Jason DeRusha asks if this weekend’s citizen journalist effort is adding any value. He specifically mentions MnIndy and The Uptake. Good — and civil! — discussion in the comments.

Related to Jason’s question, MnIndy and The Uptake both have longer-form pieces up today addressing yesterday’s events. (Note that most of yesterday’s coverage was live, on-the-spot type stuff.) David Brauer’s got them all in today’s RNC-themed Daily Glean. Follow all of his links.

Glenn Greenwald has a long and oft-updated piece at Salon, focusing largely, but not entirely, on the arrest of Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!. And he has this to say on the Saint Paul PD’s press conference:

Interestingly, all of the standard journalists asked very police-sympathetic questions (”how much property damage was done? were all the criminals part of this same RNC Welcoming Group? How many police officers were injured (answer: none)), while all of the independent journalists — such as those from the superb, intrepid site, The Uptake — asked challenging and skeptical (i.e., real) questions.

Your favorite extra-N US Congresswoman and mine, Michelle Bachmann, has been doing a lot of talking about energy in the past few months. “Two dollar gasoline!” she shrieks, “Babies as cheap food!” Yes, Mrs. Bachmannn, very good. Too bad it’s all total bunk. And even if it wasn’t, too bad you’re aiming in the opposite direction from the rest of the world. Gasoline? Seriously? Welcome to 1900, Mrs. Bachmannnn.

But, even besides returning to the womb of gasoline, she’s started pushing for nuclear energy. Nuclear energy! Honestly.

True, nuclear power produces no harmful emissions (only steam), it does produce mountains of what is known as “nuclear waste.” This waste is not like C02 emissions, where it’s plausible to excuse humans of generations past by saying “How were they to know?” No, it is very much known how dangerous nuclear waste is. Disagree? Ok! Let’s put the nuclear waste in your back yard.

So, when Michelle Bachmannnnn asks us to support nuclear energy in Minnesota (even though a nuclear plant hasn’t been built in the US since the 70s), you can imagine I’d be a little skeptical. MnIndy has my back, yo:

While pro-nuke evangelists like Bachmann preach that nuclear power can stand on its own without subsidies, they conveniently fail to mention the Price-Anderson Act, which limits the U.S. nuclear industry’s liability in the event of an accident to a total of about $10.5 billion. After that, the taxpayers pick up the tab—and that could conservatively run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Estimates of the value of the Price-Anderson subsidy to the industry vary widely, from $237 million to $3.5 billion annually. However, it’s clear that the subsidy insulates the industry from much of its risk and unfairly distorts nuclear power’s competitiveness in the energy marketplace.

I am not going to get into the hundreds of billions of reasons why I am uncomfortable with nuclear power. But I’m also not going to sit here and complain like a commonplace hippie without suggesting something better. Something better we can do here in Minnesota.

Geothermal? Not only can we do it, they’re already doing it in Iowa. At my cousin’s middle school, in fact. Iowa! The backwards, backwater-bumpkin of the Mid West. Ethanol? Well, ok. Corn is a horrible energy-sucker when it comes to making ethanol (and we have a huge ethanol corn growers lobby). But there are all sorts of grasses we can grow that will produce way more energy right here in Minnesota. Feel free to add your own source to the list. There are many more.

But wait! Don’t we live in Minnesota? Aren’t we supposed to be one of the most innovative states in the country, and therefore in the world? Our governor has been a spectacular leader on the alternative energy front (and I’m not too concerned about digging about to figure out why–who cares!). I think his established leadership on the subject could produce discoveries and innovations that would render nuclear waste obsolete. No: not only could it, it should.

What do you think?

A man up nort’ der was (allegedly) drunk driving, speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road, and nearly hit a cop car. And OH OH OH: HE WAS TEXTING TOO!

Y’know, I was skeptical that this law was going to bring the Criminal Texting Syndicate down, but now I’m not so sure. I am really glad we have this law to keep us safe.

Who could have guessed Kanye West was headed for a media storm and a major melt down? 

Steve Marsh, that’s who: ’At the end of Kanye West’s Glow in the Dark concert at Target Center last night; after Kanye’s spaceship triumphantly returned to earth (yeah, literally); after he did all the hits and publicly eulogized his mother; after he brought out Lupe Fiasco to duet on a searing version of “Touch the Sky”; after the greatest arena rap concert that’s ever been performed; the crowd was treated to a bizarre encore: From the lip of the stage, in front of his orchestra pit, Kanye went on a stunning, nearly twenty-minute rant against the media. ‘He told his 10,000 fans that after witnessing what they had just witnessed, go out and read the reviews, and watch the coverage, and be skeptical of the haters’

And, yowzer, Kanye is doing his best to have haters.

Though, there’s no hate from Marsh who made a tear well up in my eye with ‘ I’m going to tell you what we all saw, objectively, to the best of my abilities:  We just saw a Great American’

Ofcourse, in Minnesota Kanye’s spaceship landed on time.  

