Overheard

Torii Hunter: Pohlad's ignoring me and Twins fans are dumb

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We're paraphrasing. But Torii Hunter, in New York this week for a series against the Mets, granted an interview to the Daily News. Here's what this season's best Twin, whose contract is up this season, had to say:

"I want to be with the Twins and that's been my main goal, but I'm human and the silence makes you wonder. I think I'm a decent player. I can't believe there hasn't even been a conversation about it. That's tough to swallow."

OK, fair enough. The man wants to get paid. But what about this?

"I love Yankee Stadium. The atmosphere and energy there is great. And the fans know the game. When they get on you it can be pretty personal, but it's always about your baseball game. When someone screams, 'You just can't hit that slider,' that's someone who knows what they're talking about. You don't hear that kind of informed (chatter) in Minnesota."

Ouch.

Posted by Jonathan Kaminsky at June 21, 2007 9:30 AM | Comments (7)

 

Ivy Beleaguered

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Pity the Harvard Law student. It is her sad fate to squander her days in the company of America's future overlords—before being thrown out into the cruel world with a six-figure salary at age 25.

Last summer, one particularly sympathetic local decided to share the native warmth that so many Midwesterners feel for the coastal elite. In a good-natured article in last week's Harvard Record, second-year law student Pamela Foohey recounted a mysterious letter that turned up on the windshield of her Lexus SUV—or, rather, her parents' Lexus SUV. The car, Foohey explained, had Connecticut plates, and, more important, a window sticker from Harvard Law.

The message in full:

"Dear Ivey Legger: We CANNOT believe you have such an infantile object as a STUFFED BUNNY in the windshield of your Lexus, especially since you went to HARVARD Law School. THANK GOD I went to public university if that's what they teach you to be CLASS when you go to Harvard. Go home—we don't want your type around here. Sincerely, Ms. Minnesota."

At the time, Foohey was a summer associate at Minneapolis megafirm Dorsey and Whitney. The offending bunny, she notes, was a perk that came from dining at a luxury eatery called McDonalds.

Although she's had the chance to decipher the note for a good long time, Foohey admits that she's no closer to solving the case. "Part of the reason I find it so amusing," she writes in an email to CP, "is because the motivation of the note-taker is baffling. Who would go through the trouble of finding a piece of paper and writing a rather long note around 8:00 p.m. on a Thursday night? There are more interesting things to do in Uptown Minneapolis."

Not being a spiteful soul herself, Foohey doubts that resentment had much to do with the incident. "In the end," she says, "I chalk it up to a combination of boredom, alcohol, and possibly a dare."

Presumably, Foohey will return to our friendly metropolis to take a permanent job at Dorsey and Whitney (starting salary: $120,000). Which may explain why she added the following addendum to her byline, "Pamela Foohey, 2L, would like to reiterate just how much she loves Minneapolis."

Can't you tell that Minneapolis loves you right back?

Posted by Michael Tortorello at April 9, 2007 4:27 PM | Comments (0)

 

Overheard: Congressional candidate's shocking confession

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Tuesday afternoon, Farmfest 2006, congressional candidate panel, Redwood Falls.

After nearly 90 minutes of taking questions, nine incumbent and challenger candidates for U.S. Congress are giving final remarks to a crowd of about 300. Each one--including Collin Peterson, Michele Bachmann, Rod Grams and Coleen Rowley, among others--takes great pains to prove "just folks" bona fides to the independent family farmers assembled.

(Hey, Agent Rowley, how about the name of your blog?)

Tim Walz, the DFLer challenging Gil Gutknecht in Minnesota's First District, scores the biggest laugh of the day, however. (Admittedly, the bar is pretty low at such an event.)

"You wanna talk about small town, I'll tell you that I went to a school with 25 students, and 12 of them were my cousins," Walz says, pausing a beat. "Prom-dating was very difficult."

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at August 2, 2006 4:14 PM | Comments (1)

 

Overheard: Joe Schmit's final wisecrack

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Wednesday, 6:58 p.m., the Channel 5 studios somewhere in the Hubbard Empire complex on University Avenue, where Minneapolis meets St. Paul.

Longtime KSTP-TV sports guy and recent news anchor Joe Schmit is bidding an emotional adieu, leaving his job of 21 years for a gig with Petters Media & Marketing Group.

It's a surprisingly classy and heartfelt goodbye, and Schmit good-naturedly notes that tomorrow is the first day in two decades he won't have to wear make up.

But just as things start to get misty with TV-pals-'til-the-end Dave Dahl and Cyndy Brucato, and there are some uncomfortable displays of arm-patting, Schmit lets loose with a sinister one liner. "I'll just miss our little chat every day about the ratings," he says with a wry chuckle. "That's what I'm gonna miss."

