Promoting People I Like: John Calvin Rezmerski

Once upon a Time, circa 1992-1995, I was the only woman in Michigan, and one of not very many in the U.S., who had a syndicated comic strip (Franky & Ralph, syndicated by Argonaut Entertainment Inc.). My readership exceeded 3 million, and in a 1994 Readers' Poll, Franky & Ralph was voted "Most Popular Comic" by 3 to 1.

But my hometown newspaper, the Lansing State Journal, wouldn't carry it.

My syndicate's sales rep told me the LSJ people wouldn't even look at it. "What is it with Lansing?" he asked me, exasperated.

"It's Lansing," I said.

My home town and home state are very bad at promoting their local talent. I've never understood why this is. Michigan loves sports figures, but when it comes to its creative people, Michigan doesn't give them a spotlight, or gives it to them too late. The Lansing State Journal interviewed me while I was in the process of leaving Lansing (I drew the cartoon above for the article), and the half-page profile appeared shortly after I moved to Minnesota. Minnesota, by contrast, sees its authors, artists, and performers as valuable resources, and therefore keeps them around.

Because I know what's it's like to not be promoted, I love to promote the work of people I enjoy and admire.

Today I want to spotlight the newest work by award-winning poet, writer and performer John Calvin Rezmerski. Mr. Rezmerski describes Keeping Caedmon's Faith as an "Essay about Caedmon, the first English poet, the story of his handicap and how his calling to be a poet is a model for poets and readers today. The chapbook doesn't espouse any religious beliefs or duties, but includes a new translation from Old English of Caedmon's hymn to God's creation of the world."

The chapbook is available from Red Dragonfly Press
http://www.reddragonflypress.org/music/2809

Mr. Rezmerski, as the OddCon bio says, "has published six books of poems and has edited six anthologies. Six of his scripts have been produced in various media. Despite the sixes, he is not a beast. His poems, stories, essays and articles have appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies. He was an early member of the editorial team at Tales of the Unanticipated (see my Buy! Read! list). Before his retirement, he taught at Gustavus Adolphus College (including a course in science fiction) for 35 years, and served as the college's writer-in-residence. He has performed his work (poetry, drama and storytelling) for hundreds of academic and community audiences, and conducted workshops, judged contests, and organized arts events throughout the Midwest. Recipient of numerous awards (including a National Foundation of the Arts fellowship), he has also been a small press publisher, political speechwriter, public relations consultant to non-profit organizations, professional cook, and frequent panelist at science-fiction conventions (including WisCon), where he also appears as one of the Lady Poetesses from Hell, channeling Grace Lordstoke."


To watch an interview of Mr. Rezmerski: http://batofminerva.blogspot.com/2009/07/john-calvin-rezmerski-july-12-2009.html

Additionally:

To learn more about Mr. Rezmerski: http://www.bookthatpoet.com/poets/rezmersk.html

For more of Mr. Rezmerski's work: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_at_ep_srch/176-2970368-6562157?ie=UTF8&search-alias=books&field-author=John+Calvin+Rezmerski&sort=relevancerank

One of his poems: http://moiramanion.blogspot.com/2009/04/national-poetry-month-marjesdatter.html

Mr. Rezmerski's eulogy for his friend and fellow poet Bill Holm: http://moiramanion.blogspot.com/2009/04/one-last-skaal-for-bill.html

Mr. Rezmerski will be the judge of "OddContest," an annual competition for speculation stories or prose poems, sponsored by OdysseyCon, a science fiction convention held in Madison, Wisconsin every April. For more information: http://www.oddcon.com/guide.html

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In Which Tea Baggers Make My Head Explode

"Say, do you want to make people's heads explode? Sure, we all do!"
Dr. Forrester (Trace Beaulieu), Mystery Science Theatre 3000

"Sirs, when are you going to realize that when you kill each other you're only hurting yourselves?"
Joel (Joel Hodgson), Mystery Science Theatre 3000

I've intentionally avoided writing anything about the Tea Baggers. I encountered several at President Obama's Health Care rally in Minneapolis in September (http://minnesotaindependent.com/44606/fired-up-scenes-from-obamas-health-care-rally%20%20). After sincerely listening to their point of view, I decided that to think about them any further was to risk my brain foaming out of my ears as I sputtered nonsensically.

