It’s Saturday, so it’s not surprising the Strib is dumping a story critical of John Kline into the mix this morning. What is surprising is that Nasser Kazeminy’s denials of allegations made by Deep Marine’s former CFO was slipped into today’s paper instead of being held for the Sunday edition.  

Then again, a story in which your buddy denies criminal allegations maybe isn’t what Norm Coleman wants to read about in his Sunday paper.

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I don’t travel much, but I travel enough to know that I feel safer in the Twin Cities than I do in Milwaukee, Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Cleveland or Cincinnati. But part of the Republican canon is to whine about our unsafe streets. 

And it’s true, if you run around downtown freaking out everytime you hear language common to urban spaces, I guess maybe urban settings can be a little scary. And scary — to Republicans — means votes. And that’s why every solution Mitch Pearlstein has, is a solution that further dehumanizes and shackles the poor who, by and large, owe their poverty to the policies of people like Mitch Pearlstein.

If the Republican-enabled cycle of American urban poverty were any more perfect, we’d call it Gaza. And, as with Gaza (or as the IDF calls it: the Killing Pens), Pearlstein’s solution is somewhat sketchy. 

[T]he downtown business community [has] voluntarily [taxed] itself an additional $6.5 million to create a Downtown Improvement District, modeled after similar, privately led antinuisance and sprucing-up initiatives in New York and other cities. And there’s a public-private Downtown Minneapolis Safe Zone Collaborative.

Mr. Pearlstein conveniently forgets to explain what either of these things are. And that’s very convenient to Mr. Pearlstein’s arguments about civility because these are authoritarian measures. In some aspects candy assed (better snow removal downtown), but in most regards this is about further coordination of private security downtown. Currently there are 13 private security officers downtown for each and every cop, and these measures are about improved coordination between cops and security companies.

In June of 2005, SafeZone partnered with the City Attorneys office for an expanded prosecution program with the goal of increasing community sense of safety. 

In other words, they’ve been trying to turn downtown into the Mall of America, a tightly controlled quasi-private space that exists for the benefit of shoppers, bar hoppers, tourists, business people and merchants. 

No, you won’t see any admission of that agenda, but you also won’t see any acknowledgment that all these problems (vulgarity?!) could be fixed with more cops. But more cops is a tax thing, and cops won’t always thump someone just because. 

If Pearlstein weren’t up to no good, he would have used his op-ed to push these initiatives. He didn’t. Instead he pushed a largely imaginary problem. Is downtown a little profane? Fuck yes. Given the times, why wouldn’t it be?

And fuck the RoboCop private security initiatives. The cop union should be watching this shit very closely as we all know privatizing never means a pay boost, and there are no private security folks getting cop wages in Minnesota.

PEOPLE WANDERING DOWNTOWN MUTTERING VULGARITIES IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THERE IS NO MEANINGFUL EMPLOYMENT FOR THE LOWER CLASSES. FUCKING THESE PEOPLE OVER FOR BEING POOR IS WHAT REPUBLICANISM IS ALL ABOUT. USING PRIVATE COPS IS CHEAPER AND LESS LEGALLY RESTRICTIVE. 

Fuck this shit, and the horse it rode in on. And never trust anyone who pushes shit by talking about the problem, not their solution.

And a very big FUCK YOU to ANY private security cop who ever tries to say anything to me when I’m standing on a City of Minneapolis sidewalk. Because that’s what this is really about: gradually expanding the powers of private security personnel until they’re making arrests and regulating the movements of people who are on public property.

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Early list today, more posts later as the spirit(s) move me.

chopped sweet radish
galanga
dried black fungus mushrooms
chili paste in soy oil
sweet mangos

Because it wouldn’t be Pad Thai without the radish, Tom Yum without the galanga, and you’ve got to have the chili paste in soy oil to make what passes for ketchup among Indian diners.