"A more obviously historic site in Duluth is the Armory" where "Dylan caught Buddy Holly's tour two days before Holly's fatal plane crash."

"Dylan was at the front of the crowd and spoke later of making eye contact with Holly, a moment fans in Duluth think of as a kind of mystical passing of the baton from one rock 'n' roll generation to the next."

From an article about traveling through Bob Dylan's Minnesota.

This post gets my "religion substitutes" tag. That's a pretty creepy example. Why is that worth saying? Poor Buddy Holly died at the age of 22. He was only 5 years older than Dylan. There was no one generation to the next! Buddy Holly only exemplifies the 1950s for us because he didn't make it out alive. But he would have fit in just fine with the 1960s. The Rolling Stones had a hit with "Not Fade Away" in 1964. The Beatles covered "Words of Love":

The Beatles' version was recorded on October 18, 1964. John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who were fans of Holly, harmonized on their version, holding to the vocal and instrumental sound of Holly's original as well as they could. When they had played this song in their early days at the Cavern Club in 1961 and 1962, Lennon and George Harrison were the vocalists. Ringo Starr played a packing case on this song as well as drums, to achieve a similar sound to Holly's "Everyday."

When that recording was made, Holly would have just turned 28. The Beatles — at the height of their popularity — were doing their best to sound like the man who had died 5 years earlier. Even if you are a soft touch for spiritualistic claptrap, the "baton" was Buddy's to keep, and it's nothing but sad that we didn't get to hear what he would have done in the 1960s.

Polar bear flees its zoo pen in Duluth, escaping the flood.

There was some heavy rain up at Lake Superior today.

“Even though it’s a large white object, it’s pretty nerve racking,” police spokesman Jim Hansen said of the chase for Berlin [the polar bear]. Zoo officials said she was tranquilized by the zoo’s vet and placed in quarantine....

Two seals managed to swim out of the zoo but were quickly recaptured just outside. Wolniakowski said no dangerous animals left the zoo grounds and that all have been secured.

Obama's 3-day midwest bus tour — to Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois: Why not Wisconsin?

Is he avoiding us?

With poll numbers falling for both Obama and Congress after a nasty political fight over raising the country's borrowing limit and spending cuts, Americans are in a bad humor...

The president will get a chance to absorb the public's anger and do his best to give optimistic answers as he motors between town hall stops.

In Iowa, Republican candidates for president just squared off for a high-stakes debate and straw poll. The president will also visit Illinois as part of his bus tour, his first since the 2008 campaign.

Obama was unlikely to engage any of his potential Republican rivals by name, aides said, but he's already indicated plans to draw sharp contrasts between his ideas on the economy and the Republican approach, which the president recently dismissed to little more than slashing spending on vital programs like education and Medicare, the program that provides health care for the poor....

The bus tour itinerary takes Obama through three states he won in 2008 but where he now needs to shore up his standing....

Obama made a similar outing last year, traveling the Midwest in a two-day, three-state tour in April 2010 that took him to Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. There was no bus, but the president's motorcade made hours-long drives through rural areas, passing school children waving American flags and seniors sitting on lawn chairs.

I'm going to say he's not avoiding Wisconsin. First, he combined the same 3 states in a trip last year. Second, his trip relates to the GOP candidates for President, which makes Iowa obvious and Minnesota semi-obvious, with 2 Minnesota candidates in the race at the time the trip was planned. And Illinois is his home state. Third, there are 2 recall elections in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I think it's good etiquette not to step into the middle of that. And it might not even help. I remember when he came to Madison in September 2010 and promoted Russ Feingold. Now, Obama has been criticized for not personally participating in the Wisconsin protests. From last March:

President Obama has no current plans to visit Wisconsin despite pledging as a presidential candidate to “walk on that picket line” should workers be denied bargaining rights.

He's kept his distance from the Wisconsin protest crowd. So maybe he is specifically avoiding us on this midwest bus tour, but I think the focus on the presidential campaign and the mirror-image trip last fall explain the omission. Still, I can certainly see why he doesn't want to entangle himself in the Wisconsin mess. Scott Walker is not his current opponent, his connections to the public unions is best played down, and there's too much extremism and anger around here.

Still, at some point, he's going to need us.

ADDED: John Nichols criticizes Obama from the left for his failure to come to Wisconsin.

"You can't spell FAILED without DFL!"

Tweeted by a Republican legislator in Minnesota, which is shutting down right now, after a breakdown in talks between Republican legislators and the DFL Governor Mark Dayton.

DFL? It's the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, which is what you call the Democratic Party in Minnesota. Have you ever noticed?

"The nation's first federally funded bicycle 'freeway.'"

