Indian Chief Justice BR Gavai remained “calm” while the shoe flung at him by a lawyer was approaching, witnesses said Monday, and he remained so after it “brushed against” him and another justice and fell harmlessly to the ground. No one was injured by the projectile, and the assault failed to slow, even for an instant, the steely-eyed jurist’s relentless pursuit of justice (or whatever ridiculous thing the case was probably about).
“After [the shoe-thrower] was apprehended by the courtroom security,” one witness said, “the chief justice told the lawyers to continue their arguments and not get distracted.”
Chief Justice Gavai has not publicly commented on the incident, and authorities said no charges will be filed, though this was plainly an assault. But the shoe-flinger, identified as lawyer Rakesh Kishore, has reportedly already been suspended from practice, showing just how fast that can happen if you were to do something like, let’s say, throw a shoe at your country’s chief justice.
You will probably also not get your shoe back.
What was Kishore so mad about? He seems to have felt that Gavai disrespected the Hindu god Vishnu during a recent hearing on a petition. Vishnu did not personally appear in court, so far as I can tell; according to the BBC, the petition was “a plea to reconstruct a seven-foot idol of Lord Vishnu at a temple in Madhya Pradesh state.” The report doesn’t say what happened to the idol or what the grounds for the petition were, but the petitioners did not succeed. “This is purely publicity interest [sic] litigation,” Gavai reportedly said from the bench, adding, “[g]o and ask the deity himself to do something.”
Well, there is often a requirement that you exhaust all other remedies before asking a court to intervene, but at least one Hindu found the comment disrespectful to the deity Himself.
“[Gavai] not only refused to accept the prayer,” Kishore told an online news outlet, “but made fun of the Lord Vishnu.” Speaking “hours after throwing the shoe,” as the BBC put it, Kishore said he had “not been able to sleep” since Gavai made the comment on September 16. After seething about it for three weeks, apparently, Kishore decided throwing a shoe at the Chief Justice during a court proceeding would be the best way to proceed.
“Throwing a shoe at someone in public is seen as an act of disrespect and humiliation in India and many other countries,” the BBC claims, which seems more or less accurate though I don’t think it has to be a shoe or in public to qualify. Having said that, back when somebody threw a shoe at then-President George W. Bush (see “Bush Survives Shoe Barrage During Baghdad Press Conference” (Dec. 14, 2008)), there were suggestions that “hitting someone with a shoe is considered the supreme insult in Iraq” because it means “the target is even lower than the shoe.” I can think of significantly worse insults, but I don’t claim to be an expert on the cultures involved.
It’s not clear to me exactly why Kishore considered this comment disrespectful to Lord Vishnu. I suppose one could interpret it as implying that if you did ask Vishnu to do something, nothing would happen. But that wouldn’t necessarily mean He didn’t exist or was powerless; it could just mean that (for example) He didn’t like that particular statue or had more important things to do than listen to you bitch about it. I mean, just mentioning Lord Vishnu isn’t disrespectful. Is it? See, e.g., “Man Says He Can’t Come to the Office Because He Gets More Done at Home as Lord Vishnu” (May 21, 2021) (discussing man’s explanation why he needed to work remotely). That guy claimed to be the tenth incarnation of Lord Vishnu, but at the time of the report had not yet proven it. If he did so, please let me know. But at the time of writing, at least, this had nothing to do with Vishnu Himself. See also “Lord Hanuman Gets Another Court Summons” (Feb. 25, 2016) (not being disrespectful to Him either).
I have arguably been disrespectful to the Supreme Court of India more than once—well, not the Court itself but its legal writing, which, unless it has dramatically improved recently, is far and away the worst in the English-speaking world. See “Luxuriate in the Octopoid Embrace of These Legal Postulations” (Feb. 15, 2017) (which, I warn you, you may not be able to unsee); see also “High Court Vomits Truth in Frozen-Guru Case” (July 6, 2017) (not their highest court, but still). But I kept my shoes on.
My sister and I sat through a 4 hour online seminar on Saturday, on what to do to prep claiming Continuing Healthcare funding for my mother (so the NHS pays for her care home place rather than the family). The presenter was a lawyer, backed by a MH nurse turned patient advocate. They were obviously trying to drum up work for their little firm ("The Lawyer and The Nurse"), but in a "we're here if you decide you need us" way, not "you absolutely need us". Very useful.
There's a daunting amount of stuff to do before the Decision Support Tool assessment on the 22nd, and we'll likely need to ask for a postponement in order to get stuff like copies of my mother's hospital notes and understand the relevant bits - we'd hoped we could rely on her discharge notes, but there are a couple of things missing because the in-hospital reaction was "well, that's weird, not sure why it's happening, not a lot we can do", which translated to not mentioning it in the discharge notes at all. *headdesk*
I did get to ask during the Q&A about my worry that the sheer extent of the crossovers between symptoms in different areas would be missed if the nurse-assessor wasn't familiar with my mother's rare issues, and was told we absolutely needed to emphasise every crossover in writing, not assume they would recognise them, and that it would be useful to get input from my mother's consultant.
We've actually done this before with my dad, but his case was so obvious that we didn't really have to fight to get it, though there was one attempt to take it away where I now know I happened to say the right thing to get it for him completely by accident.
Welcome to the cake that has terrified me the most. You see, I have two favorite cakes. The first is my Strawberry Summer Stack Cake, the layered strawberry, cream, and butter cake version of the Strawberry Summer Cake in Smitten Kitchen Keepers. The second is the Opera Cake (Gâteau Opéra), a stacked and striped dessert with thin almond cake layers soaked in espresso syrup, chocolate ganache, and a rich espresso buttercream. The difference between the first cake and the second is that the second recipe was never going to happen.
In the nearly two decades of Smitten Kitchen’s existence, I’ve again and again begun researching what a homemade opera cake would entail and every time, slammed the proverbial book shut because it was just too much. A joconde! French buttercream! Soaking syrup! Chocolate layer! Many separated eggs! And what about all of that espresso? There are children present! And elderly people (me) who probably shouldn’t drink coffee after 4pm! If I could barely talk myself into it, how would I convince you? Maybe some things are best left to the professionals, I concluded.
