Here in Minnesota, a stadium debate rages. Or so I've been told. I haven't followed it much. But Nick Coleman has! Rather than take sides on the stadium issue, I'd much rather pick on Nick Coleman for his crappy writing and even crappier journalistic acumen.
According to our electronic library, Sid Hartman has written almost 200 columns for this newspaper in which the name "Carl Pohlad" has been mentioned in tandem with "new stadium," and 167 columns in which the words "Twins" and "Las Vegas" have been linked -- as in "Las Vegas would love to lure away the Twins," (Sid, on May 4).
Classic Nick Coleman "research." From the same guy who once quoted a commenter on Craigslist.com as evidence of ANYTHING, Nick now utilizes his newspaper's electronic library (newsroom Google, basically) to start off his column. One wonders if he stretched and then visited the coffee machine while he waited for the search results to come up.
By contrast with my older friend, I have written fewer than two dozen columns in which the word "stadium" has appeared in any context, whether I was referring to plans for a new Twins stadium, a new Vikings stadium, a new Gophers stadium or some combination of the $2 billion worth of stadium plans the Legislature has been smoking.
The Legislature has been smoking stadium plans? I wonder if Nick hear's the youth of today ask each other "Dude, what have you been smoking?" and in Nick's walnut of a mind he thinks "STADIUM PLANS! THEY'RE SMOKING STADIUM PLANS! I AM SO SMART! I AM SO SMART! S-M-R-T! I MEAN S-M-A-R-T!"
Before proceeding, let me explain that I refer to spry Sid as "older" only to acknowledge his 86 years of accumulated wisdom, and to infer that, by contrast, I am but a pup.
Nick's adult ADD, however, is far more advanced than anything an 86-year-old can conjure. This column's about stadiums! No, this column's about how old Sid is! No, wait, this column is how old I am!
My prematurely naked head has led some to believe that Sid and I enjoy a brisk game of shuffleboard.
This column is about male pattern baldness!
I am, in fact, 30 years his junior and in all ways inferior.
This column is about how inferior Nick is! Finally, something we can agree on.
I only hope to grow up to be like Sid.
Oh, gawd, another 30 years of Nick Coleman columns? Perish the thought.
Despite my puny output of stadium columns, it is I who stands accused of harping.
*pressing the Nick Coleman "Whine Alert" button*
"You are a first-class idiot," a reader named Joe wrote to tell me. "Quit your whining."
*Salutes Joe*
"I am sick and tired of hearing you spout your mouth off," wrote another named Neil.
*Salutes Neil*
There have been many more,
*Salutes Many More*
and all this vitriol has made me wish I was more like Sid. After all, it appears the people of Hennepin County, despite opposing a stadium that will cost them almost a billion dollars while costing Twins owner Pohlad nothing he won't recover the day the park opens, are going to get a stadium.
Um, why would that make Nick want to be more like Sid?
Drink the Kool-Aid
That's a sub-head, by the way.
We have the best pols money can buy, and they stay bought: By a Twins lobbying campaign that has spent millions; by hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from the Pohlads and their minions, and by the constant cheerleading from the Chicken Littles who have warned -- without any credible evidence or threat -- that the Twins will pack up and dump us if this very bad plan does not ooze through to passage.
Nick is an odd one to cluck about Chicken Littles and no credible evidence. He's the same guy who wrote that a Craigslist.com commenter was evidence that a lynching almost erupted in the Twin Cities.
Read the rest of Nick's column at your own peril. For a 56-year-old, he sure sucks.
Posted by Ryan at May 19, 2006 09:32 AM | TrackBack
Stumble It!
