HometownSource Blogs

As my wife and I watched the Saints celebrate their victory over the Vikings, I said to her, “There is no way he retires on the play.”

But before I could formulate a foundation for my argument, she summed it all up.

“Maybe he is destined to go out that way.”

Brett Favre’s final throw as a Packer was an interception which led to the Green and Gold’s playoff demise in the 2008 NFC Championship game against the New York Giants.

Two years later, on Sunday, he ended what could have been the Vikings’ game-winning drive with an interception. The Saints went on to win the game in OT.

So, for all of his accomplishments and all of his records, could it be fitting that Favre’s career ends on an interception?

Favre is no doubt a hero to many, but not all heros deserve a happy ending.  Especially heros that earned their reputation as a gunslinger.

I still stand by my preseason pick of the Philadelphia Eagles winning the Super Bowl over the New England Patriots.

But the rest of the playoff picture is not what I had envisioned.

NFC

Expect Cardinals to embarrass Packers

The easy, breezy NFC North schedule helped the Green Bay Packers “earn” an 11-5 record this season, setting up a first round game against the best in the West, the Arizona Cardinals.

Week 17 will prove to be a hilarious tease for cheeseheads, as the Cardinals threw the game in order to completely disguise the schemes they have been planning since Week 16. I expect Aaron Rodgers to be on his backside all day, throw 3 INTs and just flat out look bad in his first ever playoff game at QB for the once-heralded Packers. Read more »

Testing their hacker skills against each other, 15 of the nation’s top non-domestic terrorist techies faced off in a battle for government jobs.

And arguably the most important government jobs — security.

Cyber-security has been a growing concern for nations all across the globe, with fears of a cyber-terrorist attack growing exponentially with the development of new technologies.

In this CNN story detailing the hacker conference, it specifically makes the point that our defense against new-age terrorists will likely be in the hands of teens or early 20s Americans.  They note that fact is nothing new, as the average age of a controlperson for the Apollo 17 mission was 26.

Once the stuff of fictional movies, we’re realizing the prognosticating abilities of talented, yet unknown writers, artists and futurists like Sophia Stewart, the ALLEGED mind behind the Matrix trilogy and the Terminator films.

Christmas is my favorite holiday (Halloween is a close second because of the horror movies of the same name).

But, for me, it is not a faith-based holiday.

In fact, the date of Jesus’ birth has been concluded by some scholars to be in the spring, based on biblical references to shepherds watching over their flock day and night.

But that is besides my point, which is that I find myself, as an agnostic, easily offended when people use the holiday to promote Christian values over those of other faiths.  There is almost an air of superiority that exists when people of faith talk about the holiday and the moral lessons it provides.

I imagine it is very difficult for a person of faith to temper his/her moral superiority complex, but it’s just as difficult for a non-believer to temper his/her inclination to adopt an intellectual superiority complex.

I will keep my complex in check if you will do the same with yours this holiday season.  I will also spend money on non-essential goods to boost the economy.

A discussion with coworkers today reminded me of something I, as a 26-year-old, have never experienced, but desperately want to — a technology gap.

There is no reason why, other than having a boring subject matter to talk to my grandkids about some day.

While the older generations remember things such as color TV (or just plain ol TV), CD players, computers, cell phones and the Internet being a huge deal, I’ve got nothing.  There has been no known breakthrough invention of my generation (although the iPod was clearly a big deal).

Someday, I want to tell my kids, “You know when I was your age, I had to use email.”

Napolean once famously said, “I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets.”

As a journalist, I don’t prey on that fear, but I do embrace it as a reputation.  We are ethically bound to uphold the public’s interests by putting facts on display, and letting each individual form their own opinion.  You have to have an ego to be a great journalist.  You have to think that what you do is important to enjoy your job.

I love my job, and I strive to be a great journalist.

Understanding that my career is only five years young (I just turned 26), I have been following closely the ironically-front page news about my industry’s inevitable demise with critical attention.  While some prognosticators argue that print journalism is a dying breed, I argue that it will always remain the elder statesmen of an immortal tribe, welcoming new members to its circle as the years go on (online journalism, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and who knows what else the universe has in store – can you say holographic press releases!?)

That brings me to a recommendation for a good read on the topic — “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” by Leonard Downie, Jr. and Michael Schudson.  Downie is a former exec for the Washington Post, while Schudson is a sociologist who studies the history and future of journalism.

It’s a lengthy report, but if interested, it is well worth your reading time.

Everytime some famous sleezeball cheats on his wife, it allows women to find ways to chip away at a truly loving husband’s diamond-encrusted faithfulness.

I’m soooooo sick of it.

When I got married this past August, I willingly passed on a buffet-style sex life (OK, we could argue about how robust said buffet was, but really what would it accomplish?) knowing that I had found the one person I wanted to dedicate myself to.

So when news broke that the infallible Tiger Woods cheated on his wife, it reminded me why feminism exists (I know guys, women cheat too), and again piqued my interest in an extraordinary question people ask when this sort of news does break:

Would you leave your spouse if he/she cheated on you?