Gone now. She'd been ill for a long time, but for a long time before that she had been an ornament of Twin Cities, and before that Bay Area, fandom. Quiet, often motionless, but managing never to be inconspicuous, she was easy to talk with - and it was with, not to, because without ever being loud or pushy she was always responsive and involved in conversation. She was one of the people who gave the circles she belonged to their special flavor.
I am one of many, many, many, many people who knew and loved Terry and felt a special connection to her.
I would see her around at Little Men's, around the Portable Bookstore, in The Other Change of Hobbit after that opened - she clerked there for a while, and I got to walk in one day and wish her happy Boxing Day, back when few people in this country knew what that was - the Magic Cellar, parties and meals and conventions. After she moved to Mpls, I was changing planes there once and contacted her beforehand, so she came down to the airport (this was before 9/11) and we had lunch.
I think the most special thing she did for me was to convince me to join Spinoff, which was one of the apas founded to continue the mixed-sex conversations of the original AWA after the men were asked to leave. Spinoff had a loose and random/goofy air to it, Firesign Theater and FKB, and I found it best to write for it late at night, when my mind was disconnected and could free associate. There was a bit of that to Terry too, but she was never undirected and always knew where she was going.
Steffanie Musich is the incumbent and is running again. She was not endorsed at the City DFL convention, probably due to the walkout of all the Frey supporters in a failed attempt to break the quorum.
tl;dr I would rank Kay Carvajal Moran #1, Colton Baldus #2.
Over on the post about the At-Large race I provided a whole lot of backstory on the last four years of the Park Board, and I don’t want to just C&P that whole thing over because there’s a lot. For the people who don’t want to click over, here’s a minimalist “why I’m super annoyed with the current Park Board, and why I want candidates who will do different things” summary:
I think Steffanie was the only candidate seeking endorsement at the City DFL convention, which is why there was no endorsement in District 5 — she was one of the members LiUNA (the park board workers’ union) identified as a union buster, but there was no viable alternative presented at the time. Since then, Kay has entered the race and gotten a ton of union support.
Justin listed his Instagram as his campaign site but I linked to his campaign Facebook because it’s a lot more informative. (For example, the newest post as of today appears to suggest that supporters put his signs up in parks.) Most informative bit is his rant about how the incumbent is “THE driving force behind the plan to ruin Hiawatha Golf Course.” That golf course is not viable in 18-hole form. One of the things I like about Musich is her refusal to prioritize golf over a clean lake and people not losing their homes. I would absolutely not rank Justin.
Steffanie was on the wrong side of both the Uptown Mall vote and the strike. She was also the driving force behind a program that sells carbon offset credits to companies, theoretically in exchange for planting trees. Her website mentions this in her first-term accomplishments: “Facilitated Public/Private partnership with Green Minneapolis to expand tree planting by 7,000 trees annually.” Except that according to the 2024 Star Tribune article I linked above, “none of the profits has been used to plant a single tree. It may be used to purchase trees in 2025, said Park Board spokeswoman Robin Smothers.”
Green Minneapolis is now Green Cities Accord; the board chair, David Wilson, is a developer and a major donor to Steffanie’s campaigns (someone e-mailed me about this and noted that he gave her 10% of her money in 2021; I wasn’t able to confirm this on the site that tracks Minneapolis donations because it doesn’t go back that far, but in the current cycle, he donated $600 the maximum donation of her $6032, so almost exactly 10% of money she’s raised so far. $600 is the maximum allowable donation for a ward-based city race.)
I have mixed feelings about carbon credits; I mean on one hand they’re weirdly reminiscent to me of medieval-style indulgences and on the other hand they’re maybe better than nothing. However, if someone’s buying indulgences carbon credits on the basis of trees getting planted, and the trees aren’t getting planted, it’s really hard to see this as anything other than greenwashing.
She’s worked with the Minnesota Immigrant Movement to support street vendors, and supports “micro entrepreneurs” in the parks. She’s also worked on youth programming in the parks (she mentions kickboxing, Bike Alebrijes MN, and academic support.) Her website leads with youth programming and also talks about environmental stewardship and worker rights.
Colton Baldus is a tenant organizer. The vision section of their website leads with “stand with organized labor” but also talks about climate justice, reduced fees for those who currently struggle to afford to use park programs, public restrooms in every park, and harm reduction strategies. They don’t t seem to have any endorsements.
I would rank Kay #1, Colton #2, and I am not worried enough about Justin and his “NO ENDORSEMENTS – NO MASTERS” approach to campaigning to rate Steffanie #3 (though to be clear, I think she’s the lesser evil there. I think this is a contest between Kay and Steffanie, though.)
I have a new book coming out next June! This one is not YA; it’s a near-future thriller about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on site to deliver babies. You can pre-order it right now if you want.
I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi but instead encourage people who want to reward all my hard work to donate to fundraisers. This year I’m fundraising for YouthLink. YouthLink is a Minneapolis nonprofit that helps youth (ages 16-24) who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. (Here’s their website.) I have seen some of the work they do and been really impressed. (An early donor to the fundraiser added a comment: “YouthLink was incredible instrumental in my assistance of a friend to escape a bad family situation in Florida with little more than a computer and a state ID. Thanks to YouthLink and their knowledge of resources my friend was able to get a mailing address (which was essential in getting a debit card and formal identification documents), healthcare, hot meals, an internship at a local company, and even furniture for their new apartment.” — That is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about!)
I knew Terry a little, mainly from LiveJournal and then WisCon.
She was this amazing person, a good writer, a poet (founding member of the Lady Poetesses from Hell), librarian, and longtime science fiction fan. Formerly of the Bay Area and Minneapolis primarily, and many other places in her youth.
I'm on A Meal of Thorns this week talking about Melissa Scott's Burning Bright: why I love it, what makes it space opera or cyberpunk, and the mystery of the ending.
Things have been very chaotic around here recently and I’ve been struggling to focus or watch things for long. Also emeraldarrowsrecced me a bunch of mini dramas which were perfect for my state of mind. I seem to do much better at actually watching the ones with slightly longer episodes (around 15 min as opposed to around 5min), plus it really helps to have a rec list since it's really hard for me to figure out which mini dramas I might like.
