Oh, What A Circus! Oh, What A Show!

For a change of pace, I had an old friend visit from out of town last weekend. He's been in Minneapolis before, but his last foray to Saint Paul happened to coincide with my dad's death. Because he had been close to the folks, he and the junior son stayed with mom so she could live stream the funeral at the family plot in New York while I headed east to the rest of the family. Needless to say, my friend didn't get to do much fun stuff the last time. 

The Quadriga

This time, however, we managed to do some really interesting things, probably the most fun of which was taking a tour of the recently renovated Minnesota State Capitol. It is seriously beautiful. Designed by Cass Gilbert, the same guy who did the U.S. Capitol, it was built in 1905 and even then, was a building of significance. We even climbed a whole lotta stairs to get up close and personal with The Quadriga. Talk about awe inspiring!  

There were two paintings hanging in the governor's office since day one, and they have now been removed to a separate gallery...for very good reason. Both were exceptionally offensive to a large segment of our population...the ones who were here first. 

The first painting, by Stephen A. Volk, is called Father Hennepin Discovering The Falls of St. Anthony (1905.) It looks harmless enough, but is it? The Native Americans are at his feet while he renames something that is part of their world. He no more discovered the falls than he had flown there with winged sandals. Not only that, he and his traveling companions had been captured by a Bdewakantunwan war party and taken to their community where they were detained for a few years. Father Hennepin's account of his time in Minnesota is now largely viewed as rather fictional. 

On the other hand, The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux  is much more sinister. The painting by Francis David Millet was inspired by sketches made at the event by Frank Blackwell Mayer. The short version? The Native American representatives were given a treaty to sign in which 35 million acres of land at 12 cents an acre were exchanged for $3,750,000. They signed reluctantly, signed the second copy of the treaty, then were handed a third copy, but were not told this version was from the traders in the region, and that the monies promised to them were handed over the the traders as reparations for "past debt." They got nothing. 

Like so much questionable art, a decision had to be made. Instead of hiding the paintings in the basement, a gallery was created to display them alongside explanations of why they were removed from the governor's office, along with statements and comments from not only the Indigenous community, but from the descendants of the original settlers who purchased that land for farms. The commentary is not all sweetness and light; not everyone was happy with the decision to move the paintings. 

Too bad.

Minnesota is slowly coming to grips with the injustices of the past. It's a process and one most of the state embraces. That acceptance does not undo the wrongs or change history, it just means we own the behavior and We, the State of Minnesota, must be diligent in efforts to improve the relations between the state and the Indigenous population and to prevent other hardships from happening. 

And we have to keep restoring original place names... Like Bde Maka Ska. 

On a happy side note...we had dinner at OWAMNI by the Sioux Chef, the Native American restaurant in Minneapolis.  I am delighted to report that tonight, they won the James Beard Award for best restaurant in the US. Definitely worth going when you're in town. It was an incredible and very delicious experience.

Getting names changed back is no easy feat. Just like renaming Ziggy and the kids' high school Two Rivers instead of Henry Sibley, a man who was well known to be not nice. I wrote about the name change a while ago, Who Will Speak For The Voiceless? 

Those pictures were part of A Big Lie; the lie that the Indigenous Population was evil, needed to be saved, and their culture wiped out in order for the white settlers to live. People believed for years that Father Hennepin was revered by the "natives," that he "discovered" stuff, and that he was a nice guy. 

We, the People, bought into lots of BIG Lies...like Black people are shiftless and stupid, that Jews own all the banks, that the Irish are all drunks. Somewhere in this so-called melting pot, there are people who still believe this bull-hockey. They used to be called the Ku Klux Klan, now we call them other things, like Proud Boys, Patriot Front, and, quite frankly, Trump supporters. 

The televised hearings about the January 6th Insurrection are pretty much bad theater. There's a lot of grandstanding and self-aggrandizement going down. There are too many GOP congressclowns saying this is worthless because there aren't enough Republican voices in the room, but hell, they CHOSE not to be there. And Liz Cheney is also scaring the shit outta those dickless wonders. When former White House senior staffers are testifying that Feckless Leader was detached from reality, that they all told him he lost the election and there was no mass wave of voter fraud, one can only hope some of those real Republicans will begin to reconsider their positions on what really happened after the presidential election. Instead of listening to sound bites, read the testimony transcript for June 13, 2022. It's worth the time. 

Former Attorney General Bill Barr's testimony was terrifying. He relayed the number of times he told Feckless Leader his accusations were bullshit. But Barr wraps it all up and ties it with a pretty ribbon in when he talks about his meeting with Feckless Leader on December 14th, 2020. [The highlight is mine.]

When I walked in, sat down, he went off on a monologue saying that there was now definitive evidence involving fraud through the Dominion machines and a report had been prepared by a very reputable cybersecurity firm, which he identified as Allied Security Operations Group. And he held up the report and he had — and then he asked that a copy of it be made for me. And while a copy was being made, he said, you know this is absolute proof that the Dominion machines were rigged.

 

The report means that I am going to have a second term. And then he gave me a copy of the report. And as he talked more and more about it, I sat there flipping through the poor report and looking through it. And to be frank, it looked very amateurish to me, didn't have the credentials of the people involved, but I didn't see any real qualifications.

 

And the statements were made very conclusory like this — these machines were designed to, you know, engage in fraud or something to that effect, but I didn't see any supporting information for it.

 

And I was somewhat demoralized because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff he has, you know, lost contact with — with it — he's become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.

Barr resigned later that same day, December 14th, 2020.

Why the hell he couldn't have quit or come clean sooner is beyond me. He's cagey, and I do think he's trying to save his sorry butt right now, but I also think he's guilty as hell when it comes to aiding and abetting the perpetration of a fraud on We, the People. At the very least, his participation is sedition. 

In other news of the plausibly deniable, a bi-partisan committee has put together new gun legislation:

1. Red Flag laws
2. Mental health and telehealth investment
3. Closing the boyfriend loophole
4. Enhanced review process for under-21 buyers
5. Clarification of Federally Licensed Firearm Dealer
6. School security resources

There are things in it that are needed, but three major requirements have been removed. Missing from bill are

1. Expanded background checks
2. Ban on assault weapons
3. Higher minimum age of purchase

The missing three items are the ones that have the best chance at stopping mass murder. But they're excluded because some people love their guns more than their kids. 

I have little to no faith that any gun measure will be passed in the senate. 

Patience, grasshoppers; with any luck at all, the generations are rising and will flood the voting booths. Either that, or I hear there's this bridge for sale in Brooklyn. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Do you mean to tell me.......

Yes, Wednesday is Tell-A-Bad-Joke Day. 

13 years.

z"l