now removing the landfill and restoring the wetlands. Thanks! I don't think it is too Syndical to ask who threw assorted junk in the first place. This has not been mentioned in any press reports. I am just curious.
Hey! Snowmobiles without mufflers skipping all over the harbor on the 4th of July? Well, as my mom used to say, that's why they make chocolate and vanilla. Sometimes a little live-and-let-live goes a long way.
Three, I am so delighted by the joint city-county decision to hire a housing coordinator. The Housing Study (previously reported on True) is a most excellent document and the joint decision to implement its findings deserves high praise. Everything we care about, we who live here, depends on the availability of housing for the young families, the working poor, the year-round residents, the senior citizens and retirees who give and have given so much to our history, culture, arts and well-being.
Four, WTIP continues to surpass itself in its outstanding coverage of local news. I dips me hat. Volunteer-driven, it still manages to achieve world-class coverage. BBC news every morning? You don't even get that on MPR. Hint: It's their fund drive. Please join up.
We are so lucky to live here. But having these fabulous resources: City Council, joint city-county affordable housing advocates, Harbor Friends and amazing radio coverage isn't just about luck. It's about people who care enough to make a difference.
True

This Land Is Your Land

In honor of the 4th of July:

This Land Is Your Land - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And that's the way we like it!

Dear True,

When I was scrolling through the blog I saw the "heads up" on the NYTimes article in which we are "discovered." Sobering enough, but the really frightening remarks were made by Sarah (in the comments section) in which she mentioned that some of the McMansion owners already here with their "keep out" signs were discussing picnic tables, rest stops, and street lighting on the Gunflint Trail! (O, yaah????)

While it's certainly true that some people's idea of "roughing it" is going without the olive in their martini, what's really needed is education: these people need to learn that what we have here in Cook County is a Way of Life not open to changes we don't consider for the better. Ours is basically a simple way of doing things -- with little or no frills. If these improvement-minded folks feel they need frills, they should consider moving to Hayward, WI, where Mayo doctors escape for the weekend. We will not be building a Byerly's here any time soon. This is a North Woods environment with bears that roust the garbage, wolves that eat unguarded poodles, gulls that grab steaks off the grill, and moose that pop out of the underbrush to stand blandly in front of automobiles, holding up traffice indefinitely. We consider THEM to be our true neighbors, even more so than the "civilized" Hilfiger-clad from the city. The only street lights we need come from the stars.

What these "monied" folks don't realize is that they've moved into an area analagous to Amish country. We've made a conscious choice. We live a simple life and we like it. These McMansion folks feel they're preaching to the Gentiles, but they should save their breath -- no one's listening -- WE LIKE IT THIS WAY! HEL-LO! Take your ostentation somewhere else. WE'RE NOT IMPRESSED! We don't consider you any smarter or more advanced than we are. In fact, we'd like to see you find your way out of the Boundary Waters unassisted. And we have a college-educated population percentile second only to Olmsted County, home of Mayo and IBM. WE CHOOSE THIS WAY OF LIFE! (You'll be surprised to learn you aren't any richer than some of us either!)

Our message is this: dig out your flannel shirt. Buy a compass and a flashlight. And quit yer belly-aching.
This ain't Edina. We left Edina behind and went on to something better: Cook County.

Signed,
Proud to Live Here

Sales tax reprise: county to hire lobbyist!

The Cook County board will spend up to $10,000 on a lobbyist to support the sales tax proposals currently wending their way through the legislature.
The board takes this step after hearing a lot of public criticism, including Yours Truly, against more sales taxes that are hardest on the poor.
Also, it comes after their knee-jerk response to the self-justifications and manufactured facts presented by the so-called Cook County Economic Analysis Council, a self-serving group that represents resort owners and others who consistently pay the lowest wages to their employees, so that they can fund yet MORE PR stuff on their own behalf than they already get from taxpayers. (See previous posts, including "Tourism sales: one-third or 82 percent?" Click on the labels for tourism, taxes, and economy.)
True thinks of forming a Cook County Bullshit Analysis Council, writing a more truthful and fact-checked report about the county's economy and our need to promote NON-tourism jobs, and making as much noise as the ATV and CCEAC folks.
As for the dropping the cap on the hospital levy, True does support this. It is a fair tax and we need our hospital. As for the so-called "infrastructure" tax, True agrees that we need infrastructure improvements in the county, but there are plenty of state and federal and private grant programs that ought to be looked at first. $10K would pay for a powerful lot of grantwriting. Moreover, the proposed improvements in the present version will all go to Grand Marais. West-Enders, a lot of whom didn't like the sales tax idea in the first place, will get shafted.
As for the three-percent recreation tax, the idea here seems to be that only tourists will be paying it. Not so, struggling young families will be paying it so their kids can have some fun.
VOTE NO on the one-percent referendum! But the ordinary citizen apparently won't even get a vote on the three-percent, if it passes the legislature. True calls this TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION! Only the CCEAC is represented, not the vast majority of voters and taxpayers.

Miller, Yevseyeva exhibit opens at JHP May 4th

Above is one of Bev Miller's new paintings to be exhibited at Johnson Heritage Post beginning Friday, May 4th with a 5 p.m. opening. Miller will also show her latest photographs, and promises small paintings, prints and cards for "those who can't afford a few hundred bucks for the large paintings."
Another artist, Yelena Yevseyeva, will be exhibiting paintings as well, and quite a few potters from the Art Colony will have ceramic work to show and sell.
All are cordially invited to attend.

Dance Down Pat this Sat in Hovland!

This Saturday, March 17th, St. Patrick's Day Dance and Dinner:
At the Hovland Town Hall with its great wood dance floor.

Music by a 7-member band will include original Swamp River members:
Jim Miller (guitar/vocals)
Andy Schmidt (guitar/mandolin)
Kim Carlsted-Gillis (vocals/rhythm)

PLUS the addition of :
Amy Baldwin (vocals/squeeze box)
Gavin Danfelt-Martin (bass/harmonica)
Russ Viton (lead guitar)
Joe Peterson (Hovland's own drummer).

$5.00 cover but young children free.

Food for purchase begins at 5:30 pm with music following about 6:30 or
so.