A Familiar Stranger—This mini drama is about a woman who is forced to swap faces with another woman and take her place in an arranged marriage. There’s some tense moments in here but most of the focus is on the romance, which is pretty cute. Content Notes pregnancy, suicide
The West Wind Is Strong—Mini drama about a woman who pretends to be a princess to marry the ruler of the steppe nomads and learn about why her father died. As with many Chinese dramas about steppe nomads its pretty racist.The last couple of episodes are choppy and rushed and kinda confusing Content Notesracism, sex where both people are drunk
The Reign of Feng Yi—Another mini drama! This has a similar premise to Dominion and Devotion: a woman raised from birth as a man becomes a puppet ruler and fights for power. But its much more light-hearted. This was cute and fun! (Content note: attempted rape)
Wow the World ep 5-18— This travel reality show was also a good fit for my current state of mind, it's cute and fun and not a lot of plot to follow. I ended up watching so much of this that I have to wait for more episodes to be available on youtube. I especially liked the bits where the cast cooked together.
Mu Guiying Takes Command ep 12-32— This was a soothing show that I was watching when I didn’t have lot of a brain, because even though it's not very good I enjoyed the various badass women. But it took a turn! Upsetting things happened and I stopped finding it soothing. So this is on infinite hold. Content Notes pregnancy/ abortion
Cathy Abene is the incumbent and is running again. Her opponent, Ira Jourdain, has the DFL endorsement, probably in large part due to the walkout at the City DFL convention of all the Frey supporters in a failed attempt to break the quorum. (If I were Cathy Abene, I would be absolutely furious at Frey. Apparently they’re campaigning together, though.)
Cathy Abene was my second choice in 2021 and while I don’t think I regret this (could’ve been worse) I’ve been disappointed with her as she’s largely gone in lockstep with Elizabeth Shaffer. I wrote a longer assessment of all the reasons I don’t like the current Park Board on my At-Large post and I don’t want to recap here, but I will note that Cathy got called out by LiUNA (the union that represents the Park Workers) as a union buster in the wake of the park worker strike. On Cathy’s website, she says, “The number one refrain I hear from constituents is that we should prioritize taking care of what we have, and I couldn’t agree more. When it comes to our physical parks, our world-class system is only as good as the assets that make it up.” The thing she doesn’t acknowledge is that among the assets that make it up are the people who take care of what we have! Taking care of the workers who maintain our parks is part of taking care of what we have. Cathy also joined Shaffer in the vote to cut youth programming positions in order to repave a bike path.
When my kids were little, we lived close to the Hiawatha School Park, and we went there a lot. There was a woman who worked at the park (I would guess she’s now retired) who was the person who would literally haul out the hose to spray down the surface of the ice rink any day when it was cold enough to freeze, to give skaters a fresh surface. One time some asshole dropped bubble bath into the wading pool and she spent the next day scrubbing it out by hand. She worked so hard making sure that park stayed pleasant and usable and nice. The parks system is partly the fields, playgrounds, ice rinks, woods, community centers, etc., and it’s partly the people who mow the grass, fix the play equipment, flood the ice rinks, trim the trees, and staff the community centers.
Ira is an enrolled tribal citizen of the Red Lake band of Ojibwe, works in Human Services, and served on the Minneapolis School Board for two terms. In an article where he reflects on his time on the school board he mentions his proudest achievement is mandating 30 minutes of recess per day for Minneapolis elementary schoolers. (That’s a minimum, to be clear, and many — possibly most — Minneapolis elementary schoolers were not getting it. My kids definitely did not, when they were in a Minneapolis public school.)
Ira got an anti-endorsement from someone who’d had very bad experiences with him back when he was running for the State House seat in 62B (okay, someone let me know you can’t see that link without a Bluesky account. The statement was, “Ira Jourdain is the single worst elected official I have ever interacted with. I had to block him on Facebook because he would constantly harass me in the DMs at like 2AM,” made by a former resident who maintains ties to the area) but I’m very unhappy with Cathy, and Ira actually explicitly acknowledges how much the parks are the result of hard work from the park staff.. I would vote for Ira Jourdain.
I have a new book coming out next June! This one is not YA; it’s a near-future thriller about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on site to deliver babies. You can pre-order it right now if you want.
I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi but instead encourage people who want to reward all my hard work to donate to fundraisers. This year I’m fundraising for YouthLink. YouthLink is a Minneapolis nonprofit that helps youth (ages 16-24) who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. (Here’s their website.) I have seen some of the work they do and been really impressed. (An early donor to the fundraiser added a comment: “YouthLink was incredible instrumental in my assistance of a friend to escape a bad family situation in Florida with little more than a computer and a state ID. Thanks to YouthLink and their knowledge of resources my friend was able to get a mailing address (which was essential in getting a debit card and formal identification documents), healthcare, hot meals, an internship at a local company, and even furniture for their new apartment.” — That is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about!)
This district is currently represented by Elizabeth Shaffer, who is running for the Ward 7 City Council seat. I don’t like Shaffer; she is central to all my current grudges against the current Park Board.
tl;dr I would rank Jason Garcia first, Andrew Gebo second.
Over on the post about the At-Large race I provided a whole lot of backstory on the last four years of the Park Board, and I’m not going to fully recap that here because there’s a lot, but here’s one thing: last spring, there was a vote on the Uptown Mall, which is a stretch of park-owned land between Hennepin and Lake of the Isles:
There were five years of community engagement over how best to develop it, which resulted in a detailed plan in 2021: the plan included a play area, a connection to the Greenway, seating, a “shared woonerf” that could be used for stuff like farmer’s markets or small art festivals, and a community garden. When this plan was originally created, it looked like it wouldn’t be implemented for years, because it would require money to be allocated to do it. However, this year, the Met Council announced they were going to do a sewer rebuild, which involved tearing out all the roads anyway, and offered to rebuild it however the Park Board wanted it rebuilt. It was an absolutely amazing opportunity for a free park, basically.
And the current Park Board turned it down, because the rebuild would sacrifice parking. Their claim was that they were acting out of concerns over fire safety. However, their justification was that the Fire Department prefers a 20-foot road width; this is wider than the “shared woonerf/flexible market street” in the plan, but also wider than the 12-foot road that’s there now, unless you include the 8-foot parking lane, which is normally full of parked cars. The board then voted against banning parking there, or even enforcing the on-the-books overnight parking ban. The claim that this was about fire safety rather than parking was profoundly disingenuous. (Also, Minneapolis is full of streets that don’t provide that ideal 20′ road width and the Fire Department is able to cope.) The theory I’ve heard now from two places is that the rich people who live in mansions nearby didn’t want the renters who currently park on the Mall to relocate to the street parking in front of their homes.