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at July 27, 2006 6:31 PM | Comments (0)

 

Overheard

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Eastbound on the 16 bus, 6:25 p.m., Friday, University Avenue, just past Snelling. White guy and black guy, both middle-aged, both well into their holiday binge drinking, sharing a seat.

"I'm going down to see Alice Cooper," announces the white guy.

"Alice Cooper?" responds his seatmate. "Who's she?"

Posted by Paul Demko at June 30, 2006 6:52 PM | Comments (0)

 

Overheard: Master debaters spar over stadium

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"I'd like to thank the 6th Congressional District race for this [debate]. And the Blanden paper company thanks you too."

--State Rep. Loren Solberg (DFL-Grand Rapids), during last night's protracted debate over a Gopher football stadium, to Rep. Jim Knoblach and Rep. Phil Krinkie. Knoblach and Krinkie, each responsible for proposing a slew of amendments to the stadium bill, are vying to be the Republican candidate for the congressional seat.

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at April 7, 2006 9:23 AM | Comments (0)

 

Overheard

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Outside The Cabooze, at roughly 7:30 p.m. last night. Two dudes with impressive facial hair smoking on the sidewalk.

Dude #1: Southwest is a big hockey school too.
Dude #2: It was.
Dude #1: Yeah, it was.
Dude #2: The Somalians don't like hockey.

Posted by Paul Demko at December 21, 2005 11:17 AM | Comments (2)

 

Overheard: Goodman reads her own press

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As part of a pre-election package, City Pages ran a story in October on Minneapolis City Council member Lisa Goodman. The gist of the story was that Goodman, who represents parts of downtown, as well as Lowry Hill and Kenwood, is a rather cutthroat politician: She's accrued a huge war chest to hold on to her Seventh Ward council seat, she's good at strong-arming votes she wants, and she's often brusque with folks around City Hall, including some of her council colleagues.

The story dubbed Goodman "The Diva of Downtown," and Second Ward Council member Paul Zerby noted that Goodman can sometimes "be a downright brat."

Goodman obviously noted the comment, if an exchange between the two at a City Council meeting on Wednesday is any indication. Zerby was going to vote for an amendment that he had some misgivings about, saying, "I'm learning to be a politician here and vote for it."

Goodman countered with her own support of the amendment, and noted with a smile: "And I'm saying this in the name of being a politician here, and not a brat."

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at December 2, 2005 9:31 AM | Comments (0)

 

The aftermath of Katrina in punditry

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A week after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, we've heard from politicians, pundits, survivors, aid workers, and editorialists. Here are just a few of the notable comments coming out of the tragedy...

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
-- Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) to lobbyists

"The point is if you look at the big picture, it's a phenomenal accomplishment by everybody involved. It's unbelievable. I am constantly struck by where we are today just a little over a week from the worst catastrophe that this country has seen."
-- Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Because they don't see blacks as a current or potential constituency, Bush and his fellow Republicans do not respond out of the instinct of self-interest when dealing with their concerns. Helping low-income blacks is a matter of charity to them, not necessity. The condescension in their attitude intensifies when it comes to New Orleans, which is 67 percent black and largely irrelevant to GOP political ambitions. ... Considered in this light, the actions and inactions now being picked apart are readily explicable."

-- Slate's Jacob Weisberg

"He's said a lot of dumb-ass things lately."

-- An anonymous Department of Homeland Security official on FEMA Director Brown

"Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the
basis of race... The Lord is going to come on time -- if we just wait."

-- Condoleezza Rice touring Alabama last Sunday

"Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney. Go fuck yourself."

-- a protester shouting at Vice President Cheney in Mississippi live on MSNBC

"Must be a friend of John... er, ah - never mind."

-- Cheney's reply

"Unless the federal government adopts New Orleans as its ward and pays all its bills for the next 20 years -- an unlikely to absurd proposition -- the place won't be rebuilt."

-- Slate's Jack Shafer

"The bottom line is that despite the fact the president was strapped with two governors who bungled this crisis badly, in the end it is the president who sends in the National Guard and FEMA relief. The president's suggestion that the size of this storm caught all by surprise just doesn't get it. His administration was 48 hours late sending in the National Guard and poor Americans got raped and killed because of those mistakes."

-- Conservative pundit Joe Scarborough on MSNBC

"I gotta tell you something, we got five or six hundred letters before the show actually went on the air, and no one - no one - is saying the government is doing a good job in handling one of the most atrocious and embarrassing and far-reaching and calamatous things that has come along in this country in my lifetime. I'm 62. I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things. I have never, ever, seen anything as bungled and as poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people in the Superdome. What is going on? This is Thursday! This storm happened 5 days ago. This is a disgrace. And don't think the world isn't watching. This is the government that the taxpayers are paying for, and it's fallen right flat on its face as far as I can see, in the way it's handled this thing."

