Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Bright Idea: Don't Wait for Heel-Dragging City
Alex Tsatoulis, a 42-year-old Minneapolis dad who bike commutes, had grown fed up with a dark, unsafe stretch of the Midtown Greenway. Thieves had ripped copper from the streetlights, rendering them useless. "It’s very frustrating that this basic city service has just been nonexistent," Tsatoulis, who works at the nonprofit Lake Street Council, tells MinnPost's Bill Lindeke.
Tsatoulis asked Council Member Aurin Chowdhury for help, and she reportedly brought the issue to the Department of Public Works. Still, the lights remained unlit.
“Through no fault of anyone in particular, the city has this attitude of ‘We have to fix this permanently,’” he says. “Obviously, with hundreds of lights out and miles of these lights to fix, it’s millions of dollars. But for me, it’s unsafe right now.”
Tsatoulis, a more gracious man than me, went out of his way to say he's not blaming the overworked, underfunded Department of Public Works. But he's also not patient to the point of letting the problem fester. So, a few weeks ago, Tsatoulis purchased three “solar parking lot lights” from Amazon, loaded the lights and a ladder onto his cargo bike, and affixed 'em to three darkened street lights. They've been shining ever since.
“It seems like we should do something rather than simply doing nothing until the perfect solution arrives," says the man Lindeke is calling a modern day Don Quixote whose windmills are, instead, copper-stripped streetlights.
Soy! Soy! Soy!
Did you know Minnesota is the nation's third-largest soy producer? Spare us your alt-right jokes about low T levels—that's a good thing! The University of Minnesota touts versatile and healthful soybeans as a "miracle crop," one that brings millions of bucks into the state each year.
Last year, per USDA figures, the U.S. exported 52 million metric tons of soy to China. This year China hasn't placed a single order for the crop, Tadeo Ruiz Sandoval reports for MPR News. The culprit, of course, is the Trump administration's flailing trade war with China.
The victims? Farmers like Mike Langseth, whose North Dakota soybean fields sit just across the border from Moorhead. Langseth should be stoked; the USDA predicts record soybean yields this year. Instead, he tells Sandoval that farmers are racked by market uncertainty.
Pivoting from the commodity markets to the seed markets is one course of action. Selling to domestic crush plants, which process the beans into oils and meals, is another. And so is waiting out the trade war by storing beans, though NoDak farmer Caylor Rosenau tells MPR that space is severely limited.
“The beans are going to move,” Langseth concludes. “It’s just going to move less efficiently.”
Food News Speed Round
Don't ask any questions! We've got too many (three) food news items to address in this lightning round!
First up: The Star Tribune announced the hiring of a new food critic on Wednesday. (Our thoughts on outgoing Strib critic Jon Cheng were... less than charitable.) The job now belongs to Raphael Brion. A native of Belgium, Brion spent time cooking in Michelin-starred New York City restaurants before landing his most recent job as restaurant editor at Food & Wine. His byline has appeared in the New York Times, Bon Appétit, and Eater. “Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Twin Cities, and I’ve become such a big fan of Minnesota’s bold, progressive, and diverse culinary landscape,” he says via press release. (Scout his Insta here.)
Next up: Food & Wine discovered Minnesota meat raffles. The author's coastal incredulity is shared by at least one source. “I moved to Minnesota in 1995. When I heard about meat raffles, my first reaction was ‘What the hell is all this?’” transplant Liz Schreiber tells F&W's Rich Manning. Manning paints a loving portrait of our meaty tradition as he journeys from Minneapolis dives like Grumpy's and Dusty's to St. Paul's The Spot Bar. "Even if meat raffles and meat bingos crop in non-traditional regions, it’s highly unlikely they’ll match the Twin Cities’ energy," he writes. "It’s worth experiencing at least once. Its warmth easily transcends Minnesota’s cold."
Finally: Minneapolis boasts the best tap water in the state, according to the American Water Work Association’s recent "Best In Glass" competition. We wiped the fucking floor with 15 competing cities around the state, Fox 9 reports... in so many words. Minneapolis tap water will compete in the international water taste test next summer in Washington, D.C.
OK, We'll Attempt to Explain the Rash of Campus Pissers
Here's young Racket contributor Spencer White explaining... well, just read for yourself.
Essentially, some kid is going by the name nomark on Instagram in an attempt to pose as a vigilante. On the other hand, some guy on TikTok is calling himself the Minnesota Pisser, going around campus and pissing in public. They have a feud forming on social media, and the whole thing is just completely absurd. For one, nomark is basically just going to Kollege Klub and making edits of himself claiming he stopped a fight, and the other guy is peeing in public. There is also the Dinkytown Defecator, but it is unclear if he is really associated with the other two.
You've got the bad-guy vandal, Minnesota Pisser. Then you've got nomark, the self-styled hero who's trying thwart him and his fellow rule breakers. Caught up?
OK, well it seems the Minnesota Daily secured an interview with nomark, who reportedly kept his mask on for the duration of his chat with reporter Tyler Church.
“They got to follow these rules, I do not really have those,” he says of how he operates differently than cops. “I feel like I can do a little more to help people, to get what they actually need... I usually just go out, go around the streets and see what’s going on. If anyone’s acting weird, I investigate it."
Right.
The pisser vs. pisser chaser trend appears to be spreading across the state. Over at Minnesota State University, a Mankato Pisser has emerged. “I would like the students of MNSU to know that you’ll never catch me,” he tells his student newspaper. His hero foil, the Somali Stingray, tells the paper, "To all the Mankato villains: I will catch you, I will hunt you down."
Got it.
Are you happy you know any of this? Is this a worthwhile use of your time? Is your fleeting life turning out the way you'd always hoped, generally speaking?
In any case, TikTok apparently removed the Minnesota Pisser's account so... victory for nomark? This much is certain: He's still out there, posting away.