One final note on this controversy: the Uptown Mall is in District 4.
One of the other major things that happened was the strike of park workers. Elizabeth Shaffer is one of the park board members called out by the union as a union buster.
Moving on! Jason Garcia was endorsed at the DFL City Convention. On September 29th an e-mail went out advocating for an “apolitical Park Board” and signed by some of the most aggressively centrist, absolutely political people in town. They’re supporting Colby.
Jeanette Colby is campaigning with Elizabeth Shaffer — her lit highlights that endorsement — and I swear I saw her talking somewhere about having been recruited by her to run. That would be reason for suspicion but I also e-mailed her to get her thoughts on the Uptown Mall thing, and here’s her response:
On the question of The Mall, my biggest concern was that if street access were removed, emergency vehicles would not have had adequate access to the apartment homes of dozens of people according to the Minneapolis Fire Chief. In general, I believe a remake of a space like The Mall requires much more substantial community input than it received during the Southwest Area master planning process. When the issue came to a critical juncture in April, the East Isles Neighborhood Association did not support the master plan.
Yeah, no. Even the Star Tribune reporting made it clear the “fire safety concerns” were a smokescreen for a collective freakout over parking spaces.
Colby has volunteered with the Kenwood Neighborhood Organization, the SWLRT Community Advisory Committee, and the Cedar Lake Park Association. She is a an artist (ceramicist, specifically) and a docent at the MIA.
Gebo is a tech guy with cats. He spoke in favor of the Uptown Mall plan when interviewed by the Southwest Connector for their coverage of the race. (“This project, part of the Southwest Parks Plan, would have created bike paths and recreational spaces that connected Uptown to Bde Maka Ska, which would have been a transformative enhancement to our park system. With the Metropolitan Council’s sewer project presenting a unique opportunity to implement this plan without cost to the Park Board, the decision not to act reflects a lack of vision and leadership.”)
He has done some volunteering in the parks (in an e-mail response he mentioned Earth Day trash pickups and supporting fundraising efforts with the Friends of Loring Park) but has not served on any commissions or advisory boards. I enjoyed listening to his interview with WedgeLive but there was one bit I found sort of eyebrow-raising — John asked him if he was ready for “nastiness” and Gebo thought he meant in the campaign. John did not mean in the campaign. (The Park Board has historically been one of the most drama-prone, acrimonious elected bodies in the City of Minneapolis.) If he were the only person running on a “park board, not parking board” platform I would endorse him but he is not. I would rank him second.
Jason Garcia is someone I’ve known online for years and I was really excited when they entered the race. They spent most of the month of September in the hospital after emergency surgery — they’re now home, but still recovering. They do expect to be sufficiently recovered to serve, if elected, but they are not able to do as much campaigning as some of their opponents. If you would like to see Jason elected, this would be a good race to volunteer to doorknock in.
Jason’s employment has involved a lot of work in local/indigenous foods. They worked for the American Indian Community Housing Organization and helped AICHO plan an indigenous food market. They were also the founding manager at the Indigenous Food Lab Market in Midtown Global Market.
Their governance experience includes a lot of time in meetings as an observer, and part of why I’m familiar with them is their involvement with WedgeLive coverage of local politics. I have a lot of confidence that they know what they’re getting into, and significant conviction that they’ll make good choices in Park Board work.
I would rank Jason Garcia #1, Andrew Gebo #2.
I have a new book coming out next June! This one is not YA; it’s a near-future thriller about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on site to deliver babies. You can pre-order it right now if you want.
I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi but instead encourage people who want to reward all my hard work to donate to fundraisers. This year I’m fundraising for YouthLink. YouthLink is a Minneapolis nonprofit that helps youth (ages 16-24) who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. (Here’s their website.) I have seen some of the work they do and been really impressed. (An early donor to the fundraiser added a comment: “YouthLink was incredible instrumental in my assistance of a friend to escape a bad family situation in Florida with little more than a computer and a state ID. Thanks to YouthLink and their knowledge of resources my friend was able to get a mailing address (which was essential in getting a debit card and formal identification documents), healthcare, hot meals, an internship at a local company, and even furniture for their new apartment.” — That is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about!)
Over on the post about the At-Large race I provided a whole lot of backstory on the last four years of the Park Board, and I don’t want to just C&P that whole thing over because there’s a lot. For the people who don’t want to click over, here’s a minimalist “why I’m super annoyed with the current Park Board, and why I want candidates who will do different things” summary:
Dan Engelhart got endorsed at the DFL City Convention, Billy Menz dropped out, and Dan Miller joined the race. On September 29th an e-mail went out advocating for an “apolitical Park Board” and signed by some of the most aggressively centrist, absolutely political people in town. They’re supporting Miller.
Engelhart’s website emphasizes his background as a union organizer and employee (he’s the business agent for MAPE). I e-mailed to ask for more information on his work with the parks, and he got back to me promptly to talk about his involvement with AFCAC (the Above the Falls Community Advisory Committee). Honestly I felt like I got the best sense of who he is, what he stands for, and what he wants to do on the Park Board from watching his WedgeLive interview. You can also listen to WedgeLive interviews as a podcast but this is a good one to watch on YouTube, as there’s a lot of discussion of the areas they bike through and it’s useful to be able to see some of what they’re talking about. He struck me as committed, knowledgeable, and thoughtful.
Calling Dan Miller a “bike guy” doesn’t really do him justice. He teaches biking to kids through a program in the local schools; he’s chaired multiple groups working on planning bikeway expansions; he’s worked on master plan advisory committees; he’s served for years on the Bicycle Advisory Committee. From his website: “Thanks in part to his advocacy, $5.5 million in public funding was secured to begin construction of the Grand Rounds Missing Link between Stinson Boulevard and the Franklin Avenue Bridge. […] Dan Miller has spent a decade championing a safer Central Ave. His persistent advocacy helped shape MnDOT’s corridor plan. […] His firsthand experience [with kid biking safety] informed his role in the Edison High School Safe Routes to School study, where he led site tours and helped identify high-risk areas.” Various people I know have worked with him and say he’s good to work with.