But... I gotta get this out of my system, and have done with it.

One of my definitions for insanity is to vigorously fight against that which is in your own best interest. The "Tea Baggers" embody this definition.

A Mad Scientist couldn't come up with a better scheme.
"Decades of undermining the public education system has created a populace that doesn't know how to question! They have the reasoning capability of Pet Rocks! We'll strategically place on TV and radio greedy pseudo journalists who only answer to their corporate masters, and have them spew paranoia! The poor, white underclass will become incensed about the uppity you-know-what-N-word who's moved into the Big House, and will take to the streets en masse! The mainstream media and their emasculated pseudo journalists who only answer to their corporate masters will eagerly report every thing the racist xenophobes say and do, with the exception of the truly egregious madness, thus granting the Tea Baggers more gravitas than they deserve as the fringe nutjobs they really are, and causing even more Americans to take them seriously! With the country thus distracted, I'll take over easily! Bwah ha HAH!"

Alas, no. It would be so much simpler if that were the case.

With Tea Baggers being the homophobes that they are, it's not shocking that they had no idea that the terms "tea bagger" and "tea bagging" already had definitions which, had Tea Baggers known them, would have made them rip off their t-shirts and set them ablaze. For those of you who may yet be unknowing: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagger


Thus, dressing a toddler in this shirt qualifies as child abuse. Or a really tasteless joke. "Well, y'know, Timmy's at that age where he puts everything in his mouth..."

It's a pity Tea Baggers don't mean the "urban" definition. That definition refers to an act that involves consenting adults giving and sharing pleasure. The Tea Baggers I spoke with outside the Health Care rally don't want to share. They were of one mind: I don't want my tax money going to give others anything. Marc from Maplewood told me he worked hard, had four kids, and it was difficult enough for him to get by. He didn't want any taxes going to a program that provided health care for others; he couldn't afford it. He himself had no health insurance, but his wife did.

I pointed out that universal health care would cover not only his wife, but himself and his four daughters. He wouldn't be giving tax dollars and not benefiting from them. We'd all be in it, together.

Marc was having none of it. To hell with everybody else, he was looking out for himself.

One gets the sense that most Tea Baggers are working poor, some perhaps desperately poor. Yet they identify with the rich. It's as Dickinson says in the song "Cool, Cool, Conservative Men" in the musical 1776, "But don't forget, that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich, than face the reality of being poor."


It's the Tea Baggers' willful ignorance that makes my head throb. By "ignorance" I don't mean "uneducated." By that definition, I'm ignorant. My original Marketplace Commentary Editor, Elizabeth Tucker, and I laughed when a listener's email accused me of having a "higher education status," when I didn't attend college, except to take a class in WordPerfect 5.0 . What knowledge I have, I gained by reading, reading and reading, anything and everything I could get my hands on, even things with which I disagreed, and questioning, questioning, and questioning everything I read. Because I'm literate and articulate, I'm assumed to be an elitist snob.

Tea Baggers loved George W. Bush because they didn't feel talked down to. Bush attended Yale, and still couldn't form a coherent sentence. That proved to Tea Baggers that Dubyah was one of them, a regular, down-to-earth guy. He was "plain spoken," which is to say, dumb as a brick.

If you think I'm being unfair towards Tea Baggers, watch this video. Watch it to the very end. This isn't Tea Baggers being manipulated by the tricksy Liberal Media. This is how they represent themselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

Points in the video I especially enjoy are:

*The signs that read Unarmed, this Time and Keep Pushing us-- find out what happens. Nothing like the threat of violence to get yourself and your cause taken seriously.

*Mohawk Man, who opposes Bills, but can't tell what Bills he opposes.

*The woman who wants to abolish Medicare.

*The guy holding the Joe Wilson for President sign, who, when the interviewer informs him about how Joe Wilson once voted on an issue, says he's not actually supporting Joe Wilson for President. Maybe he's just holding the sign for a friend.

*Woman: "I'd like to see a Christian in the White House."
Interviewer: "You don't feel that Obama is Christian?"
Woman: "No, I don't! He's a Muslim!"
Yes, don't let an insignificant thing like facts interfere with your reality.

*Teenager: "It hasn't even been a year yet, and he's (Obama) already destroyed, like, most of the country." Not that this kid has ever seen most of his own home state. Let's pray to various deities that the kid's infertile.

