Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Capitol PR vs. Journo Fracas Update
Last week, we covered a coalition of local news outlets that called out the Minnesota House DFL for its treatment of MinnPost political reporter Peter Callaghan. (The dumb, disappointing, drama-packed ordeal is worth revisiting if you're unfamiliar and intend to keep reading here.) Over the weekend we received more insight into the mindset of Matt Roznowski, the DFL comms guy who reportedly acted "visibly angry and physically aggressive" toward Callaghan at the Capitol in February. Consider this unhinged Roz DM spree presented by the great Fox 9 reporter Tom Lynden:
Lyden tells Racket there haven't been any DM developments from Roznowski, and that he doesn't expect an apology. (He's not planning on making one either.) You'd think a professional strategic communicator would know how to, ya know, communicate more strategically. Meanwhile, Callaghan has remained busy at work, keeping Minnesotans abreast of the reassuring fact their public dollars won't benefit "occult, divination, necromancy, soothsaying, Satanism, demonology, or pedophilia."
A New Magazine for Folks in Recovery
In MinnPost today, Andy Steiner writes about Highly Favored, a new magazine for Minnesota's recovery community. Cofounded by Kiki Vonn and Jesse Veils, who met at an inpatient addiction treatment program for folks in the LGBTQ+ community, and their friends Andrew Blake Stam and Caleb Fritz Craig, the mag is a mix of personal essays, visual art, and poetry, with features that highlight "the intersections between integrity and drugs." “There is a lot of downtime in inpatient treatment,” Veils tells MinnPost. “This magazine is something that people can really take time with and think about." You can order Highly Favored Vol. 1 here; they plan to release the second edition of their quarterly print publication in June.
Here’s How We Do Tax Fraud Now
Two suburban Minneapolis restaurant owners who scammed the state of Minnesota out of $240,000 in taxes have been sentenced to 90 days in the workhouse (though they may just get house arrest instead). According to the Strib, Su "Audrey" Qian and Xu Sheng "Jacky" Wang, the owners of Raku Sushi & Lounge in St. Louis Park and Raku in Edina, pled guilty to the charges against them last week. Investigators discovered USB drives containing a program called HappyWorld.exe, which is used to delete and alter sales records. They also found a notebook which listed instructions to delete orders and rearrange order numbers under the header "Happy World." While Racket does not recommend or condone tax fraud (and we’re too dumb to even try it ourselves), we will say that if you do insist on doing a fraud, please do not keep records of your schemes in a notebook that may as well be headed “TAX FRAUD SCHEMES.”
Snow Mold: It’s a Thing That Exists
It’s been a particularly epic winter, and just when we think we’re out of it, it pulls us back in. That ebb and flow between snow showers and 80-degree days can make for great Twitter/water cooler fodder, but it’s horrible for preventing flooding, ice dams, and rising rivers. It’s also, apparently, the ideal weather cycle for snow mold, a wispy, spider’s lair-type mold that thrives on damp trees, lawns, and leaf-laden gutters. “I have seen some pretty bad photos of snow mold,” U of M horticulturist Julie Weisenhorn tells MPR. The good news? While it looks kind of freaky and gross, it doesn't kill lawns; you just have to wait for it to die as the ground dries out. The bad news? If you’re allergic to tree- and other plant-based molds, like many people are, your eyes, nose, and throat are probably going to be burning and runny until this snow mold finally kicks it. Time to stock up on that off-brand Claritin-D!
