Anti-Hawk Umbrella Lady Makes Points, Lists Demands at City Council Meeting

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

Move Over (Please Move Over), Hawk Tuah Girl...

Last Tuesday, a Plymouth resident showed up to a City Council meeting wearing a bike helmet and rocking an open umbrella. She came to talk shit about birds, but also to shame officials for bureaucratic ineptitude.

Apparently there are a bunch of hostile hawks in her neighborhood that dive-bomb residents ("It looked like a torpedo with wings"), causing injuries. But, uh, what is the municipal government supposed to do about it? Don’t worry; she has ideas. First, she’d like the DNR to remove hawks' status as non-game birds. "It's a protected animal so you can't do anything to solve the problem... permanently,” she said, as if ripped from Parks & Rec. She’d also like to stop further development in the area, as she believes (probably correctly) that cutting down trees angers and displaces the birds. She also thinks the city needs to create some sort of protocol for citizens who are attacked by wild animals and seek vengeance. Hm, sounds familiar... 

You can watch video of the full complaint via Plymouth’s City Council website, or check out the following supercut from Wedge LIVE. As someone who spent a year of my childhood unable to use the front door of my home because a family of (very hostile!) blue jays moved into a door wreath, I know her situation sucks. But is city-sanctioned bird violence the answer?

Weed Is Legal, But Don’t Hit the Bong Just Anywhere

Festivals, concert venues, and even my apartment laundry room frequently smell of fresh weed. But where can you legitimately blaze one out in the open without fear of consequence? That’s the question Dan Kraker is asking in this MPR piece on the legalities of weed smoking. State Sen. Lindsey Port (DFL-Burnsville) tells him that the laws are still a little “hazy,” and that's OK. In fact, vague laws help keep you and your crazy Garfield bong out of trouble. “We wanted to be sure to really minimize the opportunity for re-criminalization in different ways,” she says.

So where can you get high, man? Follow cigarette rules, in general, according to MPR. You can smoke in a house if it’s yours, or you have permission from the owner. Apartments are a no-go, as many have gone completely smoke-free over the past few years. Inside a public space like a bar, restaurant, or public library? Hell no! This ain't Amsterdam. But some patios do allow it during specific events, like Northern Haze Festival in Duluth. But keep that stuff out of your car and away from kids. Smoking impacts the quality of air for those around you, so be a good weed ambassador and don’t be a jerk.

Twitter Continues to Suck, But Locally

Not to alarm you, but there’s a bot on Twitter spreading lies about Minnesota. Its name is Grok, it’s powered by AI, and it is spreading all kinds of misinformation. For example, shortly after President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the election, Grok commented on a variety of posts that the deadline for many state ballots had passed, including Minnesota. Turns out that statement is 100% wrong. "So, if you're planning to run for president in any of these states, you might want to check if you've already missed the boat," Grok further lies. 

Should be an easy ban, right? But when Secretary of State Steve Simon tried to report Grok, X company reps didn’t seem to even remotely care. "[They] got what I can only verbalize as the equivalent of a shoulder shrug," Simon tells Briana Bierschbach at the Star Tribune. “It should be easy enough for X or any other platform to self-police." Perma-ban Grok, Elon! And when you're done, perma-ban yourself.

Aveda Becomes Artist Lofts

Remember the downtown Minneapolis Aveda Salon at 1201 Harmon Place? That empty location, along with eight other vacant storefronts nearby, are set to be converted into artist lofts this year thanks to a pilot program, dubbed the Arts & Culture Vibrant Storefronts Initiative, that has allotted $250,000 in rent subsidies.  

"People are drawn to art, people are drawn to creativity," Mayor Jacob Frey muses to Keith Schubert at Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. "If you've got magnificent color and creativity that's along the window of a street ... that's cool, that's exciting, that's what makes a city a wonderful city."

That’s cool, indeed. Applications for the studios open up this Friday.