The answers I got to that question were staggering.  Please read on… Read more »

Jesse Venutra is one of those individuals who people just don’t, and likely never will, understand.

Why?  Because they don’t want to.

Ventura was on ESPN radio with Colin Cowherd this afternoon, as one of those guests that needs no reason for attendance (although he apparently has a new TV show coming out detaling his many conspiracy theories from an insiders perspective).  He is a ratings machine.  He is an expert on nothing more than issuing his own opinion, and in my book, that is a worthy specialty.

If you have some time on your hands, I suggest looking up some of The Body’s most memorable rants and raves on issues like the Twin Towers collapse on 9/11 and torture as used by the U.S. government (”you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour…”, hilarious!).

In many ways, I could argue that Jesse is my hero.

It’s a bird… It’s a plane… It’s…. another pathetic reality TV show couple.

I was home sick last week with a nasty virus that had me so fatigued that I couldn’t even lift the remote control.  Literally.  If I could have, I would have turned CNN off and not had to sicken my brain with useless balloon boy information.

I was watching the three hours of live coverage thinking, what’s the big deal?  OK, so maybe a boy floated away in a balloon.  That sucks, but the sad reality is that it’s just one boy, and his dad shouldn’t have allowed unsupervised access to his grown up meteorological toys.  Then the balloon lands and it was reported he wasn’t in the balloon.  Did he fall out?  I hope not, but if he did, I’m not going to lose sleep over it (honesty can be distasteful).  Then the search begins for the missing boy who, as reported, could not have fallen out of the balloon.  At that point, I was almost as sick of the boy as I was actually sick (and my toilet can tell you of that B-level horror story), but I still cared more about Calie Anthony in the realm of little kids and mysterious disappearances.

But then Larry King came on and Wolf Blitzer was interviewing the reality TV star parents of the now located, perfectly healthy and annoyingly adorable balloon boy.  The boy was asked by the father if he heard his parents calling for him, desperately trying to locate the child that hours earlier could have been fatefully floating to his death.  The boy answers his father, “Um hum,” with a voice inflection that an adult would use to imply, “What a dumb question.”  The father looks up at the boys mother (who we would later find out he happened to meet in acting school) and she looks back with an oddly familiar parental pattern on her face that suggests, “I can’t believe my six year old just said that.”  But the boy didn’t swear, he didn’t say something that sounded dirty, so “What the heck was that look!?!?” I asked myself. Read more »

I am going on record as saying that the Minnesota Vikings will win two games this year because of Brett Favre. And they might get a new stadium.
That is to say, they will win two more games than they would otherwise.

Granted, he might contribute or be the cause of three or four losses — throwing a key interception late in the fourth or three interceptions in the first half of a game which takes AP out of the equation in the second half — but he could be 50 years old and still be worth at least one win on his own.

I grew up in Appleton, Wis. (25 miles south of Green Bay), and slowly learned to hate the Packers which evolved into a hatred for the face of the franchise.  On the 9 o’clock news in Green Bay, this is how they open up:

“Tonight, a school bus filled with elementary students rolled over on I-94, killing 15 kids and injuring 20 more… but first… Brett Favre’s status for Sunday’s game is unknown as #4 has been sidelined from practice this week with a sore thumb.” Read more »

In full disclosure, I’m a dog lover. So much so that my fiancèe, Jenny, and I refer to our dogs as our kids.

We treat them as such – giving them unconditional love and attention while still scolding them in our own gentle way when they need to be taught a lesson.

In fact, the proud parents that we are, we can often be found at Wilson Dog Park, nestled on the east shoreline of the Mississippi River in St. Cloud. There we can be seen showing off Bailie’s (our German Shepherd/ Rotweiller) leaping abilities with a Frisbee or Jersey’s (our Chocolate Lab) knack for sniffing out a dead fish and rolling around in it until she’s covered in carp.

To further display my bias on this issue, I should mention that Jenny and I met at Wilson Dog Park more than two years ago. We’ve always given credit to Bailie (originally my puppy) and Jersey (originally Jenny’s pup) for the dog park romance that followed. The dogs were even part of the proposal. One day this past January, they were playing in a snow-covered dog park when I called Jersey over to perform the latest trick I had taught her. I pointed at a spot on the ground and said “Jenny watch this,” turning to Jersey and commanding “Dig, dig, dig!” Jersey pulled off the perfect trick, shoveling snow away to reveal a mysterious box that I had buried beneath the surface. I got down on one knee and … yada yada yada … you know the rest…. she said “yes” and we’re getting married next month.

That said, I guess I have the area’s dog unfriendliness to thank for my upcoming nuptials. Read more »

When I accepted a job at the Record right out of college in 2007, my family asked me, “What’s the economy like in Little Falls?”

New to town, I didn’t know that answer, so I asked my editor at the time, Joyce Moran.

“The boatworks are Little Falls,” she said.

I think I, like many others, took that statement for granted, never really thinking about what it means. But now, as reality sets in, we’re going to have to understand it.