"The last mile, through downtown [Minneapolis], was ready May 23 and was by far the most expensive leg at $9 million, more than five times the cost of the first 3 1/2 miles."

Sounds lovely, but why does the federal government fund municipal improvements like this?

"The last extension was pricey, with retaining walls [and] private property owners, and it was full of political hurdles, but I think the city's very proud of it, and I know we've saved lives," said David Klopp of the CLPA. "I don't think it's safe to put cars, trucks and bicycles on the same road."...

Charlotte Zelle, 19, of Minneapolis, pedaled to the ceremony with her father, and said of the trail: "I think it's beautiful, and I don't feel endangered by cars."

So... you'd like us to bike, but you're sending the message that it's not safe to bike along with cars and trucks. How are we supposed to get to the trail or use it to commute or see the city? Either we can ride with motorized traffic or we can't.

That said, I love bike trails, and I'm a frequent user of Madison trails that have received plenty of federal funding.

The new gay is: Minneapolis!

The Daily Show - Minneapolis Is the New Gay
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

"Felons Voting Illegally May Have Put Franken Over the Top in Minnesota, Study Finds."

At least 341 convicted felons voted, illegally, in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Franken won by 312 votes.

So... at what rate do convicted felons go Democratic... in predominantly Democratic twin cities?

"It is really good to be here in the land of 10,000 lakes with patriots who love their county... some of you are proudly clinging to your guns and religion."

Sarah Palin pumps up Minnesota: "Minnesota, you are awesome. You just rock."

Talk about an "arrogant bastard"!

Is it Bob Dylan... or Graeme Wood?

Wood quotes every jackass he can find in Hibbing, Minnesota and never even considers the theory that Dylan sings not like the townsfolk he heard talk but the singers he heard sing.

"An act of adultery between the defendant and the spouse of the plaintiff..."

"... when the defendant knew or should have known that the plaintiff’s spouse was married shall constitute proof of intentional interference with the plaintiff’s marriage. Damages awarded pursuant to this statute shall not exceed $500,000. This action shall be instituted within two years of the discovery of the adultery."

Maggie Gallagher is inspired by this proposed statute (from Minnesota, oddly enough). But what she really wants is not that you should be able to extract half a million dollars from the person who seduced your husband/wife. She wants a cause of action against websites that facilitate adultery.

After all that...

... Danforth loses.

Click the "Danforth" tag to see how excited I was about Danforth.

"Nearly every 'fix' has gone for Mr. Franken, in some cases under strange circumstances."

Do you think the Democratic Party is stealing the Minnesota senatorial election for Al Franken? Whether it is or not, if he winds up winning now, it's going to look like he did.

Here's a hypothetical, which we'll call Hypothetical A:

1. The Party knows the votes are not there and intends to steal an election during the recount.

2. As the recount progresses, the public strongly suspects the election is being stolen.

3. The Party realizes that if the candidate wins, the public will think the election was stolen.

Question: Should the Party abandon the plan to steal the election?

My first thought was: Yes, because it will hurt the Party's reputation and leave the "elected" official under a cloud. But then I thought:

Consider Hypothetical B: There is no plan to steal the election, there is a recount, and the truth is there are enough votes that the Party's candidate has won. Of course, the Party would go through with the recount, and the candidate would accept his position, and the Party and the candidate would deal with the accusations and damage to their reputation as well as they could.

Now, if we accept that Hypothetical B is true, what does that say about Hypothetical A? The 2 scenarios look the same to the general public. The evil election stealers of Hypothetical A should continue and act just like the unfairly maligned characters in Hypothetical B.

AND: A poll:

Should the Democratic Party make Al Franken win, whether the votes are there or not?
	Yes, because they can and any criticism can be weathered.
	Yes, for some other reason.
	No, because it will hurt them politically, in the short or long term.
	No, because it would be wrong.
pollcode.com free polls

Did Al Franken win?

We still don't know. The erstwhile funnyman faces a recount. And it doesn't look like he'll be smiling that enormous Joker-smile in the end. 99% of the precincts are counted, and Coleman has a 800 vote edge.

Code Pink!

One more photograph from the Republican convention in St. Paul, found through a Flickr search. This one is from !!WaynePhotoGuy, who has all rights reserved, but emailed me permission to blog it here.

Pictures of protest and patriotism at the RNC in St. Paul.

By Treviño -- found thru a search on Flickr.








AND: One more:

"How do I manage this, a weekend -- during the GOP convention -- with a Euro social democrat and Karl Popper's son? Avoidance? Giant underpants?"

Pogo has a political/etiquette question:

This weekend I will be hosting two couples. One is very far left, the other libertarian right. Me? Conservative, former lefty.

