Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

Now that the election is over, I can celebrate one positive outcome for a crusty old man, no more unsolicited text messages from unknown phone numbers reminding me where my polling place is. I got one almost daily from Ice-T, apparently not a favorite beverage, but someone I should know. My Google/Gemini AI buddy tells me, “he is an American rapper, actor, and songwriter who became a central figure in hip-hop history and a fixture on American television.” Who knew? So on the rainy afternoon of November 3rd, Election Day, the Bohunk and I drove a few blocks to our polling place, the community center of our master-planned manufactured housing community. I’d call it a trailer park, but you might discount me as “trailer trash.” I willingly call myself that, but it hurts when strangers do. After almost a decade of submitting mail ballots to our rural county election officials, it’s great fun to enter the party room/tornado shelter, chit/chat with election workers, and feed my ballot into an...

The first line from the Mick Herron novel "Real Tigers” hit home for me last week. "Like most forms of corruption, it began with men in suits."  The book has nothing to do with hyperscale-class data centers like the one proposed for Hermantown. Still, after seeing video of citizens (just some real people) filling city council chambers Monday, October 26, and disrupting the planned votes to let Google move forward with its really huge project, Herron’s quote seemed apropos.  Of course, since the project's inception was hidden from the public under cover of a large, Twin Cities-based commercial builder, not the project’s end user, and papered over with enough non-disclosure agreements to support a small legal practice for a year, we don’t know if any of the players were in suits. The non-violent, though loud, disruption of council meetings is a positive, healthy sign of folks exercising a fundamental right of citizenship. But for too many people in the city government ...

 In 1964, the Supreme Court was trying to define a legal threshold for what constitutes "hard-core pornography" or obscenity that the First Amendment would not protect. In that effort, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote about defining porn, “But I know it when I see it.”  Corruption is like pornography for most of us. We know it when we see it.  Every politician, in every election campaign, promises to get rid of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse, the three legs of corruption’s stool. Once voters cast their ballots and go back to living their lives, they stop paying attention. And those elected to end corruption scramble to wet their beaks in a swamp they can't drain, trading contracts and favors to build power and privilege. It’s not restricted to one political party. Consider how many politicians leave public service with a nest egg of cash and merchandise far larger than what they started with. On October 19, I read an article published by The Atlantic titled “How Corrup...

In less than two weeks, this never-ending election campaign season will end.  As someone who consumes political news like I drink cups of coffee in the morning, I decided long ago who would get my vote. Ads and flyers are wasted on me. But special interests invest so much money to buy space on the airwaves, the interwebs, and in mailers for one reason. Name Recognition.  Campaign lawn signs, swag, and mailers reserve the largest, boldest font for the candidate's last name. For a serious candidate, especially when challenging an incumbent, name recognition is a candidate's single most critical asset. They don’t need to know diddly squat about how government works as long as their name is well known. In local races—such as county commissioner, school board, city council, or state house representative—voters fill out the ballot having sparse information about the candidates. When voters see a list of unfamiliar names on a non-partisan ballot or a lesser-known legislative race, th...