-- CNN's Jack Cafferty, on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

"Now, for you people who are saying, 'Well, stop pointing fingers at the president...left-wing...the media's being too hard': No. SHUT...UP! No! This is inarguably -- inarguably -- a failure of leadership from the top of the federal government. Remember when Bill Clinton went out with Monica Lewinsky? That was inarguably a failure of judgment at the top. Democrats had to come out and risk losing credibility if they did not condemn Bill Clinton for his behavior. I believe Republicans are in the same position right now. And I will say this: Hurricane Katrina is George Bush's Monica Lewinsky. The only difference is that tens of thousands of people weren't stranded in Monica Lewinsky's vagina."

-- Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show

"Television made it impossible for government officials to say the situation was under control; we could see that it wasn't. Television made it impossible for government officials to say they couldn't get into New Orleans to help; if Harry Connick Jr. could make it in, so could they. Indeed, NBC put Connick on TV so often, you might have thought he was the head of FEMA."

-- USA Today's Robert Bianco

"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment."

-- Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

"This is the second basic American value this administration has violated. The other is humane treatment of enemy prisoners in wartime. Perhaps the reason people feel more than simple frustration with Bush - the reason it amounts to anger - is not "Bush-hatred" (although that irrationality exists), but this president's squandering of so much of what is best about America and his pandering to so much that is worst. I don't fully understand it. I don't think it's malevolence. I think it's a mixture of arrogance and incompetence."

-- Conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan

"We are still hampered by some of the most stupid, idiotic regulations by FEMA. They have turned away generators, we've heard that they've gone around seizing equipment from our contractors. If they do so, they'd better be armed because I'll be damned if I'm going to let them deprive our citizens. I'm pissed off, and tired of this horseshit."

-- Slidell mayor Ben Morris

"But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas."

-- Lisa Rosetta, The Salt Lake Tribune, on FEMA's assignments for volunteer firefighters

"ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS: I think it's time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he's not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be prepared."

-- National Review pundit Jonah Goldberg at NR's The Corner blog

"People are going into survivor mode. They are calling it looting and I'm saying it's surviving. What's a store with food in it if you don't have food? What's a store with fresh water if you don't have water? What are you supposed to do?"

-- St. Louis Rams running back and New Orleans resident Marshall Faulk

"This is mass chaos. To tell you the truth, I'd rather be in Iraq."

-- Sgt. Jason Defess, 27, a National Guard military policeman and Iraqi war veteran who had been stationed on a ramp outside the Superdome since Monday

"I am pleased with the federal government response. And by the way, while they're hurting, and I understand it, this is not a time for complaining."

-- Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), on CNN

"We got a lot of rebuilding to do... the good news is and it's hard for some to see it now but out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic gulf coast...out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- the guy lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. I look forward to sitting on the porch."

-- President George W. Bush, in Mississippi

"George Bush doesn't care about black people."

-- Singer Kanye West during NBC's A Concert for Hurricane Relief

"By censoring Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West's remarks critical of President Bush during its West Coast feed of the program Friday night, the network violated the most moving and essential moment in an otherwise sterile, self-serving corporate broadcast."

-- Los Angeles Times staff writer Robert Hilburn

"People are going into survivor mode. They are calling it looting and I'm saying it's surviving. What's a store with food in it if you don't have food? What's a store with fresh water if you don't have water? What are you supposed to do?"

-- St. Louis Rams running back and New Orleans resident Marshall Faulk

"On the fourth level, the darkest and highest of all, the lurkers lived, scary in the shadows. The fourth level, people explained, was for the gangsters and the druggies. The rumors sprang from there: Two girls had been raped; one girl had been raped and one killed. Someone was abducting newborns. A man had jumped from there and died. A murder had occurred."

-- Washington Post reporter Ann Gerhart, on conditions inside the Superdome

"All right. Hang in there."

-- President George W. Bush, to the Katrina survivors in Mississippi

"I wouldn't say I'm angry, you know. I think I'm tired of hearing the politicians say that, you know, they understand the frustration of people down here. To me, you know, it's not frustration. It's not that people are frustrated. It's that people are dying. I mean there are people dying. They're drowning to death and they drown in their living rooms and their bodies are rotting where they drowned and there are corpses in the street being eaten by rats and this is the United States of America."