Flashing Lights

Which Minnesota concert was your biggest letdown and which was your biggest inspiration?

 Come on, you can tell me.

Dear readers,

Today marks… well, not quite a year, but something yearish about the amount of time I’ve been writing for Metroblogging.

This site has given me a chance to develop my writing, irritate readers, and wolf down a variety of delicious and not-so-delicious items in the interest of expanding the public’s dining knowledge.

But now, for better or worse, City Pages has decided to unleash me on their cheap eats beat and yet-to-be-launched dining blog. This promises to be an all-consuming thing, and I’m therefore — with a heavy heart — hanging up my Metroblogging lanyard.

First and foremost, thanks to Erica for recruiting me, and giving me this ongoing opportunity to post sometimes poorly conceived and rambling missives about food. It’s been a lot of fun working with you.

And to my readers, and the rest of Metroblogging team: Thanks a million. I’m looking forward to following the ongoing Metroblogging action as a spectator and wry-but-sympathetic sideline commentator.

Best Regards,

Jim

Were I to start a punk band, and were that band to record a track entitled “Geriatric Fuck Riot,” we’d shoot our video in Heidi’s at 8pm on Thursday night. The damned place was swamped — swarmed, really — with agitated well-heeled fifty-somethings practically moshing in the restaurant’s miserably conceived lounge / dining room / waiting area / changing room / flaming mess. Bodies were packed ass-to-ass, making the first two tables miserably besieged little islands of food service swimming in agitated patrons waiting to be seated.
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It’s been a while since my last post, but the holiday season has taken its toll. Eggnog. Cranberry-infused vodka. Redeye. Nine or ten different kinds of Christmas cookies, including spritz (plain), spritz (colored), gingerbread (frosted), gingerbread (unfrosted), fruitcake cookies, rumballs, tuile cookies… oy… I’m starting to have calorically damaging flashbacks just enumerating the richness of the 2007/2008 holiday season. So, on with the reviewing.

Be’Wiched

Where does a dude get a decent sandwich around here? I’d maintain that the corned beef at Fishman’s glatt kosher deli will do in a pinch, even if it doesn’t quite reach the tender and flavorful heights of what they’re serving up in Brooklyn (New York) or Brookline (Massachusetts.) And The Brothers deli in the Skyway has some good stuff going on. But there hasn’t really been a definitive answer.
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I responded to a recent comment on my Red Stag post with a rather testy and defensive reply affirming my God-given right to tee off on the service of a newly-opened restaurant.

Upon further consideration, I was neither sufficiently testy nor defensive enough. If a restaurant opened with half-finished walls and paint rollers strewn around the aisles, or poorly executed food, or a policy of charging people to split appetizers, you’d want to know about it. You’d be right as a customer to feel that you were being poorly served, and I’d be right as a critic to mention it in the context of an overall evaluation.
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Despite growing up and going to college in Madison, WI, I was more of a coffee-shop guy than a bar guy until well into my twenties. Part of it was that Madison had (and still does have) a meat-headed student drinking culture that can go head-to-head with whatever Padre Island dishes up during Spring Break. But most of it was that the city had a number of great, medium-sized independent coffee houses that served decent coffee, played serious music, and would, for the modest price of a croissant and cup of joe, allow poor students to hang out for hours and study. Here I want to shout out to Cafe Assisi before it went co-op and got terrible (the Ellis Felker glory years were ‘94-’96 or thereabouts) and Cafe Michaelangelo, which is still going strong. Also: Cafe Palms, in memoriam (it burned down along with the rest of the Hotel Washington complex in 1996.)

One of my favorite things about Minneapolis-St. Paul is that we have a coffee shop culture that is, pound for pound, as good as — or better than — Madison’s. Within walking distance of my place in Uptown there are at least three chain shops and three independents. I’ve found good coffeeshops in Dinkytown, downtown, St. Paul and, now, Northeast.
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In any given restaurant, the front of the house rises and falls on a number of different factors. Consider the following scenario:

1. You call a restaurant on a Friday night, looking for a reservation for two. You know this may be impossible, but what the heck.

2. You’re told that it’s not so busy; in fact, you’re not even allowed to make a reservation. You’re asked to turn up in the next 20-30 minutes and to expect practically immediate seating.

3. You turn up in 20 minutes. Suddenly, there’s a 15-20-minute wait.

4. Make that a 45-minute wait.

5. Despite the presence of three or four hostesses, who repeatedly update you with optimistic reports regarding the status of the remaining “two-tops.”

6. Meanwhile, throughout the process, a vast and desolate tundra of large empty tables stretches majestically across the front of the restaurant.

So it went at The Red Stag, the new environmentally sound eatery by the same folks who brought us the marvelous Barbette in Uptown.

The service quirks continued through the meal. We were informed that the Friday night fish fry featured bluegill, perch and — rather than the typical walleye — a substitution of haddock.
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