*The white man wearing the native American chief on his t-shirt, who states that, deciphered, "Barack Obama" means "Anti-Christ."

*Older Caucasian man: "His (Obama's) mother was white! So he's not African-American, but he's going that way because that's what works for him." Yup, being a Black Man in the U.S. is definitely the position of privilege. I'm thinking of pushing my Filipino heritage so I can get elected. My other heritage is Irish, and, well, we all know about them.

*The over-all lack of people of color. Claiming you represent America when you're standing in an ocean of white faces speaks for itself.

*The many comparisons of Obama to Hitler. Since the marchers were quite close to the Holocaust Museum, they should have gone there to ask for survivors' support. Oh, except then they'd have to talk to Jews. And the last time a white man claiming to be a Patriot protecting America barged into that museum, it was so he could murder people. Never mind.

*The group who were against Russian Czars taking over government. "Are they going to be given land, and power over the people?" When the interviewer informed them about what Czars were, that the first one, the Drug Czar, was appointed under Ronald Reagan, and that they have no executive powers, a man said, "You know this how?" If you didn't hear it from Glenn Beck, it ain't true.

Tea Baggers cling fiercely to their ignorance. They have no curiosity and no imagination. When faced with information which contradicts what they believe is true, they dismiss and ignore that information. They don't understand the word "evidence." They wave the "Don't Tread On Me" Gadsen flag, and claim kinship with the Founding Fathers, without realizing that they would have bored the Founders to death. George Washington's favorite play was Joseph Addison's Cato. No Tea Bagger would or could sit through a performance of it --men in togas, ugh!-- and hate the Arts in general as elitist and queer. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, and Paine would have seen the Tea Baggers as the worse sort of willfully illiterate, pathetic hicks.

Tea Baggers say "Don't Tread On Me," but they won't hesitate to tread on others. There's no "live and let live" in their philosophy. They want America, and the world, to be the way they think it should be. This puts me in mind of the Amish, a group of Christians utterly unlike the Tea Baggers. The Amish live their lives and don't go about trying to convert others. They don't knock on doors and harass people at bus stops. It's possible they might believe that non-Amish are going to Hell in a hand basket, but they politely keep it to themselves. They see violence and the threat of violence in order to get one's point across as wrong. They don't try to create discriminatory laws. They simply don't hang out with those with whom they disagree. The Amish even allow their teenagers to give the outside world a test run, to see how it compares. That's being civilized.

The Tea Bagger mentality not only hates, but wants to destroy everyone and anyone who doesn't believe what they do. They want gays gone, and people of other religions, and people with no religion, either converted or dead and sent to Hell. They have orgasmic fantasies about The Rapture, or just being in Heaven with Jesus, watching on a Big Screen TV as all those intellectuals and others who mocked them suffer for eternity. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" doesn't exist in their precambrian brain stems.

Unfortunately, at this point the Tea Baggers have to be taken seriously, if only because the media has launched them into the spotlight. But too many Americans refuse to educate themselves about political matters which directly effect their lives. One of my former co-workers told me, with pride, that she "hates" politics. "Politicians are all blah-blah-blah. I don't listen to the news or read newspapers!" She laughed.

This is the kind of indifference Conservatives are counting on. If people are ignorant, those in power can do to them whatever they please. Such as start wars and prevent national health programs.

A perfect example of what happens when an audience is ignorant or indifferent is the recent report that FOX News may well be "misusing" videos in order to mislead viewers. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts988 , and in the first incident http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20091111/ts_ynews/ynews_ts977 . Reality is what you're told, if you don't care enough to examine and question. Thankfully, someone did.

Ironically, it's my friends and co-workers who are immigrants who care about American politics. They came from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. They have first-hand experience in how politics can effect every day lives, with devastating consequences.

Thinking about the Tea Baggers makes my brain ache. I've got so many other things to think about: how am I going to stretch my paycheck; trying to start my own business; writing two books; winterizing the apartment; fixing the zipper on my coat before the cold weather really hits; what to rent from Netflix; what am I going to do if that molar gets infected and I can't afford antibiotics. I'd really rather not worry about people who don't have the intellectual level of a hair clog.

Then I see photos like the one below. And it's back to blogging....................