On the phone to the lefty last night the husband remarked about the DNC (we were not talking politics but food): "I hope someone in Minneapolis gets Bush and Cheney and strings them up."

My resonse was a silent "WTF?" I said. Uh ...yeah. Aannnnnyway, I'll bring the wine.

So my question, a serious one: How do I manage this, a weekend -- during the GOP convention- with a Euro social democrat and Karl Popper's son? Avoidance? Giant underpants? Drunkenness?

Bill Buckley was famous for getting along with ideological opposites. But it seems people are far more polarized and angry than in the past. I dunno. Maybe I shouldn't show up at all.

I'd go meta. Say you asked this very question on a somewhat popular blog, and it was what everyone was talking about last Thursday, and here are some of the cool things they said.

Al Franken says "Wisconsin sucks."

Al Franken is a comedian running for Senator in Minnesota, where insulting Wisconsin is considered hilarious.

Mitt Romney says he'd be "honored" to serve as Vice President to John McCain.

McCain has got to pick a governor, don't you think? This presidential race has been way too senatorial.

Or has the presidential sheen of governors suddenly worn thin this week?

Let's say what we really want right now is an incredibly clean governor. Perhaps the very quality that made Mitt Romney seem oddly unhuman to people a couple months ago will seem cozily reassuring now.

IN THE COMMENTS: This isn't about Romney, but it's an important angle on the choice of governors that I think a lot of people won't understand:

John N. said...
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Young (47) effective governor of a blue state. Good campaigner, has been elected statewide twice. Can help McCain carry critical midwestern states, including Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and can help in states like Colorado and Ohio too.

MadisonMan said...
I don't see how a Minnesotan helps someone carry Wisconsin or Iowa.

Original Mike said...
Pawlenty ... Can help McCain carry critical midwestern states, including Wisconsin

Vote for a gopher? No way!

"The Tobacco Monologues."

The new Minnesota smoking ban has an exception for actors in theatrical performances, but who is an actor and what is a theatrical performance? Aren't we all really actors in some sense, and when you go to a bar, are you not playing some sort of role? Minnesotans are working the loophole and, along the way, saying something about the line between life and art.

At The Rock [a hard-rock and heavy-metal bar in suburban St. Paul] earlier this week, a black stage curtain covered part of the entrance, and a sign next to it with an arrow read, "Stage Entrance." Along the opposite wall, below a sign saying "Props Dept.," was a stack of the only props needed: black ashtrays.

At the door was a printed playbill for that night's program, with a list of names of the people portraying bartenders and security guards. Playing the owner: "Brian."

Courtney Conk paid $1 for a button that said "Act Now" and pinned it to her shirt. That made her an actor for the night, entitling her to smoke. She turned in an understated, minimalist performance, sitting with cigarette in hand and talking to a bass player with the band....

At Barnacles Resort and Campground along Lake Mille Lacs, a "traveling tobacco troupe" dressed in medieval costume on the first theater night. Mark Benjamin, a lawyer who pushed bars to exploit the loophole, wore tights, a feathered cap and black boots.

"Hey, I'm a child of the '60s. I can do a little improv," he said. His improv amounted to speaking in medieval character to other patrons....

One bar on northern Minnesota's Iron Range, the Queen City Sports Place, calls its nightly smokefest "The Tobacco Monologues."

Eric Clapton's autobiography.

I've been listening to the audiobook of Eric Clapton's autobiography. It's my current "walking around" book — as I take my walks. I'm enjoying the book, especially the deadpan retelling of horrible dissolution brought on by drugs and drink. I was listening last night as I walked over to the Barnes & Noble on Court Street.

(I wanted to buy Norman Mailer's "Advertisements for Myself." Sadly enough, they didn't seem to have a single book by Norman Mailer in the store, here in this neighborhood where Norman Mailer lived for many years. You'd think they would have had a huge display table, with all of his books, just at the entrance of the store. But I looked everywhere I could think, including alphabetically on the fiction shelves, where there was nothing)

It's not a long walk, but I heard Clapton's descriptions of the following:

1. Getting up in the middle of the night on Christmas and opening his presents alone — as a grown, married man, then hiding in the basement. Pattie Boyd had to try to salvage the family Christmas by locking him in a room for the day.

2. Driving home at night after getting drunk in a bar, he would stop and pick up homeless men and bring them to his mansion. He wanted to hang out with them, because he thought they were more real than other people, even though most of them talked utter madness.

3. He thought about suicide, but what stopped him was the realization that if he were dead, he would not be able to drink.

4. Until he went to a rehab clinic in Minnesota, he didn't realize that alcoholism could be considered a disease. He had always considered it degeneracy and resisted thinking of himself that way (even though he was drinking bottles of vodka or brandy a day and going to great lengths to hide it).