Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily midday digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Students Walk Out
Students across Minneapolis walked out of class this afternoon for a march and rally to protest gun violence. Organized by Minnesota Teen Activists, the walkout is a reaction to last week's horrific shooting in Uvalde, Texas. MPR's Elizabeth Shockman is among those covering the rally, where students are calling for more mental health support and stricter gun regulations as well as fewer active shooter drills. "We have hopes and dreams, we deserve to live,” MN Teen Activist's Jerome Treadwell said during a press conference.
East Phillips Neighborhood Offered a Shitty Compromise
For more than four years, the subject of what to do with the former Roof Depot property at East 27th Street and Longfellow Avenue has been hotly debated. The city, which owns the property, wants to build a water distribution site that would house fleet vehicles and equipment. The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute believes this plan would increase pollution in a neighborhood that already has some of the highest rates of asthma in the state. They want to build affordable housing and an urban farm. So Mayor Jacob Frey took a look at the conflict and decided, “Why not both?” The new deal on the table would offer EPNI three acres on the property for 99 years for $1 in rent to be used as a garden/farm. But there’s a catch: They would have to share the property with the public works facility. "You get the three acres if you accept the 814 vehicles that come with it in the process,” EPNI board president Dean Dovolis told Strib reporter Susan Du. “That's sort of like the devil's decision that's been put out there before us." There’s no word yet on whether they’ll accept the deal, but the plan will still have to go through City Council regardless.
Of Combine Harvesters and Sauropods
Goddammit MPR, you know you're getting our click with a headline like "Farm vehicles now weigh almost as much as heaviest dinosaurs—here’s why that’s a problem." The problem in question (originally posed via the Conversation) is that tractors and other heavy machinery have gotten really, really heavy as large-scale agriculture has proliferated—but soil can can only withstand a certain amount of pressure before becoming "chronically compacted." The fact that a combine harvester today weighs as much as sauropods did in prehistoric times is interesting because tractor makers have responded using dinosaur logic—spreading out the surface area with bigger tires, as sauropods did with their big ol' feet—but it's unclear if this'll be enough to avoid irreparably compacting the soil they tread on.
More Like D(ong)Q
How good does penis taste? To hear the DQ by Minnehaha Falls Park in Minneapolis tell it: "GOOOOOD!" (See photographic evidence below, courtesy of Dean Godes.) Pranksters, likely of the teenage variety, clearly coaxed a DQ worker pal into hijacking the marquee late Saturday or early Sunday. We applaud them. I couldn't bring myself to call the shop at 4740 Minnehaha Ave. for updates, so you'll have to be satisfied with this level of smutty DQ reporting which, honestly, you're not gonna get anywhere else in town. In conclusion, here are some other puns we workshopped for this header: more like Pissty Slush; more like Nut Buster Bar; more like Cookie Dough Jizzard; more like Turtle Pecan Thruster. Can you top 'em? Please, we beg you, sound off in the comments.
It Seems Jennifer Carnahan Needs a Racket Subscription
If she had one, she'd surely have seen last month's post politely pointing out that the husband death-wisher, alleged wedding brawler, and current congressional hopeful had misspelled her own name on her own campaign website. The same Racket reader who initially tipped us off to the error got in touch again today to note that a month and a half later, Jennifer—which is spelled with two n's, not three—still hasn't updated the "Paid for by Jennnifer Carnahan for Congress" that appears on her website's footer. Quick, someone get Jennifer a subscription!