*~~*~~*

Need some entertainment with brains, booby? Try some Mystery Science Theatre 3000, from Netflix, your local DVD store, and Satellite News, the official website http://www.mst3kinfo.com/

And Cinematic Titanic, the Masters of Movie Riffing, their DVDs and their live performances http://www.cinematictitanic.com/ You're all but guaranteed to not run into any Tea Baggers there.

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Quick Comment: We Need "Good"

On the topic of how people promote hate and violence while believing themselves "good" and "moral"

(http://moiramanion.blogspot.com/2009/10/preserving-your-right-to-want-innocent.html), I wish Good was on DVD. I wish it were shown in every high school and college classroom to promote discussion. It's all very well to have films which show how people fought the Nazis after they came to power (Valkyrie, Defiance, Inglorious Bastards). More important are stories of how the Nazis came to power.

If nothing else, watch the trailer.

http://goodthemovie.com/

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Preserving Your Right to Want Innocent People to Die Horribly

Don't worry your pretty heads, Conservatives and religious groups who support them. The expanded Hate Crimes Bill won't criminalize your speeches declaring that millions of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, their heterosexual allies, atheists, people with religious beliefs different from yours, and feminists aren't human beings, like you and your children.

After the Bill becomes law, you can rest assured that you may stand up in your places of worship, and proudly and loudly confirm that those who don't think like you do should be deprived of the right to walk unassaulted down a lovely lane, inhaling the lilacs and closing their eyes to better enjoy the birdsong. You may openly say that they should not expect that they won't be thrown into the brush and beaten and kicked until they die, alone, and are sent to Hell to suffer even worse for all eternity. No no, please feel free to let your toddlers hear how the people who don't think like you do are animals, vermin, who threaten your pursuit of happiness by their false and evil insistence that they're your equals. It's not as if talking about your beliefs actually causes violence against the people whom you don't pity when they are violently attacked.

You also retain the right to tell your children that they should cheer when a doctor who legally performs safe abortions has her or his head blown off, because they, your dear, sweet children, were precious to you from the moment you learned that you or your girlfriend were knocked up.

Best of all, the expanded Hate Crimes Bill will in no way prevent the teaching that your dear, sweet, beloved children, the star football player, the beautiful Prom Queen, of whom you boast and brag, are to be thrown out of the house and called "sick, disgusting filth" when they tell you they're lesbian, gay, bisexual, have become atheists or another belief that isn't yours, or feminists. Sigh with relief, because the Bill won't impede your right to preach that those former loved ones should wander the streets, without food or money or a place to stay, and should be turned away by all who believe as you do. And if they should be raped, beaten and kicked and die alone, well, God wills disgusting perverts to pay.

I hope you feel safe now.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/22/hate.crimes/index.html

How to Compliment a Minnesotan

I am in Minnesota, but not of Minnesota. There are many things about native Minnesotans that drive me nuts: referring to casseroles as "hot dish;" ending sentences with "with" ("So, you going with?" "'With?'" "Yah, you going with?" "With what? With you? With the cat? With God? With an AK-47?!"); their passive-aggressiveness (if you step on their feet, native Minnesotans apologize, but when you cross a street, they speed up. Not letting anyone merge, even a 40-ton semi, is a point of passive-aggressive pride to native Minnesotans); and their obsession with all things Scandinavian (mix up Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, and you are in for a lecture that you can escape only by admitting that you are Not From Around Here, and asking them how their mamas cooked Hoppin' John. Anything slightly Southern strikes confusion and fear into native Minnesotans).

That said, I have an affection for them. They really do try to be sincerely nice, and almost always have the best of intentions, even when offering lutefisk to a non-native (I once confessed that I thought lutefisk, lefse and gefilte fish were the same thing. I've never since insulted so many cultures in one sentence).

But there is one trait of native-born-and-raised Minnesotans that makes me barking mad. They are absolutely incapable of accepting a compliment.

Just today, two acquaintances who work at the airport --we'll call them L and B -- stopped into the shop where I work to say hello. With some arm twisting, I learned that L had bicycled from Florida to California. Eighteen miles a day. Just because he wanted to.

It's a miracle if I can sit on a bicycle without falling off. I can't even begin to imagine bicycling across the continental United States.

