Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
2 T-Wolves Arena Arguments, Plus a KG Breakthrough
As gargoyle-adjacent Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor loses his legal options to retain control of the team, thoughts begin turning to the incoming A-Rod/Marc Lore ownership era. Specifically, the belief that the Wolves will want a new arena ASAP, considering the 34-year-old Target Center is the second-oldest in the NBA behind just Madison Square Garden. (These buildings should last much longer and not be taxpayer funded, but what do I know?) With the acknowledgment that we're very much in the baseless speculation/daydreaming phase, two intriguing pitches for where the T-Wolves might play emerged over the last week.
Writing in Axios, Nick Halter argues that tearing town City Center—the 1.2-million square foot complex sitting on 4.75 acres next to Nicollet Mall—and replacing it with an arena could help revitalize downtown Minneapolis. Reasons Halter...
An arena here could have an entrance on Nicollet Mall and another on Hennepin, which would bring much-needed evening and weekend foot traffic to a downtown core that has long been too dependent on office workers. Imagine a Wolves or Lynx playoff game with fans bar hopping on a pedestrian-only Nicollet Mall where open containers are allowed, as Mayor Jacob Frey has proposed.
Writing in Downtown Voices, transit guru Alex Schieferdecker suggests the nexus of the I-94 Fourth Street viaduct, the I-394 terminus, and Ramp C—aka the annoying cluster of elevated roads and parking ramps littering the North Loop—could be transformative for the city if properly redeveloped with the inertia of a new NBA arena. Reasons Schieferdecker...
It could happen. Some public funds could be used for infrastructure removal. Solicit corporate donations to build a new park on the northern I-94 viaduct. Then let Lore and Rodriguez build the arena of their dreams on the best possible site in Minneapolis with their own cash. That’s how the City can realize an opportunity for both private and public benefit; by using one big stone to take out two stubborn birds.
Elsewhere in Timberwolves world! "A little birdie says Kevin Garnett will become part of the Timberwolves’ front office as soon as it’s official that Lore and Rodriguez get ownership," reports Charley Walters of the PiPress. Garnett's jersey is infamously not hanging from the rafters at Target Center because of his longstanding beef with Taylor—aka that "snake mu’fucka," to use Garnett's language from 2016.
$450K State Grant Funds New AI-Powered Traffic Cams
Distracted driving is really, really bad. Here's former Gov. Jesse Ventura talking to me last year: "It's worse than drunk driving right now. For all these people that want to say this and that about using cannabis, hold your horses people! There isn't nothing more dangerous than a guy driving a semi truck down the freeway and he's texting." (Worth noting: Ventura was hustling for his boutique cannabis brand at that moment.)
But are expensive cameras powered by dubious new tech a solution? The South Lake Minnetonka Police Department thinks so, having just deployed AI-enabled cameras along Highway 7 to combat distracted driving. Purchased with a $450,000 state grant from Aussie AI firm Acusensus, the cameras peer into your car and then alert the cops if they caught you texting or without a seatbelt, KARE 11 reports. "The AI kind of lets us know there might be a violation, but it is up to the officer to actually look at that photo and see that there's a violation," says Sgt. Adam Moore, perhaps unreassuringly.
If that RoboCop-like vision of the present is causing your natural intelligence to sound alarm bells, you're not alone. An unfettered surveillance state, while not as visceral as car accidents, presents more harrowing societal problems. Here's the full statement provided to KARE from Munira Mohamed, who works on policy with the Minnesota chapter of the ACLU...
Law enforcement use of AI-driven traffic cameras to spot distracted drivers raises major civil liberty concerns. This invasive technology could negatively impact the constitutional rights of anyone who drives on MN-7. These cameras lead to indiscriminate mass surveillance, tracking faces and locations with little recourse for the vehicle driver. LE using AI cameras sparks a whole host of questions and problems: How is the data being retained and who has access to it? How are police using the technology–Is a police officer coming to find you after the AI captures a photo? How does the AI tech prove that someone was distracted? Does the AI vendor have a cut of the profit raised from ticketing people?
The ACLU of MN sees the growing use of AI technologies without any legal or regulatory framework as a recipe for disaster. Civilians should have control over what technology our law enforcement is using and how they’re using it. Stopping a few bad drivers is not worth the erosion of our civil liberties and constitutional rights.
George Floyd's Murder Drives Wedge Between Trump, Generals
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., a four-star fighter pilot with 40 years of service, was abruptly fired last week as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during President Trump's Pentagon purge. No reason was given publicly, but the New York Times reports that, in private, Trump points to a four-minute video from 2020 that shows Brown reflecting on Floyd's murder and his own experiences as a Black man in America. To a non-thin-skinned monster, the general's words sound heartfelt and inoffensive.
I’m thinking about how full I am with, with emotion, not just for George Floyd, but the many African Americans that suffered the same fate as George Floyd. I’m thinking about protests in my country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, the equality expressed in our declaration of independence, in the Constitution, that I’ve sworn my adult life to support and defend.
Then again, it's likely Trump would've found a reason to fire a Black general regardless, considering his administration's obsession with misunderstanding DEI. Here, for instance, is Defense Secretary/unfortunate Minnesotan Pete Hegseth in his book, The War on Warriors, casting aspersions on Brown's promotion: “Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt.” Says the weekend shift Fox News dolt who rage-baited his way into a cabinet position!
Brown’s predecessor, Gen. Mark A. Milley, also saw his relationship with the president blow up in the aftermath of Floyd's murder; Trump wanted active-duty troops to crack down on protestors, a move Milley "vehemently opposed," the Times writes. Anyway, just another distressing dispatch from Hellworld.
2 New Potential State Songs Emerge
Who says bipartisanship is dead? Last Thursday, five state senators—Robert Kupec (DFL-Moorhead), Julia Coleman (R-Waconia), Bobby Joe Champion (DFL- Minneapolis), Robert Farnsworth (R-Hibbing), and John Hoffman (DFL-Champlin)—introduced legislation that would give Minnesota three official state songs.
As you may know, Truman E. Rickard and Arthur E. Upson's boring 1904 rouser "Hail! Minnesota" was adopted as the state song in 1945; this new bill would preserve its status, but also add two additional, superior, and, yes, rather predictable state songs: "Purple Rain" by Prince Rogers Nelson and "Girl From the North Country" by Robert Zimmerman.
Because Racket readers are more cultured, smarter, and more prone to flattery than our lawmakers, we'll turn this one over to the peanut gallery: What song would you enshrine as our official state ditty? Me? I'd pick "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen, on account of it being the funniest option to hear during official state business... with the possible exceptions of "Gary's Got a Boner" by the Replacements and the spiritually similar "Too Close" by Next.
