News & Articles

I recently wrote, for a purpose, words likely insulting to a location up the North Shore. Preferring full incendiary, I somehow held back from full scorched earth, doing so in part recognizing the ills of my oversimplified approach. Why oversimplify? I’d say mostly due to the bigger picture being too unwieldy for a short article. But, it bothers me and so I offer a partial restatement of some points.

The War of 1812 wasn’t the cause of Big Mary and the French speaking Acadian-Arcadians departing our area. That began earlier with the French and Indian (British sponsored) War, Revolutionary War, and then Louisiana Purchase of 1803-04. French influence/control along the St. Lawrence, Great Lakes and Mississippi phased out slowly. The large gal and family didn’t fly out all at once. It took decades, leaving independent French speaking traders along the border into recent times, and a lingering French island on the Atlantic. It was misleading and incorrect for me to credit the War of 1812 and decades later Webster Ashburton settling the border. But it is correct to say fur trade traders switched to the Kam River route to avoid US taxation shortly after 1812. Thunder Bay (Fort William and Port Arthur) rose and Grand Portage declined. That sums it up.

From my side now, if the Tri Marais (one Michigan – two Minnesota) wish to claim standing as harborage or areas of preponderant calm, I say let them do so. Why not? Maybe they are well suited for such, or as spaceports. Why not? If I can blither about Iron Range Pyramids others can cast fantasy shadows as well. Free country and all that.

More to my point, however, is knowing MN Pyramids is a fantasy and promoting ports and spas as real past events are two different things. I hope I know the difference, but also recognize the vast puzzling spaces such as the uneven departure of French influence in our area, except for Duluth and Cloquet remaining French. (I’d guess Nicolet named the river that became the town name, but I’ll not wager that. 

From what I see, the Cloquet River is a tricky one. I’m not at all sure if the Cloquet River north of Silver Bay on the shore would have the same native name as the other.) (For fun try saying Bong Bridge as if you were the Inspector known as Panther Pink.)

Many things are difficult to know. Certainty is difficult and often transitory, like inflation or day. Is overcast still day? What follows are a few contemporary con noodling conundrummers.

If you were a South-Central American nation with citizens sending U.S. currency home would you want to stop that?

What’s the moral difference between a criminal not caught and caught?

A genocide should see a population decrease of disappear rather than persist and increase.

A historic reason for recognizing ethnic and race groups is to identify and locate them for later dispersal.

I heard a proud visitor to the VP section of White House say it was in their DNA to open drawers and etc. I thought that was bad manners, so I stand biologically corrected.

A guy was hoarse climbing on a horse after visiting some whores.

Before going to save someone it would be nice if I wanted to.

For years I quipped the difference between reformed and radical cannibals was that both only ate dead folk. But now that some cadaver bone has gone into me the joke feels questionable.

Is it possible, as some keep trying, to spend your way to accomplishment?

I wonder at the possibility of saving national democracy when our government is an elected representative republic.

V. Putin was and remains an entrenched communist.

If, I ask rhetorically, your ancestry is from European nations that had no slaves (other than its own peasantry) should you be exempted from a reparations tax?

Hate to be so cynical, but some people’s good intentions, moral solutions or grand ideas call on the pocketbooks of others for solution.

More than once I’ve been slickered, tricked, cheated or etc. by people happy to outsmart me. But I’d still rather be me than them.

Been said before; new morality sounds a lot like the old immorality.

As a canoe guide I had many spend much of their week talking about what was going on back in (as example only) Peoria. I suppose they then talked about the wilderness when no longer there. Why’s it often so difficult to be where we’re at when we’re there?

The worst stink is supposed to be a dead skunk nailed to a swollen corpse. I’ll take their word for it.

Whether its religion trying to create the Devoted Believer or politics seeking to build the New Man (Homo Sovieticus) the problem is much the same. Too many imperfect humans stand in the way, causing problems, impeding progress.

Not that we caused this, but consider a moment how Minnesota holds the very top of the Mississippi, a world-class river that divides the nation. I think the fact deserves more appreciation than we give it.

Ah, college or university. I was drawn in that direction because I wasn’t good for much else. Not that admission was a sure thing, not for a boy smack in the middle rank of his graduating class. Two things accounted for much academic lackluster; laziness and/or stubbornness. I read constantly, but not assigned work (flatly refused to consider Ivanhoe). 

As graduation closed in, I applied to highly ranked schools needing a good laugh. Unknown to me, however, a counselor sent a letter on my behalf: “Try him. He might make it.” 

I had no notion why the U of M sent me acceptance, but that was the sole fish on my stringer, so I took it. The counselor was dead before I learned his part. Never got to thank him for a future and a good tale.

Many among us seem unclear on the distinction between biology and behavior. I’m inclined not to trust them as best authorities.

Homelessness and immigration have become public-run businesses.