When I complimented L, he took on an expression of pained embarrassment and guilt. He looked as if he'd been caught farting or short-changing a clerk. My god, how awful it was that the man had accomplished something, and, worse, someone discovered it and thought it was cool. His eyes had a slight panic, as if he needed to run off and shower in boiling water to scour away my compliment.

B has the same allergy. The poor man suffers from handsomeness. As I've said in a previous post, I've known men who are literally film-star handsome, and 99.9% of them are shallow, vain jerks who never bothered to develop personalities because they breezed through life on looks alone. I confess when I first saw B, I immediately assumed he was an arrogant dunderhead. I only gave him the benefit of a doubt because he hung around with a transplanted New Yorker who's smart, savvy, and didn't appear to suffer fools. Over time, I observed that B is very intelligent, witty, wry, and quite interesting.

The one time I complimented B, I immediately regretted it. He looked as stricken as if I'd said he had a huge, festering zit on his nose and that he was as stupid as a sea cucumber. He scurried away into the dark labyrinth beneath the airport. I didn't see him for weeks.

This isn't modesty. It's shame. I've concluded that, in Minnesota, the doctor lifts the newborn as it takes its first breath, declares, "It's a fine, healthy girl/boy!" and then slaps it. When the baby takes its first step, a parent cries, "Come look at this! S/he's walking!" and wonks the kid. In kindergarten, when a native Minnesota child says the alphabet all the way through, correctly, for the first time, the teacher says, "What a clever child!" and beans the little one with a wiffle bat.

By the time they reach first grade, native Minnesota children have a Pavlovian dread of compliments. Minnesotans call this "Preparing children for real life." Life, they say, is full of sorrow, pain, loss, suffering, and disappointment. Joy and healthy pride will betray you. A compliment is only meant to soften you up so you'll lower your defenses so life can kick you in the groin.

When a native Minnesotan goes against this brainwashing, the backlash is horrifying. If a Minnesotan grows an ego, it goes berserk, a maddened Godzilla roaring and trampling in Jesse Ventura spandex and Keillor red sneakers. East Coast elites and West Coast Golden People wither in the laser of Minnesota snark, sarcasm and snideness. This is the Land of Mystery Science Theater 3000, after all. (Joel Hodgson called the robots "honey," and had a gentle, goofy grin. But you just know that off-camera he gave Trace swirlies and left Weight Watcher pamphlets for Frank, and cut off Special Education vans without signaling.)

There is no middle ground with native Minnesotans. They're either lowly worms or SUN GOD THE CREATOR KNEEL BEFORE ME. A few Minnesotans, such as a dear friend of mine who is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met, can accept a compliment with a "thank you," a smile, and only a slight twitch. But then, I think she was actually born in one of the Dakotas.

If you want to tell a native Minnesotan that you think she or he is a keen, neato-coolly-wow person, and that you admire anything about them, don't. If you want to make native Minnesotans feel good, criticise them Minnesota style. "Oh, you'd think that dress was made for a person half your age." "Y'know, it's almost something that makes a person not seem dumb as a turd." "Well ................. that's different."

This will create in the native Minnesotans a warm glow of having known all along that they're undeserving scum. It'll be just like they're back in the bosom of their family.

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Minnesotans: Call Out against Racism Tomorrow! (and update)

This was sent to me by writer Rachel Dykoski (that's her with Senator Al Franken):

This Saturday, October 3, 2009, the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM) has threatened to demonstrate against an anti-racist workshop being held at the YWCA on East Lake Street in Minneapolis. The NSM has declared the anti-racist organizers "traitors" to white supremacy.

This provocation also has a wider goal: The NSM has been holding racist anti-immigrant rallies in southern Minnesota and now they are seeking to establish a presence inside the City of Minneapolis. For years Minneapolis has been a virtual "no-go" area for organized racist activity, due to efforts of young anti-racist organizers.

In the wake of the racist attacks in Brooklyn Park last week (http://www.startribune.com/local/61452677.html ), the nazis' threat cannot be ignored. They plan to bring their racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic message of division and hate right into the heart of the city. They must not go unopposed!

TIME: 10:00 am Saturday, October 3, 2009

PLACE: Lake Street & 22nd Ave. (outside the Midtown YWCA), Minneapolis MN

VIEW MAP: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Lake+Street+%26+22nd+Ave+%28outside+the+Midtown+YWCA%29%2C+Minneapolis%2C+MN

Unfortunately, I can't attend. But if you're able, show up and speak out!