I like this, and he sounds terrific in a number of ways (his website also expresses commitment to playgrounds, dog parks, ice rinks, etc., lest you think he is just a bike guy). I guess my main concern about him is the fact that the Super Apolitical (very political) people endorsed him. I e-mailed him and asked, among other things, whether he had considered screening for Labor endorsement.
He replied, among other things: “My reason for filing was after Billy Menz suspended his campaign. I felt strongly that there be at least two candidates on the ballot for Parks Commissioner District 1. I do not have an agenda. I am running because it is my civic duty to offer voters a choice of parks over politics. I have years of volunteering on parks, city and neighborhood committees as well as a career managing people and projects. There’s alot happening at MPRB which I think is going in the right direction. I don’t wish to upend Parks for All, the Above the Falls and Grand Rounds Missing Link efforts. I’m a collaborator and will not be a ‘my way or the highway’ commissioner.” (I’m not sure if he’s referring to Billy Menz there but “my way or the highway” is a phrase that has come up A LOT when people have talked about Billy Menz.) So given his line about “parks over politics” I do have concerns that he’s weaker on labor issues, especially given that Engelhart has in fact done a bunch of civic work in the parks (less than Miller, but this is actually an extremely high bar.)
I would probably vote for Engelhart, but honestly, they both sound good.
I have a new book coming out next June! This one is not YA; it’s a near-future thriller about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on site to deliver babies. You can pre-order it right now if you want.
I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi but instead encourage people who want to reward all my hard work to donate to fundraisers. This year I’m fundraising for YouthLink. YouthLink is a Minneapolis nonprofit that helps youth (ages 16-24) who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. (Here’s their website.) I have seen some of the work they do and been really impressed. (An early donor to the fundraiser added a comment: “YouthLink was incredible instrumental in my assistance of a friend to escape a bad family situation in Florida with little more than a computer and a state ID. Thanks to YouthLink and their knowledge of resources my friend was able to get a mailing address (which was essential in getting a debit card and formal identification documents), healthcare, hot meals, an internship at a local company, and even furniture for their new apartment.” — That is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about!)
Everyone in Minneapolis will have this race on their ballot, and it’s a bit of a doozy in terms of “complicated history” and “lots of candidates,” so buckle up. I am posting this with my current choice of candidates, then come back and edit in late October, based on the vibes I’m getting at that point in the race.
There are three seats up, and eight people running. This is ranked-choice race and you get to rank three people. Exactly how this shakes out is complicated, and I strongly recommend watching this video that explains how a multi-seat instant runoff vote works:
The key detail here that I think people need to take into account: when it’s a one-person race, you get to rank three candidates, which means if there are three people you like you can list them in order of preference. With a three-person race, you also get to rank three candidates, which means “who among the candidates I like are the most likely to beat the candidates I don’t like” becomes a more important piece of the equation.
Here’s who’s running, and then I will put in a cut because this is going to get very, very long.
tl;dr if I were voting today (September 30th) I would vote (1) Tom Olsen, (2) Michael Wilson, (3) Amber Frederick. I may revise that closer to the election, depending (as noted) in part on vibes.
The results of the park board election in 2021 were centrist-dominated and included several people I really deeply dislike (although two of my least favorites, Becka Thompson and Elizabeth Shaffer, decided to run for council instead of Park Board this year.) The board did some things I liked, like passing the plan to reduce the size of the Hiawatha golf course (which had been delayed for years by golf-loving park board members despite the existing golf course really truly not being viable in the long term due to the amount of water on the site).
But they’ve also done stuff like prioritizing parking over parkland in very direct ways. Last spring, there was a vote on the Uptown Mall, which is a stretch of park-owned land between Hennepin and Lake of the Isles:
Here’s a zoomed-in segment with the overhead view so you can see what’s green and what’s paved (and where people are parking):
So: parkland, but currently really underutilized from a park perspective. There were five years of community engagement followed by a detailed plan for this space produced in 2021, which included a play area, a connection to the Greenway, a “shared woonerf” that could be used for stuff like farmer’s markets or art festivals, and a community garden. When this plan was originally created, it looked like it wouldn’t be implemented for years, because it would require money to be allocated to do it. However, this year, the Met Council announced they were going to do a sewer rebuild, which involved tearing out all the roads anyway, and offered to rebuild it however the Park Board wanted it rebuilt. It was an absolutely amazing opportunity for a free park, basically.
And the current Park Board turned it down, because the rebuild would sacrifice parking. Parking that can’t be legally used overnight, but never mind that. Supporting the rebuild were Tom Olsen, Becky Alper (not running for re-election), and Meg Forney. Everyone else on the Park Board voted against it. Their claim was that this was for fire safety reason because the Fire Department prefers a 20-foot road width. The park plan includes a “shared use woonerf/flexible market street” that’s the normal 12′ road width, the same width the road is now, minus the parking area. It’s the parking area (8′) that makes the current road as wide as the Fire Department considers ideal — but it’s used for parking! There are cars there! The board then voted against banning parking there, or even enforcing the on-the-books overnight parking ban, demonstrating conclusively that the claim this was about fire safety (rather than parking) was “pee on someone’s leg and claim it’s raining” levels of disingenuous. (Also, Minneapolis is full of streets that don’t provide that ideal 20′ road width and the Fire Department copes with this just fine.)
The current Park Board also oversaw a three-week strike, the first in the 141-year history of the Minneapolis Parks. Several weeks in, Commissioners Tom Olsen (at-large, running for re-election) and Becky Alper brought a resolution to the board that would have pushed the Superintendent to drop contract language that the union considered a dealbreaker and return to the language from the prior contract. Billy Menz voted with them to add it to the agenda; Rucker (then at-large, now running for District 2) was absent that day; and Meg Forney (at-large, running for-relection), Cathy Abene (District 6, running for re-election), Stephanie Musich (District 5, running for re-election), Elizabeth Shaffer (District 4, now running for City Council) and Becka Thompson (District 2, now running for City Council) all voted against even discussing this resolution, with Becka saying she didn’t know enough about the contract to comment on it. (!)