Genmar Holdings, Inc. – with one of its five manufacturing headquarters in Little Falls (Larson, Glastron and Seaswirl) – announced last week that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

And now, Genmar founder and CEO Irwin Jacobs is hoping to rally his industry together, calling upon the federal government to see the necessity of providing financial support to the boating industry in the same fashion it did with the automotive industry. Read more »

Some parents out there might be familiar with the sting of having a door slammed in your face by an angry child who refuses to talk to you.

I remember being there once, running to my room after a fight with my dad and closing and locking the door behind me, just in time to avoid my mother’s inquiring mind.

But, inquiring minds persist, and eventually I told her everything and felt better about being open and honest. And she was informed, able to help me cope with problems and move forward.

For a moment, let’s use that scenario as an analogy for closed door meetings held by local governmental bodies. Read more »

*The following opinion ran in the Morrison County Record’s March 8, 2009 issue

I’m white, I’m 25, I’m male (both physiologically and psychologically), I’m straight, I’m quite liberal-minded and I’m an agnostic.

Whoa, what a relief. It feels good to get that off my chest so the product of this opinion can be transparently judged. Oh, who am I kidding, it won’t be. I probably made it worse for myself because now the opinions set forth will be considered part of a “secular agenda.”

Anyway, two weeks ago, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that when it comes to talking about issues of race, we are “essentially, a nation of cowards.” As I understand it – from public criticism, letters to the editor and radio show call-ins – Americans didn’t like Holder’s take on things. Specifically, rural Americans did not like his commentary.

Then you probably won’t like mine.

In my opinion, Holder was both too harsh and far too lenient. The word “coward” has obvious, negative connotations that cannot and should not be applied to the majority of Americans. However, on the flip side, his scope was limited and failed to address the real issue. Holder was focusing solely on issues of race during his speech and ignored other table talk issues of my generation which are still being held hostage, by some, as taboo topics. Race, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, gender identity, political views, philosophy, both physical and mental health and sexual orientation – these and more are all diversity issues. The diversity in politics alone is taken for granted.

A black Republican used to be considered an oxymoron, but now the RNC’s new chairman, Michael Steele, is an African-American. A pro-life Democrat is tough for some to grasp, even though local state Rep. Al Doty, DFL-Royalton, IS pro-life. A gay Republican is, again, considered an oxymoron, even though Morrison County has one in state Sen. Paul Koering, R-Fort Ripley.

Heck, there is probably an 80-year-old man who dresses like a woman, votes as a party-line Republican, practices Scientology with his life partner Bob and works at an abortion clinic.

You can take issue with any one, two or three qualities of that man’s life, but don’t judge him by them.

How did we become so diversiphobic (OK, so I made the word up, but you can infer its meaning)?

It’s the complexity of diversity issues that baffles Americans into conversational submission. Rush Limbaugh said it best (I fully intend on never using those words, without severe sarcasm, again), “People are scared to death to talk about….”

Now, Rush isn’t a shining example of how to talk about diversity, because his incendiary rhetoric does not contribute to conversation; its commercial purposes don’t advocate civil discourse. But too many people get over-offended by Rush’s comments (though some can’t be defended), and end the conversation.

Explain to me how we will effectively change the minds of our philosophical opponents by immediately running to the “I’m offended” position.

In writing this, I unfairly assume that my religious status as a non-believer will cloud the argument that there is a need to more openly discuss our nation’s diversity. But if it does, it would prove my point.

If I failed to discuss openly my diversity, I would be contributing to what I perceive to be a problem. Maybe you think there isn’t a problem, that we talk about diversity too much. I know it’s not something that comes up in everyday conversation, but just don’t fall back on the “Why should I care if that doesn’t affect me.”

The complexity of diversity issues isn’t shrinking, and as it grows, it only becomes harder to fully comprehend. So let’s start better understanding it now.

In surveying a classroom full of high school students this past election cycle, a vast majority identified themselves as liberals. In talking with them, they said they couldn’t discuss politics with their parents because they didn’t think alike.

Sad.

The ability, and more importantly the willingness, to effectively discuss diversity issues is what makes this country great.

So let’s do our part. Let’s talk.

“The idea that we can’t afford attention to history is ridiculous and terribly shortsighted.”
— Elmer Andersen, former Republican governor of Minnesota and founder of the Morrison County Record’s parent company, ECM Publishers.

Back in 2003, Minnesota was faced with a $4.2 billion deficit. In looking for ways to save money, the state targeted history. The Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) budget was cut by $4.2 million, forcing MHS Director Nina Archabal to cut the hours of 240 workers, reduce hours at history museums and consider closing the doors to the Hill House in St. Paul and the Oliver Kelley Farm in Elk River.

In the end, the sites remained open, but valuable resources were lost.

Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock recently, you know that a similar scenario is playing itself out at the state capitol this year, with a proposed 15 percent cut in state appropriations to the MHS threatening the very existence of the Charles A. Lindbergh Historic Site in Little Falls. Read more »