Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Take a Hike, Dummkopf
Nazis: They're vile scum, perhaps history's vilest and scummiest. So you can imagine the distress caused from the photo above, which was taken Thursday at Bauhaus Brew Labs' monthly "Moto Nite" in northeast Minneapolis. The pictured motorcycle features SS bolt insignia (aka Doppel Siegrune) encircled by the words "SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WHITE BOY," and it's causing an uproar on local social media feeds. (Sadly, you may recall similar Nazi or Nazi-adjacent sightings over the years at places like Gasthof Zur Gemutlichkeit and Club Jager.) "The SS bolts are typically used as a symbol of white supremacy but there is one context in which this is not necessarily always so," writes the Anti-Defamation League. "Decades ago, some outlaw biker gangs appropriated several Nazi-related symbols, including the SS bolts, essentially as shock symbols or symbols of rebellion or non-conformity." The ADL goes on to state that, in a biker context, the intent behind the symbol is "quite ambiguous and difficult to determine," though the "WHITE BOY" language associated with the creep at Bauhaus removes some of that ambiguity.
Representatives of the brewery didn't extend the rider any benefit of the doubt, writing this afternoon via Instagram:
Large, Historic New Union May Soon Drop
Alright, we're gonna subject you to a little inside baseball here. Ideally, when scouting for potential Flyover stories, we find something that a) hasn't been widely covered elsewhere or b) we can put our unique spin on (unlike Bill O'Reilly's set, this is a spin zone). With that in mind, we found it surprising that nobody in town has yet covered this morning's announcement that 500+ advance practice providers and physicians at locally headquartered health care giant Allina Health will soon vote on whether to unionize. Here's Dr. Katherine Oyster of Cottage Grove via the press release:
“Voting to unionize gives us in primary and urgent care the opportunity to, en bloc, work collaboratively with Allina leadership to re-center our patients as the focus of our work. It would give us a seat at the table where practice-changing decisions are made so we can properly advocate for the needs of our patients. It gives us an opportunity to decrease provider burnout/moral injury with the ultimate goal of keeping us happily providing care with Allina for many years to come.”
The "historic union election" will happen in the coming weeks, the release states, and if successful its membership will represent "the country’s largest private-sector union of clinicians." The workers, who would become part of Doctors Council SEIU Local 10MD, are staging a press conference next Wednesday to talk turkey. For a lot more context on that "moral injury" reference, be sure to read this recent New York Times feature on the moral crisis facing America's doctors. (Spoiler: Our country's heinous, dollar-driven health system makes their jobs hell.)
Bloomington's QBP is Sunsetting All-City Cycles
Em here to bring you the devastating (to me, at least) news that the Bloomington-based bike distributor Quality Bicycle Products is shutting down its All-City Cycles brand. The Radavist reports that QBP shared the news in an email to its dealers: All-City will no longer develop products after 2024 and will eventually be retired completely. "While the All-City brand will eventually end years from now, QBP will continue to grow and support our other proprietary bike brands, Salsa Cycles and Surly Bikes, as well as our distributed brand Benno Bikes," the company's email reads.
Founded in 2007, All-City was known for classic and stylish frames made with quality steel and modern geometry, from the single-speed cross crusher Nature Boy (the first nice bike I bought for myself as a grownup, though I used it as a commuter ride) to the gravel-munching Space Horse (the second nice bike I bought for myself as a grown-up, which has been my ride on countless bikepacking trips). The news follows multiple rounds of layoffs at QBP since the pandemic hit in 2020; here's hoping the big local bike maker can right the ship.
Book More Women Headliners at Target Field!
It’s awesome that Target Field has been using its space to host more festivals and concerts this summer, though it proved a little tough to muster up ticket enthusiasm for the Killers or Imagine Dragons. (Here's Racket's Jay Boller talking to KARE 11 about the tough sell of T.C. Summer Fest.) But when Pink stopped by this week? Now we’re cooking with gas!
The pop star's high-flying show was historic in two ways: She was the first female headliner for the venue and she set an attendance record, beating Kenny Chesney’s 44,152 in 2015 (grand totals for Pink have yet to be released). Writes Jon Bream in his glowing Strib review: "In the summer of 2023, Barbie may be more kitschy and smugly cool, Beyoncé may be more rhythmic and purposeful, and Taylor Swift may be more extravagant and fan-fulfilling. But Pink tops those cultural forces when it comes to derring-do, approachability and realness."
Pink's eye-popping Minneapolis numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise for anyone who has been following concert news lately; Taylor Swift and Beyoncé killed it last month at U.S. Bank and Huntington Bank Stadium respectively. Every summer is hot girl summer, man. Just book them and the people will come.
