Random question—does anyone know of good videos or tutorials for whittling? Or any places locally that teaches stuff like that?
(At the new school, kiddo develops projects and one of the inspirations was to learn to whittle).
This was mail sent as if it was a check—with the edges you bend and tear on perforations, and on the other side (not pictured) is a shaded area where the fake check is that says “original document.” It even has that little line on the top about “document has a colored background, security features listed on back” It just looks like a check for a lot of money with tiny disclaimers about how it’s not a real check.
What stage of “the economy is fine” are we in when Kris Lindahl’s real estate business decides it’s good tactics to send fake checks to people for the value of their homes?
We’ve lived here a very long time and I’ve never seen something quite like this before.
I think that person is a rage bait poster. I blocked them because who has time for that nonsense.
Yeah. It should probably get some kind of allocation if it really is coming out of CLA's budget entirely, but I have no real info on it so to me this just says that the budget problems in CLA are quite bad.
Also--given the pervasive use of generative AI in "writing" these days, creating problems for a dedicated center for writing is a problem.
If someone who is connected to that form follows me, could you put dates on it and link to any documentation of the efforts? I had to confirm that it was about something happening now instead of in some previous budget-cutting year.
I haven't seen anything about this in the news, but it looks like UMN CLA's Center for Writing is seeing dramatic cuts or restructuring, including the student writing support program. There's a petition with what I think are reasonable demands.
I found the 90 year old children of a girl i had a labeled photo of from my grandfather’s childhood photo album. It was very fun.
If you have access to Ancestry, you should see if there’s a public tree for this family by a descendant.
(If not, I’m happy to do a search). I bet they’d love that.
Related to the immigration post—do any of our senators or representatives do anything to help families with relatives getting deported?
There are some specific questions I’d like to ask if any of them are of actual assistance.
I’m probably too Minnesotan to boo if I was there, but she can make amends before feeling owed another elected position or even basic respect.
As we try to figure out how to help someone whose spouse is “self-deporting” after an asylum hearing went south with a horrid immigration “judge” and they still sent him in chains to some US concentration camp first—I think Craig’s cruel votes against immigrants should haunt her forever.
I’ve been banking on selfishness and grandiosity to keep both Alito and Thomas on as long as they can.
It’s so fun to find snippets of personality in print like that.
This man is deeply racist, deeply eugenicist, and there is a great deal of competition in this administration for who is the “worst” — but he is certainly in the upper echelon.
Scoop: Minneapolis Public Schools paid $5.3 million in tax penalties in past four years minnesotareformer.com/2026/04/17/m...
When I was born, I *think* we had four papers (not including the alt weekly or neighborhood ones). I’m too lazy to check, but my parents bought papers from the day I was born and I recently discovered them in a box and I think it was four.
Yeah, and I think that speeches have always shared that history to some extent. What is a bit different now is that we over focus on party “messaging” and not just what happened itself. But without mass expansion of journalism/journalists—that’s where we’ll stay.
My opinion on that is that it’s a bit a function of the lack of beat reporting and a shift to analysis/editorial (which prioritizes PR over news).
I love reading through the old stuff because there was simply too much of it for PR to spin everything. It was not perfect—but the quantity helped.
The RA curse on my mom’s side of the family is even less fun than I imagined. It has led me to pull all those silly council articles though, because I can’t type well enough to write for extended periods—but I can be a nerd in tiny bursts while lying down.
I’ve been on a stupid journey with new meds that were somehow less effective than the old meds that were getting less effective.
Bright side: starting the cursed magic of prednisone today and maybe I will be able to raise my arms above my shoulders and make a fist next week (also new meds coming).
I also think the backlash by monied interests to people like Bender and Hodges led to some of that—and the growing irritation that money couldn’t buy every seat.
The Leach years were also fascinating. Lots of conflict—but also dealing with KKK.
In my own family, the political wrangling in St. Paul in the late 50s lots of things in the Dillon administration dragged out and annoyed people (especially internal politicking that distracted from other issues).
I’m not actually sure why the narrative that things were more sedate in the past is so successfully deployed, but it’s actually pretty entertaining to look at the reality.
If you look at archives (I’ve posted several clips recently), the city council was absolutely not more serious. There was simply more news coverage—whereas now we get far less coverage that has more PR spin on it.
I suppose that may be true for some of them! They also may have forgotten just how much reporting actually used to happen and how rich the archives are.
This is all so stupid. I can’t even believe how silly the former Council presidents are being—especially the older ones, for whom *constant* news coverage (not just editorial, definitely not just PR) was the norm.
Politics are messy. It takes 30 seconds to find mess in digital archives.
Once upon a time the Strib opined that an adversarial relationship between the mayor and council might be good.
(1978–this is not relevant to the overall piece, which was about DeMars changing his mind on a strong mayor system out of frustration with whatever changes they put in place).
DeMars's council leadership comes under fire again
The dismissal of City Coordinator Thomas Thompson has led to renewed calls by Minneapolis aldermen for the removal of Louis DeMars as City Council president. A dissident faction of the nine-member DFL caucus of the city council worked behind the scenes late last year to replace DeMars. But in January, DeMars was reelected council president with six DFL votes and the votes of independents Tom Ogdahl and Dennis Schulstad. But Ogdahl said Tuesday, "I think it's pretty damn crummy when people are making decisions without talking it over with other alder-men. That's not the type of leadership I voted for when I voted for DeMars."
Oh dear, look at this from June ‘76. I can’t stop laughing at how ridiculous this all is.
I thought politics were calm and respectful…