Anyway, LiUNA and organized labor more broadly was pretty pissed off about this whole thing, and LiUNA issued a “don’t vote for the union busters” statement ahead of the DFL City Convention.
So that brings us to the convention. In the last hour of the convention, Jacob Frey’s supporters walked out in an attempt to break the quorum and force an end to the convention, and this failed. (Quick explanation of this for anyone who needs it: a quorum is the minimum number of people you have to have present for a meeting to do business. At a DFL convention it’s 50% of the people you started with. Sometimes if things are close, you and all your supporters can walk out and force the meeting to end because you’ve made there be a lack of a quorum, and it can also be a delay tactic because they have to count. However, if you walk out and fail to break the quorum, you’ve just handed over control to your opponent. I’ve been part of attempted walkouts that failed spectacularly. It’s rare that it works, and was a bad call on Frey’s part.) Anyway! The endorsement of Omar Fateh did not stick, but the convention also endorsed a bunch of people for Park Board, and those endorsements did stick.
This has not discouraged the centrist PACs from sidling up to the Park Board race (though it’s not their top priority) — on September 29th an e-mail went out advocating for an “apolitical Park Board” and signed by some of the most aggressively centrist, absolutely fucking political people in town. (Also. My friends. Park Board is a political office. People are campaigning. If you want an apolitical park board you cannot also elect park board commissioners.)
So now that you have that background, on to the candidates!
Matthew Dowgwillo is one of the people that those Super Apolitical people want to see elected. His site says he’s the only person running who’s the parent of young kids. (This may be true, but I will note that the thing about having young kids is that it’s an inherently temporary state. I’m not sure what age his kids are, but if one is ten years old right now, that kid will be fourteen by the end of the current term.) He also says, “I believe real leadership and democracy means you set the priorities” and elsewhere reiterated, “I believe in Democracy. My mission on the Park Board will be to deliver what the majority wants.”
So here’s the thing about that. Part of why we elect representatives is that on many given issues, it can actually be genuinely hard to assess what the majority of your constituents want. What you’re going to know is what the majority of the people calling your office and showing up at meetings to yell at you want, you’ll know that for sure. If you’re planning projects, you’re hopefully doing a bunch of engagement and talking to people, but at the point you actually get to implementation you will hear from anyone who is inconvenienced (or imagines that they will be inconvenienced) and at that point they will furiously accuse you of not listening because you did not knock on their door and ask them, specifically, what they thought of your plan. Or if you did and they ignored you, they will be mad that you didn’t come back. “I want you to set the priorities; my mission is to deliver what the majority wants!” from someone running for local office is in so many cases to be a promise to cater to the most obnoxious NIMBY assholes in the city.
I e-mailed and asked how he planned to determine what the majority wants. He said his plan is (1) Talking to people, (2) Monitoring usage data, and (3) “Willingness to vote against myself” (I am not actually sure what he means by that, whether he means that if a majority of people wants to get rid of a ball field his kid likes he’d go along with it, or something else.) Monitoring usage data is a reasonable thing that I think the parks already do, although this gets rapidly more complicated when you start to ask questions like, “how do we measure usage of spaces like golf courses — do we count ‘number of visitors to this amenity’ or do we count ‘number of visitors per acreage of amenity?'”
His choices in meeting voters have been weird and annoying. (He went to a kids’ soccer game, interrupted conversations, and blocked people’s views of their kids; he showed up to make a speech in a class at the Y.) I would not rank him.
Averi Turner is a teacher who has worked at the KIPP charter school and a Roseville school; I’m not sure where she’s currently working. She is endorsed by incumbent Meg Forney and by my current least favorite City Council person LaTrisha Vetaw. Her campaign website isn’t very substantive; I went poking through her Facebook and Instagram and there’s a lot on there but not much related to parks.
She does have some civic experience; she’s on the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice. I had no idea there were people on that board who weren’t medical practitioners themselves. I e-mailed her to ask where she stood on the “parking vs. park land” question and whether she sought labor endorsements, and have not yet heard back. (Emailed her on October 1st; it’s now the 6th. I will try to update if I hear from her.) In an article in the Southwest Connector she emphasized ADA accessibility but that’s not highlighted on her website.
Mary McKelvey ran last time and seemed non-horrible but didn’t really distinguish herself. She sounds like she’s profoundly uncomfortable with campaigning. (To be fair: this would ABSOLUTELY BE ME if I tried to run for office. “Maybe if I stand here with a sign people will come talk to me and I won’t have to approach them?” I think a lot of people find this relatable tbh.) She is endorsed by the group that sent out the Super Apolitical e-mail, and when Tim Peterson (who’s awful) (seriously, so awful) dropped out of the Park Board At-Large race, he endorsed Mary (and Meg).
Mary has served on some citizen advisory committees (her website mentions the Parks for All committee, the Minnehaha Creek Watershed committee, and the Pedestrian Advisory Committee). She’s also a teacher. I e-mailed her to ask where she stood on the “parking vs. park land” question and whether she sought labor endorsements. She responded with a spirited response defending the need for parking in that area:
The Southwest Service Area Master Plan (SWSAMP) had more meetings than any other, and Brian Nalezny, who is a friend, deserves more recognition for chairing all of them. I don’t want the Board to relitigate Long Range Plans after they are made. This should only happen if there is an unforeseen change, or missing information presents itself before implementation. […] That said, I feel like there were important pieces of city information that were not considered by the CAC on the Mall portion of the SWSAMP. The Mall was the only place in SW where a large amount of parking would be removed next to a place of high-density living, with no other options within a safe distance at night. The Mall has unfortunately been a less safe area in the last few years.
There is a process of determining the percentage of parking spaces used over a 24 hour period on a street. This percentage is necessary information before removing the parking (or private vehicle storage) for safe bike or pedestrian infrastructure. Because the Mall proposal involved parkland that required removing a street, this city process should have been part of the planning, and I don’t see it in the staff planning feedback notes. [Note from Naomi: pretty sure it’s here.] I am aware that overnight parking is not allowed on parkways, but a) the Mall is not a through-street like other parkways and b) petty parking violations are the bane of everyday peoples’ lives. Government should try to help, not punish people for basic needs, and cars are a basic need for most. Removing parking won’t change that reality, and it won’t stop people from driving or reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT).
