Nitty Ditty Nitty Gritty Great Bird
— George H.W. Bush
Nine out of ten tax-filers pay for help to complete their returns.
— Schumpeter
Remember when your politics, religion, and income were nobody else’s goddam business? That was nice.
— @tbtduluth
Still way behind on posts, so here’s the most recent…
A week ago Saturday, Colleen and I went down to Roy Wilkins Auditorium (site of our high school graduation) to see Tenacious D, Ben Harper and the Beastie Boys for a Rock the Vote concert. We’ve never seen any of them before and tickets were only $35, so we decided to use the valuable tickets instead of selling them to a broker (the 6,000 ticket show sold out instantly).
I was just as excited to see the D as I was the Beastie Boys, seeing as how my work servers are named JB, KG, Lee and Sasquatch. They only played for about 45 minutes, but it was awesome:
- Kielbasa
- History
- Dude (I Totally Miss You)
- Kyle Quit
- Friendship
- Saxaboom
- The Government Totally Sucks
- Wonderboy
- City Hall
- F*ck Her Gently
- Tribute
The Ben Harper set was extremely loud. I didn’t really know much about him going in, but he played well and was enjoyable. JB and KG came out for some vocal contributions during a cover of Queen’s Under Pressure, which was one of the highlights of the night for me.
The Beastie Boys set was a total flashback to our high school days. 44-year-old MCA is still our favorite – such a cool, unique voice. He definitely has lost a step on Mike D and King Ad-Rock, though. Mix Master Mike shined during Three MC’s and One DJ and I loved the opening to No Sleep Til’ Brooklyn, which sent chills down my spine.
The sound in the auditorium wasn’t the greatest for their vocals, but it was plenty loud on everything else. The boys all played instruments during the encore, which was a trip to watch. I especially enjoyed seeing MCA play the distinctive riff from Gratitude. I was also happy to have Ad-Rock repeatedly correct Mike D about which city he was in. Maybe it was that Andy Samberg hair messin’ with his mind…
Here is the set list, as quoted by the Star Tribune:
- Super Disco Breakin’
- Flute Loop
- Alright Hear This
- Sure Shot
- Pass the Mic
- Check It Out
- Root Down
- Body Movin’
- No Sleep Til’ Brooklyn
- Right Now
- Three MC’s and One DJ
- So What ‘Cha Want
- Intergalactic
- — Encore —
- Biz Vs. Nuge
- Time For Livin’
- Gratitude
- Sabotage
Vote for Yo Mama!
As I do for every election, here are the people and issues on my ballot this year (as far as I can tell), along with links to various web sites. I don’t make public endorsements on this site – I just encourage everyone to get informed before election day, then get out there on November 4th and fill out your ballot as an intelligent, knowledgeable voter.
A while back I received an email from 7 Minute Miles reader Rick Kelley of Minneapolis. He wanted to raise awareness about a local advocacy group called Circus Reform Yes!
Minnesota passed a new law this year that requires all counties to conduct a post-election audit of 2-4 randomly picked precincts. The paper ballot totals for Minnesota Governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. Congress will be manually counted and compared to the results of the optical scan machines. If there is more than a 0.5 percent difference, an automatic recount of the entire county will be called.
Here is the tentative list of the people who will be representing me in the major offices:
- U.S. Senators: Norm Coleman (R) and Amy Klobuchar (D)
- U.S. Representative, District 2: John Kline (R)
- Governor: Tim Pawlenty (R)
- MN Attorney General: Lori Swanson (D)
- MN Secretary of State: Mark Ritchie (D)
- MN State Auditor: Rebecca Otta (D)
- MN Senate, District 38: Jim Carlson (D)
- MN House, District 38A: Sandra Masin (D)
- Eagan Mayor: Mike Maguire
- Eagan City Council: Peggy Carlson, Paul Bakken, Meg Tilley, Cyndee Fields
Overall, I think it was an interesting mix of results in this election. I’m neither excited or angry, so I guess that’s a positive. I do plan to communicate more with the people listed above and make them work for their money, something I haven’t done nearly enough in the past…DK
Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for–the day when election ads stop on TV! Seriously, though, I encourage all of you to get informed and exercise your right to vote. You can’t bitch about things later if you don’t vote today. The League of Women Voters site has a good ballot site and will tell you where to vote.
I voted this morning at 8:15am and did not have to wait in line at all. My wife got there when the polls opened at seven and she had to wait about a half hour. The counter said I was ballot 243–let’s get those participation numbers up…DK
While working on my election research, there were a few question marks. In the Eagan city council race, candidate Buzz Anderson did not have any website or email information listed in his filing. I did a Google search and found his business email at the Minnesota Retailers Association. He replied with the following contact info:
- Email: andersonrus@comcast.net
- Work Phone: 651-227-6631
- Cell: 651-307-4994
In the second district congressional race, the Independence Party candidate is listed as Douglas Williams, but he is not listed on the Minnesota Independence Party website. I thought that was really odd and contacted Marian Brown, the IP chair for CD2. She said Mr. Williams does not have the endorsement of the Independence Party and they don’t really know much about him. He appears to be a fringe candidate based on the limited information available online, but I’m still not sure how he got on the ballot as an IP candidate.
When I was growing up, there were two taboo topics: politics and religion. Both were considered private, personal decisions and talking about them in public was just not done. In some ways, I wish more people still felt this way, but then again, some issues are too important to keep quiet about.