UPDATE: 3 October

Only four of the "Master Race" slinked into Minneapolis, and were confronted with 200+ anti-racism supporters. The Star Tribune gave a brief report. http://www.startribune.com/local/63454237.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUjc7YUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P:DiUs

For photos of the event, go to "Baron Dave's" Livejournal: http://barondave.livejournal.com/248888.html

Bravo to all of you who braved the cold and wet to show our communities' solidarity and willingness to take action!

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R.T. Rybak's Petition for a Health Care Public Option

I support Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak because, in my opinion, Mr. Rybak, unlike Governor Tim Pawlenty, doesn't see himself as above and apart from his fellow citizens. Indeed, unlike Governor Pawlenty, Mr. Rybak views all of us as his fellow citizens. I've often wanted to shake the Gov's hand and say, "You've asked for my support. Yet you pass, or attempt to pass, legislation that doesn't support my GLBT friends, and you've acted to deny honest, tax-paying low-income people like me health care and human services, as well working to eliminate the renters' rebate many of us depend upon come each August. But you're happy to take my tax dollars to support yourself and your lifestyle. Doesn't that strike you as a bit, oh, I dunno...hypocritical?"

Mayor Rybak has given me another reason to applaud him. He's created a petition for a public option to health care reform. The following is an email from Mayor Rybak, dated Thursday, October 1:

To pass health care reform, President Obama needs a little help from us. Right now.

That's why I've started a petition for the public option. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/minnesotans-need-a-public-option

Simply put, in order to pass serious health care reform, President Obama needs to know we're ready to help him. And that's where you come in.

Minnesotans agree that we need a plan with what's called a "public option," a government-run health care choice that families can join if they're dissatisfied with the options the private health insurance market provides. A public option will help keep insurance companies honest by making sure Americans have access to at least one health care plan that has health care, not profits, as its central focus.

However, the resources and energy lined up against this vital achievement have never been more energized, or more prepared to do whatever it takes to beat it.

With everyone from talk radio shock jocks to Sarah Palin spreading outright lies about reform, and with politicians like Governor Pawlenty making bizarre threats (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_09/019885.php )to withdraw from any health care plan that passes, health care reform opponents have shown they'll say anything, do anything, and make up anything to keep health care reform from happening.

With all the attacks out there against him, and against health care, President Obama needs to hear from us that we're ready to help him pass real, serious, health care reform.

I need you to sign the petition. I need you to get all your friends and neighbors to sign this petition. I need you to get all your friends' and neighbors' friends and neighbors to sign this petition. We need to be as clear as day that the time for serious health care reform is now, and that we shouldn't back down or compromise in the face of Republican attacks.

Sincerely,

R.T. Rybak

P.S. As my friend Brad Swanson of Teamsters Local 120 says, "The time to make affordable, quality health care a reality for all Americans is now. Let's just pass it." I hope you'll join the fight by signing the petition.

I've had the pleasure of meeting Mayor Rybak on two occasions, once during the May Day parade last spring, and again during Senator-elect Al Franken's victory rally in St.Paul. ( http://moiramanion.blogspot.com/2009/07/senator-al-franken.html ) Mayor Rybak was enthusiastic and, to use a good, old-fashioned word, affable, with the mixed and varied crowd (though he, like Franni Franken, needs to ratchet back the pressure of his handshakes). Those of you who may take umbrage with my accusation of hypocrisy in Tim Pawlenty might say that Mr. Rybak would be as hypocritical towards those who don't share his personal and political views (i.e. Republicans). But, as I've also said about Al Franken, I don't believe for a second that R.T. Rybak would pass legislation against a group of people simply for his own political advantage or "moral" compunctions (redundant). I can't say the same for the Governor.

I also briefly met and spoke with members of Teamsters Local 120 at President Obama's health care rally in Minneapolis on Sept. 12, one of whom -- I believe may have been Brad Swanson--- kindly answered my questions concerning the Employee Free Choice Act, and offered me a doughnut. (The doughnut was glazed and delicious.)

Now, if I were you, I'd sign that petition, no matter where you live. In case you missed it the first time: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/minnesotans-need-a-public-option

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