-- CNN's Anderson Cooper

"New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now. God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

-- Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans

"I'm not surprised at what the feds say, they're covering their butts. They're keeping the body counts down because they don't want to horrify the nation. It's worse than Iraq, worse than 9-11. They just don't want to know how many were murdered by bureaucracy."

-- Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this is working very well for them."

-- Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on evacuees in the Houston Astrodome

"...As scenes of horror that seemed to be coming from some Third World country flashed before us, official Washington was like a dog watching television. It saw the lights and images, but did not seem to comprehend their meaning or see any link to reality."

-- CBS News anchorman Bob Schieffer

"The City of New Orleans and its residents owe the president a profound debt of gratitude."

-- Powerline blogger John Hinderaker

"You have people who don't heed those, those, uh, those warnings, and then put people at risk as a result of uh, not, uh heeding those warnings. So there may be a need to look at tougher penalties, candidly, on those who decide to ride it out and and and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

-- Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), on WTAE-TV CH 4/Pittsburgh, wanting to fine New Orleans residents who didn't leave

"We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame."

-- Excerpt from An Open Letter to the President in the Times-Picayune

"Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."

-- Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard on CBS's The Early Show

"We found it absolutely incredible that the authorities had no way to get there for four or five days, that they didn't go in and help these people, and we made it in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai."

-- Hans Buder, one of three Duke University sophomores who managed to drive all the way to the New Orleans Convention Center last Saturday evening to assist victims of Hurrican Katrina

"A few piles of bottled water wouldn't have come amiss if there's going to be suddenly too much water but none of it drinkable. Elementary things like that. He didn't do that. Then he did a fly-by from his holiday retreat, and then he got there too late and then he said something completely idiotic. So I really can't see there is any forgiveness for that. And remember also, that he did interrupt his holiday not very long ago to pay attention to something that was none of his business at all as President. Namely, the alleged living condition of an actually dead woman named Terri Schiavo."

-- Conservative pundit Christopher Hitchens

"The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina offers an historic opportunity to revitalize the Gulf Coast."

-- Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)

"When are they gonna go home? There aren't any homes to go back to."

-- St. Bernard Parish President Junior Rodriguez, when asked by an anchorman when his residents would be able to go home

"I understand there are 10,000 people dead. It's terrible. It's tragic. But in a democracy of 300 million people, over years and years and years, these things happen."

-- Republican strategist Jack Burkman on MSNBC

Posted by Corey Anderson at September 7, 2005 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

 

CNN anchor's tolerance for lip service in the red zone

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"I wouldn't say I'm angry, you know. I think I'm tired of hearing the politicians say that, you know, they understand the frustration of people down here. To me, you know, it's not frustration. It's not that people are frustrated. It's that people are dying. I mean there are people dying. They're drowning to death and they drown in their living rooms and their bodies are rotting where they drowned and there are corpses in the street being eaten by rats and this is the United States of America."

-- CNN's Anderson Cooper, 9/2/2005

Posted by Corey Anderson at September 2, 2005 3:19 PM | Comments (1)

 

Overheard

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Metrodome plaza, 6:35 p.m. Thursday, half hour before the Twins play Seattle. A passerby notices a booth that resembles all the other food stands on the plaza, but this one doesn't have a line of people buying corn dogs, burgers or barbeque sandwiches.

Instead, it's got an Animatronic chef behind a faux grill. The sidekick is, er, a computer monitor with a face and professor glasses. The pair are moving and flailing and lip-synching with robot-like passion to a bouncy little ditty.

Passerby notices the booth is called "The Fun Zone" and is run by "Border Foods," according signage on the front. Passerby is puzzled by this, and frankly is creeped out by the fact that he's making serious eye contact with the "singing" Animatronic chef.

But the tune is catchy--driven by an acoustic guitar, some light percussion and two-part harmony. A man's voice (the chef, one presumes) and a woman's voice (the computer monitor?) are repeating the refrain "Get over it on love, Get over it on love." What an odd, melancholy and ultimately uplifting sentiment, the passerby thinks.

Then there's a rest in the chorus and the chef speaks the word "Quiero." When the chorus resumes, passerby realizes the actual lyrics to the strangely sweet song: "Yo Quiero Taco Bell."

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at August 19, 2005 9:08 AM | Comments (0)

 

Overheard: Ask not, want.

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Location: The bottom of Ramsey Hill in St. Paul, Tuesday night, 7:55 p.m. A bearded traveler stands at the traffic light, shouldering an old, external-frame backpack. He has the hollow look of a man who spends his time in places where no one else would want to be.

Above the wash of traffic, a command trumpets out of the megaphone on a St. Paul cop car: "You better not even be thinking of begging."

I blow through a red light. The cops don't say a word.

Posted by Michael Tortorello at July 29, 2005 2:43 PM | Comments (3)