Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
A Very Spicy WALZ WATCH
Controversial vice presidential pick Tim Walz outraged several very-online conservatives yesterday when he joked that “black pepper is the top of the spice level in Minnesota” and said he eats "white guy tacos" in a campaign video with Vice President Kamala Harris.
David Marcus, aka @BlueBoxDave, huffed that “Walz is being used as a clown to mock white people.” “Not racist at all!” sarcastically exclaimed the shame of short Americans, Ben Shapiro. Mike Cernovich actually fact-checked Walz, proving that Minnesotans do use spices by citing Walz’s own award-winning 2016 hot dish recipe, which includes chili powder, onion powder, and garlic powder. (Not that any of those powders bring serious heat.) "He is changing his positions on spices," exclaimed Collin Rug indignantly.
Of course, Walz was making what those of us who live on Planet Earth rather than social media refer to as “a joke.” You can recognize that it’s a joke not because it’s particularly funny but because you’ve heard it told so many times before. Taking affront to Walz’s joke is like launching into a heated defense of the majesty of the loon when you hear someone say the mosquito is our state bird.
It’s especially funny to hear this from the "you can't even make a joke anymore because everyone is so easily offended!" crowd, who are the most professionally thin-skinned people alive. A half-hour of the most benign sitcom might literally kill them.
Scandal at Mpls Regional Chamber! Also, What Is Mpls Regional Chamber?
The vibes were weird when Jonathan Weinhagen abruptly resigned as CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber back in June. There was obviously smoke, but where was the fire? Now, thanks to new details, we at least kinda sorta know the genre of the scandal here: money.
According to Dan Niepow at Twin Cities Business, a letter went out yesterday to members and partners stating that a special board committee had been formed in April to lead a “thorough investigation into the organization’s financial governance and controls.” Weinhagen left after the findings were released and, according to an anonymous source who spoke to Mike Hughlett at the Strib, “law enforcement authorities have been notified.” This week, the chamber says it laid off five employees in anticipation of a $500,000 deficit in 2024.
"But what the heck is a 'Minneapolis Regional Chamber'?" you might be asking. Well, it's the regional branch of the state Chamber of Commerce, which means it advocates "pro-business" policies locally on behalf of an imaginary entity called "the business community." Oh, and it's also “a place that inspires and supports business leaders,” which sounds nice.
Uptown Is Dead! (But Also Fun.)
If you’ve been to Uptown lately, you know it’s looking ROUGH these days as construction makes way for bigger sidewalks, bike lanes, and a rapid transit bus line. So what can you do in a neighborhood where the streets are torn up and the walking situation is dodgy? A whole lotta stuff, according to Zoë Jackson, who spent eight hours wandering the area with Star Tribune colleagues and photographer Alex Kormann. The good: the parking is now plentiful and Bde Mka Ska is hopping. The bad: the sounds of construction, shops close too early, and the security at Daisys is no joke. Minus the construction, it all sounds very similar to what we discovered when we spent 24 hours there for Racket’s very first feature story, nearly three years ago. Uptown lives on!
Minnesota Is Getting Paid
Over at the Minnesota Reformer, Max Nesterak reports that Minnesota has the highest median wage in the Midwest at $26.43 per hour. (I’m not going to do the math to see if we’re making that yet here at Racket.) Nesterak draws that figure from the NorthStar Policy Action’s “The State of Working Minnesota” report, which also notes that wages have outpaced inflation in Minnesota and that we’ve reached a near record low unemployment rate. Also (and maybe not coincidentally) Minnesota has the highest rate of union membership in the region at 13.2%, though curiously that has less to do with increased unionization than with a relatively slower decline. Is this hell that they’re warning you that Tim Walz wants to plunge the U.S. into? Maybe if you’re a CEO.
