Feels red to me

One of the most defining features of contemporary journalism is its condescension: the noble desire to explain to its reader–ignorant and unworldly–the complex viewpoints of the world. Nowhere is this more evident than In the Star Tribune’s employment of Karen Tolkkinen to help enlighten sheltered and parochial urban dwellers of the views of “Greater Minnesota.” Tolkkinen’s most recent “Shooting sounds different in rural Minnesota than in the city,” is a perfect encapsulation of this style of writing. Tolkkinen, you see, believes that we city folk just don’t understand real America. Never mind that many of us grew up in such places, never mind that a vast majority of us are quite familiar with rural America. I’m not Minnesotan born, but I was a Boy Scout, so I grew up shooting guns. My Uncle Earl used to sit on his porch in Shreveport, Louisiana with his pistol and shoot the heads off turtles that would poke out of the lake to eat his garden. I’ve been around guns. It sounds the same in rural Louisiana as it does in Midway, where I live. Most of the people I interact with on a daily basis came from rural places or have spent a good portion of their lives there. We do not need Tolkkinen to enlighten us, especially since it is always just so she can reinforce a Republican talking point. She does not have any interest except in the most crass and basic of politics, dressed up in carharts and trucker hat cosplay.

In her article, she tells us how gunfire culture means something different in rural Minnesota. In “the big cities,” we’re to understand that guns mean gang-banging and danger lurking around every corner. And in Outstate Minnesota, guns mean fathers and sons bonding. It’s this sort of kitsch propaganda that doesn’t serve the reader at all, because it presents false cliches as insight. In 2021, 80% of suicides by gun happened in Outstate Minnesota and 67% of all gun deaths that occured in Minnesota occurred from someone taking their own life (from Protect Minnesota’s 2022 report). The sound of gunfire sounds different in Outstate Minnesota because writers like Tolkkinen and the Star Tribune editors are not concerned with shining a light on issues in Minnesota, they’re concerned with partisan political fights and the endless drivel of culture wars. If you were interested in the truth, you would think about the ways in which gun shots in Outstate Minnesota carry just as much violence and threat as they do in Saint Paul or Minneapolis. Even the political fight that Tolkkinen wants to have is the laughable (and I mean laughable) contention that to ban the types of weapons used in mass shootings would “open the door” to more violence such as driving vehicles into crowds. She even invokes the Oklahoma City Bombing to argue against gun control. It’s guns. It has been and always will be the unfettered gun-lust of people so obsessed with violence that the rest of us have to suffer. Do better.

Here's the Letter to the Editor I was worked up enough to write about Karen Tolkkinen's inane article.

Minneapolis City Council member makes expletive-laden attack on Frey, Trump, fascism at Uptown music fest Aisha Chughtai, vice president of the City Council, threw her support behind mayoral candidate Omar Fateh in brief remarks at a community event.

Mpls Council Member does a swear at the mayor & the tone police who refused to condemn a city contractor who attacked a colleague with a homophonic slur + threatened violence are very very offended. They’ll probably vote to give the homophobe city money this week. www.startribune.com/mpls-city-co...

Friends don't let friends do the wave

Nature is awesome

I had one of those on Monday. Riding home at night from playing softball and it was so quiet and gorgeous outside

@mndarkclouds.bsky.social

Minneapolis 2025: An Election More Polluted With Garbage Than Ever » The Wedge Times-Picayune Late last week, MPD Chief Brian O’Hara was quoted in the conservative NY Post for an article whose purpose seemed to be bashing Minneapolis: “Here it’s very, very ideological and a lot of times it’s…

I wrote about my frustrations with the police chief pretending he hasn't been given a blank check. And how we seem to have forgotten that we changed the government structure to draw clear lines of authority from the mayor to almost everything.

Last week on Fox 9, Chief O’Hara claimed that he had been receiving updates on the Davis Moturi case every day for a period of two weeks.

If that’s the case, why did he send an email the day after Moturi was shot asking simply, “Who is this guy?”

Davis Moturi reflects on failed pleas to Minneapolis police that led to him being shot in his own yard It’s been more than five months since Davis Moturi was allegedly shot and wounded by his neighbor in Minneapolis. Moturi, who is Black, says the shooting was preceded by numerous racist and violent th...

Read this Davis Moturi interview & get mad at Jacob Frey & Brian O’Hara again. What a couple of dipwads. I hope this becomes a bigger election issue than it’s been - Frey would be branding it like a cudgel if he was the challenger. www.mprnews.org/story/2025/0...

It fits the weather vibe

At least four Mpls City Council candidates don't live in the wards they're running in!

Adrian Heath level coaching