Rambling Rhodes

Should I, or shouldn't I?

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I should!

Nick Coleman: Memo to McManus: The streets are where it's at
Nick Coleman, Star Tribune
August 19, 2005

Minneapolis Police Chief Bill McManus let his hair down the other day and gave a piece of his mind to the Police Community Relations Council. I guess the council members are always bugging him with complaints about the way things are going while the chief has to stay mum -- the strong and surly type -- and take it.

Okay, as Coleman lead paragraphs go, not bad. Decent set up. As a reader, you're thinking this column is going to be about McManus. And if you're thinking that, you, the reader, are wrong.

No more. McManus says he actually plans to speak up at future meetings. Silence, he said, "was getting us nowhere."

Duh.

Ah, yes, the great literary device known as a strategically-placed "Duh."

Silence never gets you anywhere.

Unless you're Nick Coleman, in which case a little silence would do you a world of wonder.

Which is why it is always important to talk about relations between the cops and communities of color. And why it is always a good thing for cops and the community to meet, even if steam comes out of McManus' ears. No one said he had an easy job.

Communities of color? Could he possibly have conjured a more politically correct phrase? Then again, this is Coleman we're talking about, a man who gets the vapors when he hears the term "Fighting Sioux."

Anyway, I hope you've said your appropriate good-byes to McManus, the guy featured in the headline and the opening paragraphs, the guy you foolishly thought this column was going to be about. Because, as per the dictates of Coleman's adult ADD, we will see no more mention of him through the rest of the column. Like a toddler who spies a shiny dime across the room, Coleman's attention is about to drift elsewhere.

But to really see how things are going, it might be more helpful to monitor the streets than the chief's blood pressure. On too many streets in Minneapolis, it doesn't matter much how the police chief thinks he has been treated.

Time for some patented and acclaimed Nick Coleman "man on the street" interviewing!

"I'm going to say it like it is: The police don't do their job," a 22-year-old named Montrell Gardner said in the parking lot of a Plymouth Avenue shopping center that used to be famous for two things: Lucille's Kitchen and drug dealers.

Only the dealers are left. Lucille's is closed.

*rim shot*

"We have 25 hustlers standing on this corner every day, but the police just roll through without doing anything," Gardner was saying. "The hustlers got no respect for the police. The police ain't scaring nobody. And that's a bad thing."

Gosh, maybe the police should just start harrassing people standing on the corner? Maybe they should just start doing random pat downs and searches? Maybe they should start a program of extreme racial profiling at the expense of the most basic of human rights? Is that what Gardner and Coleman are advocating here?

As an aside, wouldn't 25 hustlers standing on a corner seem kind of, I don't know. . . conspicuous? Doesn't that number seem rather exaggerated? Nick has a tendency to take everyone at their word. Except politicians. They're all fat cat liars. But, your standard-issue 22-year-old on the street? A bastion of truth and honesty!!

Yes, it is. Especially considering the fact that we were talking within spitting distance of the Fourth Precinct police station, a blank-walled cop fort that squats on Plymouth but feels as far away as the moon.

Yeah, because we all know that police precincts are supposed to have officers peering out their windows from behind the shades, ready to pounce the moment they think they see a suspicious handshake transpire across the street. Under Nick's "logic," if you're standing near a hospital, you shouldn't get sick, either. Or if your house is near a fire department, your house should never catch fire. Nick's a common sense kind of guy like that.

"All they do is drive through and try to look good every once in a while," said an aspiring rapper named Antwon Wright who these days prefers to go by the name of Young Plukey (the original Plukey was a notorious drug dealer). "If this was a white neighborhood, the cops would go crazy. I mean, how can we be next to the station and yet you can come up here and get everything you need? It's a damn shame."

An aspiring rapper! Named after a notorious drug dealer! It's the Nick Coleman interview he's always dreamed of! And he managed to find this dream interview in the middle of the day, practically out of nowhere. What are the odds of that? Why, those odds are so astronomical, they would almost seem to border on the impossible. Here's a fun exercise for you. Do a Google search on "Young Plukey." Pretty aspiring.

"I agree with you," said a security guard named Rico McKinnies, nodding his head at the police fort. "It is a damn shame."

