Every now and then you run across a perfect stretch of road. Didn’t start out as a perfect road trip, but it’s been close. In Sturgis 2017 Road Trip-Interstate Free-Podcast 653 talk of interstate free road tripping.
Over the last few road trips I have been concentrating on staying off the Interstate. What are the pro’s and con’s? People have asked me for travel advice recently. At the present moment I can think of two things. Have a goal. Stay off the Interstate. In Sturgis 2017 Road Trip-Interstate Free-Podcast 653.
While there was a little political content in the last podcast of the EAA’s Osh Kosh AirVenture show, some have wondered if I will ever fully reengage in the political sphere. Your answer is in Sturgis 2017 Road Trip-Interstate Free-Podcast 653. It’s kind of like staying off the Interstate, isn’t it?
End Of Summer In Upper Midwest Is The Best
Better to enjoy these last few weeks of summer. The corn is high. Night driving reveals combines echeloned in huge dark fields in South Dakota, harvesting. Already. Blue Skies. Sunshine. Cool night air. A few motorcycles dot the lanes miles ahead, and a few well behind. Happiness is a full tank of fuel and a clean windshield. In Sturgis 2017 Road Trip-Interstate Free-Podcast 653.
Special thanks to CIRO3D for making 2017’s Sturgis Visit Possible
Have you been to downtown Minneapolis lately? These days some don’t feel safe there. In Friday Night On Mean Street Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis-Podcast 648 we run the gauntlet on Hennepin Avenue.
After Billions Spent, New Questions About Safety Downtown
The Crisis in American Cities has been grabbing headlines for a hundred years. From The Gateway District to Mayo Square it’s the same formula. Use taxpayer dollars to Demolish. Rebuild. Repeat. Has it been worth it?
Robert Moses and Richard Daley Would Be Proud
Light rail and mixed use condos. Expensive restaurants and Hipster art districts. Bike paths. Safe spaces. Higher Minimum Wages. Political fights about redevelopment and economic inequality. Tax Increment Financing to bring in big retail and big companies.
When these efforts produce mixed results, the process starts all over again. More money. Newer stadiums. More buildings. More condos that are sold as ‘affordable’ but cost at least two hundred thousand dollars. Higher rents. Traffic Jams. Crime.
Downtown Minneapolis was never a ‘thing’
The neighborhoods and retail business were located in North Minneapolis and North East, Uptown, Lake Street in South Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s ‘Midway’. Sure, Hennepin Avenue always featured bars and hotels, places to eat and entertainment. But downtown was for warehouses, light industry, office buildings, city and county government. And drunks.
Want to start a business downtown? Want to buy a condo downtown? Better be juiced into the money or have a lot of money. No wonder people are concerned about the nitty gritty nature of Hennepin Avenue. Walking down this street you’re mixing with the great unwashed. Unruly, scantily clad, vulgar, of different races and often from the poor side of the cities. And it’s really, really fun.
Is the solution really more cops downtown. Another Light Rail line? Subsidized office space? Another redevelopment of Nicollet Mall? More incremental taxes added to the bills at the Smack Shack? Who lives down here? Not the servers. Nor the kids hanging out at the LRT station.
Spend Daddy’s Money Downtown
Downtown Minneapolis is a place for trust fund babies, lawyers and corporates relocating. People who are used to having things their way. No wonder they think it’s unsafe. Sadly, they’re making everyone else pay for their own personal Epcot Center. It’s a con.
When you think about how much of the taxpayer’s hard earned dollars they’ve spent, one wonders when the Downtown Council and the real shadow power in Minneapolis will be held accountable.
You can already feel it. The long fourth of July weekend approaching. We’re starting to slow down. So, for the ride to the lake. During periods of rain. It’s fun to think about what might happen. In Playing The Something Is Going To Happen Game-Podcast 644.
Podcasts Have To Go Deeper
I podcast a lot about media’s role in our society. For a deeper look at angst listen to Podcast 643. We’re awash in media informing us of the latest developments. ‘Breaking News’ is the norm these days. Podcasters have to go deeper. We’ll do that in Playing The Something Is Going To Happen Game-Podcast 644.
A Personal Story Of A Shocking and Unexpected Event
A recent example of an unpredictable event in my own life illustrates the kinds of changes we go through when things change, unexpectedly and unpredictably. Moreover in my experience a sense expectation can mean something good is about to happen too. Especially important and relevant is an expectation of a major event that changes history. This kind of expectation is a sense of foreboding.
Not The Latest Dispatch From Washington
In a broader sense our social angst is driven by constant coverage of breaking news and new opinions on every little thing that happens in a place called Washington DC. Playing the ‘Something Is Going To Happen’ game is not anticipating news out of Washington.
We think of eras as decades. The 1950’s, the 1960’s, and so on. We think of changes taking place when governments transfer power. So, the Obama era gives way to the Trump era. Except that is not the way it works, Steve Jobs said what we think of as the 1960’s actually happened in the 1970’s. Events actually determine when we move from one era to the next.
To sum up, a new president took office in January. After a lot of chatter and fireworks, nothing substantial has really happened. The test of the new president hasn’t really emerged yet. Fertile ground for our imaginations to break free from the daily news feeds and imagine what could happen. Enjoy the July 4th holiday! (Editor’s Note: In This Podcast I refer to Nouriel Roubini as the person who coined the term ‘black swan’. It was in fact Nassim Nicholas Taleb.)