I have personal lived experience with the Mall: I lived at 2845 Irving Ave South in my 20s. My best friend lived on Irving between Lagoon and the Mall and had an even harder time parking. We both worked outside of a transit zone – I taught middle school in Golden Valley, and my friend worked in Mendota Heights. I am an avid biker, too, but…winter, darkness, and stacks of papers to grade. The reality was that we needed a private vehicle to work, and nighttime parking was scarce even then.
Some have made the case that homeowners (Mike Erlandson specifically) are upset about having people parking in front of their houses; the reality is that people already do that today, and removing the Mall spots would just make renters’ lives harder, and maybe make some women feel less safe having to walk extra blocks at all hours in an area that isn’t the safest or the most well-lit. If you watch the open time testimony at the MPRB meetings about the Mall, it was telling to see a flood of first-time testifiers (not people who regularly interact with government), and actual Mall residents, showing up to speak their minds in favor of keeping the current design.
It seems like those voices most impacted were ignored in the planning process, or not asked to begin with.
So (me again, sorry, that was a long excerpt but she’d sent me a thoughtful enough response I wanted to include most of it). Here’s the parking study. I will give Mary credit for being honest that this was about parking and not fire safety and just saying straight up she thinks the area needs the parking.
Regarding labor endorsements, she said she entered the race too late to get them, but has supported labor as a member (when she was a teacher) and politically, and she stands by workers.
I would not rank her but if you’re a moderate I think she’s a better candidate than Dowgwillo.
Meg has been on the Park Board for quite a long time now and although I am not a huge fan of her politics (or her actions around the Park Board worker strike), I will give her credit for the fact that she voted with Tom Olsen and Becky Alper on the “should we turn this park land into an actual park, or is parking more important?” thing. She is, frankly, currently my favorite of the moderates, and if you’re one of the moderates consulting my guide to see who you should vote against, let me just put in a plug for ranking her first on your ballot. She brings a wealth of institutional knowledge and my impression of her is that she manages to be both resolute and cheerful, which on the chronic high-drama Park Board is a combination of characteristics worth valuing. (I will admit that she won me over a bit on a personal level in 2021; I gave her a very snarky writeup that included some factual errors, and she sent me an e-mail with corrections that managed to be so pleasant and cheerful I felt guilty for being mean to her.) Anyway, I still would not rank her! But of the moderates, she’s the one I’d be happiest about keeping.
So that brings us to the four people I’d be excited to rank.
Tom is the easy one: I would rank Tom first. He’s been a consistent voice on the Park Board for green space over parking, pedestrian access to parks over car access to parks, and other things I like. He was also one of the Park Board members who tried to settle the strike. Just a solid Park Board rep all around (and even if you’re one of the moderates reading this who loves Meg Forney, I think you should also rank Tom and then feel that warm “I’m so apolitical!” glow, or whatever.)
Michael Wilson has been a parks worker, working as a lifeguard and later overseeing the Aquatics/Swim Education program for the Minneapolis Parks. (He’s also a grant writer, which seems like a useful skill set to add to the park board.)
Not surprisingly, his platform has some stuff about swimming: he would like all kids in Minneapolis to get affordable swimming lessons. (I’m totally for this. Water is so central to so much in Minnesota, everyone who grows up here should be comfortable enough in the water that if they fall out of a boat, they can get themselves up to the surface and tread water for a minute or two while their friends figure out how to get them back in the boat.) I e-mailed him and got a bunch more details about the swimming plan:
The way it would work is essentially a partnership between MPRB and MPS. Around 3rd grade is roughly the best window in youth development for most kids to really pick up on swim skills (I’m painting with a wide brush here). Work between MPRB and MPS is underway now to develop the structure of the program, exactly what the costs and funding sources are, and the plan is for there to be a phased implementation in 2026. There are a lot of MPS schools with pools in them, including Dowling, Northeast, Olson, Southwest, and Franklin. […] This is a necessary program, and I have great intergovernmental relationships as well as the background in exactly this kind of work to be a commissioner to see this through. I get so excited thinking about it!
He is endorsed by Labor as well as the DFL, and brings a good combination of “commitment to stuff I care about” and “significant knowledge and background specifically related to the Minneapolis Parks” to the table. I would rank him second.
That brings me to Amber A. Frederick (DFL and Labor-endorsed) and Adam Schneider (Green-endorsed and endorsed by many people I respect, including Katie Cashman and Taylor Dahlin).
Amber works for YMCA of the North as a youth services specialist (mainly working in housing). Earlier this year she was a candidate in the race for Ward 5 City Council, but shifted gears after the ward convention, where she was dropped from consideration after the first ballot. On her website, she talks about how her work with young people in crisis has shown her that parks can give “a sense of normalcy and belonging to kids experiencing trauma.” Her own experiences in the parks are largely personal (“my love of parks comes from the mentorship and inspiration I received from volunteer coaches in youth sports like soccer growing up”) — she does not mention serving on any of the planning committees, commissions, etc.
Her endorsements list made me squint my eyes and make a face. It’s not the standard set of awful centrists, to be clear — it’s got a bunch of people who are awful for other reasons. Her endorsements include former Park Board commissioners Brad Bourn, AK Hassan, and Kale Severson. Brad Bourn was notoriously toxic on a personal level; AK Hassan was shockingly disengaged; Kale Severson ran as a Green and then went to the mat to protect the unsustainable Hiawatha Golf Course. (Correction from the comments: while he ran as a Green in his 2013 Ward 5 city council race, he ran as a DFLer when he ran for Park Board in 2017.) She’s also got some school board members, two State Reps, and Hennepin County Commissioner Marion Greene (who I like). I think part of the issue she ran into with endorsements was that she entered the race late and Adam Schneider, who got in last December, scooped up a whole lot of local Democrats, but the particular combination of former Park Board commissioners made me worry she wanted to resurrect the issue of that golf course. I e-mailed her to ask and she replied to say that she wanted to look forward, not backward, and did not intend to rehash the golf course issue.
