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We’re No. 1! (And No. 2!) For Parking!
In a report that will truly shock NextDoor posters across the metro area, Zutobi has selected Minneapolis as the best city for parking in the U.S. And the runner-up? St. Paul.
What the hell is Zutobi? Its primary biz seems to be offering online driver’s test prep, but it's also one of those sites that hires publicists to pitch clickbait lists to gullible hacks like me.
And, well, sometimes (especially when I know it’ll annoy the easily annoyed) I can’t resist sharing these very scientific and definitive reports. As someone who recently became Someone Who Doesn’t Even Own a Car, this one seemed a gimme.
My theory on why people think parking sucks here is the same as my general theory beyond every complaint about the Twin Cities: There are simply more people here than there were 30 years ago.
You could deposit your car pretty much anywhere in 1996 because you lived in an urban area that had emptied itself out. And so Twin Citians came to believe that they have a god-given right to park directly in front of their home and/or destination for free.
So next time you’re having a hard time finding a spot, just be grateful that you don’t live in… literally any other American city.
I Beg Your Pardon
I don’t need to tell Racket readers this, but if Republicans win statewide races because of “fraud” or “crime” or “affordability” or some other buzzy campaign koan, they’ll do all sorts of evil shit that no one actually wants. Some of it we might not even have thought of.
Take “pardoning Derek Chauvin.” Not an issue I’d considered, since I was more worried about gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth rolling back social programs and abortion protections. Then I read this story from Michelle Griffith at the Minnesota Reformer.
When Demuth was asked if she would pardon George Floyd’s convicted murderer, her running mate, Ryan Wilson, popped in to demand that rival Amy Klobuchar pledge not to pardon “any child rapist ever.” He was referencing Tou Lue Vang, who received a pardon this year after serving 20 years of his sexual assault sentence. (FWIW Klobuchar, while distancing herself from politically poisonous Gov. Tim Walz, has said she "would have clearly not pardoned a sex offender.")
Demuth then deflected the question. “Are there any more questions to do with the fraud?” she asked.
Yes, I have one: Please produce a shred of evidence supporting your inflated $9 billion fraud figure, which former U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson invented last December.
Robot Killed the Working Man
Imagine pernicious bots saying nice things about Bon Jovi under the byline of Pioneer Press critic Ross Raihala. Is that really the future you want to leave your children?
With the assistance of their union, the Minnesota Newspaper & Communications Guild, PiPress employees are trying to secure basic protections regarding the use of AI. What they want: No use of AI slop under a writer’s byline or without an editor’s review, no deepfakes, and no AI-related layoffs. Pretty basic shit.
The paper’s owner, MediaNews Group, has not agreed to these protections because MediaNews Group is a bad boss. (Note: There are no good bosses, only harmless ones who stay out your way and let you do your work.) As Racket's Jay Boller reported in 2023, the Alden Capital subsidiary has starved the PiPress budget and eliminated 80% of its employees over the past nine years.
Anyway, sign this letter in support of the union’s demands; it’s more than halfway to its goal of 400 signatures.
I Think I'm Having a Stroke
I am not a regular reader of the Winona Post, and so I don't know if “Once Upon a Peanut Butter Parfait,” by Dr. Robert Hicks, columnist, is indicative of his work, but this column is… something else.
“A young man in tight jeans and free-flowing Fabio Lorenzo-styled 1990s hair” walks into a Dairy Queen, and then…" well, let Dr. Robert Hicks tell you himself.
“I’m getting me a Peanut Buster Parfait,” he announced, as if half the people there weren’t ordering the same. Cockiness oozed from his walk-and-talk like he was God’s gift to ice cream dispensers. But his entire demeanor changed when an “I gotta sneeze” facial grimace was soon joined by the inevitable “ah-ahh-ahhh.”
On vaporizing the word “chew,” the once cool dude in the DQ released the loudest, wettest sneeze humanity has ever produced while simultaneously thrusting his head forward, thwacking the wooden support beam in front of him. “Smack!” Great sneeze. Bad execution.
Past columns by the good doctor include "I Am Not a Robot" (“In addition to ‘not a robot,’ I wish to point out that I am also not a cheesy potato, though my wife and I differ on that one.”) Judging from the archives, his column was once called “Mud Puddles” but now it is not, or at least it is not tagged as such online.
I’m also a fan of this headline, from a different columnist.
I may have to start getting home delivery of the Winona Post.