Lousy police fort. *shaking fist*

McKinnies, an off-duty cop, also serves as director of operations for the security firm that watches the shopping center. "Cops sitting in a car don't do anything for the community," he said.

They'd be much better off walking around, or on horseback, or performing a barn-raising.

Like a lot of guys on the street corner, Young Plukey has a checkered past.

Oh, a checkered past. Like, a marijuana possession charge? Perhaps a DWI? Maybe a domestic abuse arrest? You know. . . checkered.

He spent nine years in prison for shooting a guy during a drug deal. He shot the guy six times, up at 36th and Emerson. The victim nearly died but was revived in the operating room and survived as a paraplegic.

Great googily moogily.

"Because I was 16, they had mercy on me," Young Plukey says.

Too bad those six bullets didn't show all that much mercy, but whatever.

These days, he calls himself a "coke rebuker" and delivers a rap message of recovery and restoration in churches.

Good. A solid message. A positive message. Good for Young Plukey. Granted, if he really wanted to get that positive message across, he might have chosen a rapper name who wasn't, you know, a notorious drug dealer. But. . . baby steps.

And now for the Nick Coleman "WHA?" award.

His best rap is called "Son of Perdition," and it preaches a message of turning to the Bible and the Qur'an, or what have you.

The Bible and the Qur'an, OR WHAT HAVE YOU?! He wrote that? And left it in? OR WHAT HAVE YOU? What? You don't have a Bible or Qur'an handy? You have The DaVinci code? That'll work. What have you.

"I'm trying to convert savage living into spiritual living," he says.

What an inspirational ex-con. It's absolutely phenomenally lucky that Coleman was able to find such an inspirational story just walking around outside. Why, some would say it's such an inspirational story that maybe Coleman could have, you know, MADE "YOUNG PLUKEY" THE SOLE FOCUS OF HIS COLUMN. Maybe he could have sat down with his family, and perhaps visited with the poor paraplegic. I mean, this could have been an awesome human interest story. Any reporter with any nose for a story at all would have realized the sheer gold that practically dropped from the sky. Strangely, Nick didn't. I won't dabble in too much conjecture as to why he didn't, but I will say that it strikes me as downright odd, if not suspicious. He'd settle for a mope-infested tirade against what he perceives to be police inaction when he has a human interest story from the gods right there in front of him. His choice, I guess.

I had driven over to that Plymouth Avenue shopping center next to the police station because I was hoping to visit with Barbara Howard, a brave, crime-fighting hairdresser who had survived several run-ins with the drug dealers and whom McManus vowed last year to help with extra police protection.

In other words, Nick has ADD, but we already knew that. And, by the way. . . "crime-fighting hairdresser?" Could that be any more funny?

I wrote a column about Howard then, but I couldn't find her Thursday. Her shop is gone. Under a sign that still says "Barbara's Salon of Beauty" is a clothing store run by Lorraine Smaller, a retired teacher who ran an alternative school until it was shut down when the school district ran into money problems. A lot of the drug dealers, she knows by name.

More Coleman ADD. Come on, man, FOCUS! Or is it just that he can't survive without writing down every mopey thing he observes. Barbara's salon is gone. *sniffle* The sign is still there. *mope* Retired alternative school teacher. *pout* School shut down because of money problems. *woe* It's like Eeyore as a journalist.

"We get everyone from hoochie mamas to church ladies in here, including gang-bangers and drug dealers," Smaller said. "Where else are they going to go? There are no jobs, and the swimming pools are closed, and most of them don't have air conditioning."

No jobs. Oh, the lack of jobs! Why are there no jobs?! JOBS!

At that point, a young man opened the door to Smaller's shop and waved. "Hello, Miss Lorraine," he said. "I got a job!"

AWK-WARD.

As he left, Smaller said, "That's one of the dealers. Everyone calls me Miss Lorraine or shows me some respect like that. I like it. On hot days, they come in and say they're just 'looking,' but they're just cooling off. I tell them to change their ways, but I'm not out there dealing with them.

"That's the police's job."

So, the police's job is to get people to change their ways? I didn't know that was in their job description.

Last week, someone threw a brick through Miss Lorraine's shop door and stole $3,000 worth of clothing. The police, she says, were very polite.