I also asked for her thoughts on the parks vs. parking spaces question more broadly. Her response: “On the broader issue of bike, pedestrian, and multi-modal access to the parks, “I want to make sure parkways and malls owned by the Park Board play a role for everyone to access parks. In many areas, I think the Park Board could go further in providing pedestrian opportunities for parkway use. I know Commissioners Meyer, Cowgill, and Alper Olsen have often championed this with resistance, and I’d be supportive of continuing that work. I also think we should explore more fully what is necessary for Metro Transit/bus use on parkways. All that said, I do think that there are important accessibility needs for some families that are still best met by car. Many park users need specialized mobility equipment like power chairs, walkers, and scooters, and I do not want well-intentioned policy to inadvertently make our parks less accessible to folks that already have accessibility challenges.”
Adam is endorsed by the Green party and the DSA, as well as a bunch of current and former City Council members, some school board members, and various others. He is the “Greening Coordinator” for Stevens Square and has been involved in the Roof Depot redevelopment fight. He says he’s running to advance climate and environmental justice; his platform leads with expanding solar on park buildings and goes on to talk about expanding bike paths, supporting workers and local businesses, improving Rec Plus (the after-school day care run through the parks that provides care for a huge number of Minneapolis school kids) and focusing on neighborhood parks.
I asked him about his experiences with park governance and he e-mailed back to say that he started following the Park Board while working in Little Earth for AmeriCorps, looking for programs and services that he could help the community access, and has been attending meetings since launching his campaign (though as things have picked up he’s switched to watching the livestream.)
Adam’s endorsements include several Labor organizers (and he would clearly, clearly be on the side of the workers in a fight) but none of the unions. He did screen for union endorsement, and I think he didn’t get it because the unions concluded that backing endorsed DFLers gave them a better shot at getting three supporters elected.
As a side note: Greens on the Park Board have a really mixed history. Kale Severson ran as a Green and became a golf course ride-or-die. (Correction from the comments: he ran as a Green for his City Council run in 2013 — he ran for the Park Board as a DFLer.) LaTrisha Vetaw ran as a Green and went on to become one of the most conservative DFLers in Minneapolis. However, Annie Young was also a Green, and stayed radical and badass right up to the day she died. Adam wrote about Annie Young this week and also has the DSA endorsement, so I think he’s less likely to follow the “I joined the Greens because I felt vaguely disaffected” pipeline to centrism.
SO OKAY. Having thought about this: I would rank Amber #3 for a couple of reasons. First, I really do like her background working in youth services. Second, you can only pick three candidates, and I do think that the DFL endorsement gives people a significant edge. However, that third ranking is the one I am least certain about and I may revisit it before the election.
I have a new book coming out next June! This one is not YA; it’s a near-future thriller about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on site to deliver babies. You can pre-order it right now if you want.
I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi but instead encourage people who want to reward all my hard work to donate to fundraisers. This year I’m fundraising for YouthLink. YouthLink is a Minneapolis nonprofit that helps youth (ages 16-24) who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. (Here’s their website.) I have seen some of the work they do and been really impressed. (An early donor to the fundraiser added a comment: “YouthLink was incredible instrumental in my assistance of a friend to escape a bad family situation in Florida with little more than a computer and a state ID. Thanks to YouthLink and their knowledge of resources my friend was able to get a mailing address (which was essential in getting a debit card and formal identification documents), healthcare, hot meals, an internship at a local company, and even furniture for their new apartment.” — That is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about!)
2017: The Royal College of Nursing’s alarming description of conditions in the NHS inspires the government to do worse, the Tories succeed in freezing British lifespans after a century of progress, and the UK begins that political equivalent of autoerotic asphyxiation known as Brexit.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead 5 (12.8%)
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers 26 (66.7%)
After Atlas by Emma Newman 6 (15.4%)
Central Station by Lavie Tidhar 8 (20.5%)
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee 31 (79.5%)
Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan 2 (5.1%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2017 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read? The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers After Atlas by Emma Newman Central Station by Lavie Tidhar Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan
I observed over the weekend woezering about universities introducing courses teaching students how to read the books on their courses; that is, the courses in e.g. EngLit, that they signed up for and presumably knew would involve reading texts of various kinds? And instead of being Brigadier Disgusted-Hedjog of Tunbridge Wells, 'In my day we were doing C18th novels for A-levels [true]', I observed, when looking this up, that round about the same time last year there was the same round of woe unto this generation which do not rede ye bookz.
So my scepticism, she is considerable.
I suspect there have been allotropes of this one since Ye Classix were no longer the essentials for a degree/when EngLit became an actual degree subject/when philology and Anglo-Saxon were no longer compulsory/NOVELS! they are going to uni to read NOVELS!!! Sivilizashun B DED!!!!
Okay, possibly thick little Tarquin & Lucretia who got in through PULL may be astonished at having to read big fat books but in these days, and with the general attack on the humanities, I have to suppose that anyone who turns up with the intention of doing an English degree know what's in store.
***
So, we have had a woman Archbishop of Canterbury.
Has anyone - I haven't seen it anywhere yet - remarked on the SYMBOLISM, in the present parlous state of the Anglican communion over various abuse scandals, that her background is in A Healing Profession?
Another good busy weekend, excellent practice for the employees. I was very cranky Friday night but pretty sure I hadn't eaten enough lunch or dinner. Much better feeling Saturday, but I also got the chance to drive a tractor at night which was lovely and nice. I was tired again yesterday but that's because it was so hot.
We picked 24 tall bins of pumpkins this week and 8 short bins of various things. This isn't even half of what we have planted. I'm spending today, tomorrow and wed picking weird stuff because we have definite frost coming wednesday/thursday (predicted 36 and 34F so we'll be lower) and the weird stuff is often frost sensitive. Face pumpkins usually aren't to a light frost. Also rain coming tomorrow night, thank goodness because I haven't irrigated anything arg. Then thurs/fri picking big pumpkins. Plus all the group outings during the weekdays
Did find gluten free fig newtons at the store which is delightful. not as good as my homemade ones, but as good as OG fig newtons so I'm happy.
Sleep has been hard to find, I get so keyed up with farm stuff by the time I get up to the house, eat dinner and do all the things i need to do, it's 9pm and I'm not quite tired, so I read for a bit. Plus calls and emails and reservations. it is go time. thankfully mom has been feeding me, I know my temper varies entirely by how hungry I am.
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loweringthebar_feed Oct. 7th, 2025 01:24 am)