"They get over here lickety-split, and they have been very nice to me. But they're not visible enough, that's for sure. If they were, the drug traffic wouldn't be what it is.

"It doesn't take rocket scientists to figure that out."

So, let's see. The cops did their job, and they apparently did it quite well. Yet, they're not visible enough, even though earlier in the column we learn that they're apparently driving around quite a bit, even if they're not conducting random searches on everyone they deem suspicious. One wonders how much more visibility they need, or what additional actions the people would like to see.

And, man, to any Twin Cities journalists reading this, go find that "Young Plukey" guy and find out more. Coleman passed up a gem right there. That is, you know, if Young Plukey isn't, in fact, Plain Layne.

By The Way. . .

I'll be in Boston, starting on Sunday and going through Wednesday, so blog posting may be light next week. What will I be doing in Boston, you ask? Well, since you asked, I'll be attending this. And I'll be staying here.

Any input as to where I should wander whilst in Boston would be appreciated.

A Single Picture Captures The Essence of Political Flame Wars

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When A Day Drags

Ryan says: Tick. . .

Ryan says: Tock. . .

Caroline says: no shit

Ryan says: Tick. . .

Ryan says: Tock. . .

Ryan says: Even the mouse is too bored to run up the clock.

Caroline says: he's drunk at the bottom of the clock

Ryan says: Smoking Lucky Strikes.

Ryan says: Lookin' at porn.

Caroline says: mouse porn

Caroline says: nice tail you got there

Ryan says: I'd spread that plague any day.

Caroline says: 50 cheese wheels to make you holla

Ryan says: Prostitute Vermin would be a great name for a rock band.

Nick Coleman: The River still runs the show in Minnesota

For a minute there, I was hopeful that Minnesota might do the right thing. Not a chance. Even from beyond its banks, the Minnesota River is pulling the strings.

The Dakota indians, a group of indigenous people responsible for the Sioux Uprising of 1862--killing 450 German immigrant farmers--named the Minnesota River which eventually gave rise to the name of the state itself. After almost two centuries since becoming a state, it still stubbornly maintains its offensive name.

What's even worse, the state's football team, the Minnesota Vikings, is a shameless marriage of two competing racial defamations against the Sioux nation and the Scandinavian boatsmen who may or may not have settled in the area. I guess I don't really know. I'm just mad at everything in general, because I have a bad hip.

The NCAA has ruled that 18 schools have nicknames that are offensive. The criteria for this is questionable, not unlike my writing ability. I mean, where's the outrage against such military equipment as the Apache helicopter, or IBM's Apache software, or the Jeep Cherokee? And why do we continue to have states with names like, well. . . Minnesota, or North and South Dakota, or Iowa, or Illinois, or Wyoming (I mean, Cheyanne? Hello?!!). Why do we continue to use terms like "skunk," or "chipmunk," or "opossum?" Why not "Stinky Striped Cat," or "Tiny Squirrel," or "Animal That Pretends It's Dead?"

Come to think of it, why does the Sacajawea dollar coin have to feature an indian female and her baby? That's just wrong. What's even more wrong is that Americans are refusing to embrace the offensive coin because, obviously, Americans are racist and won't embrace anything indian-related. Except for nicknames and mascots and state names and I have no idea where I'm even going with all this, but it all sure makes me mad as hell.

Under the NCAA's new policy, no Indian logos or nicknames may be used in post-season play after Feb. 1, 2006, which really sucks for Minnesota schools because it means every Minnesota flag is going to have to be altered to get that racist depiction of an indian off of there.

Oh, and did you hear that the federal mint plans on bringing back the buffalo nickel? How totally offensive is that? We wipe out the buffalo, and now we commemorate it? Gosh darn it, I'm so mad right now, my glasses are about to crack. Again, I'm not sure why I'm so mad, but it sure feels like I have to mad about something all the time, or I don't feel right.

And while I'm at it, I want to express my anger at bloggers again. I just have a hard time looking favorably on free speech and free press when it's granted to people other than myself. Man that irks me. Anyway, I'm getting characteristically off topic here. Where was I? Oh, yes, indian bloggers.

Er, wait. I mean indian nicknames and mascots and logos. That's what I'm mad at. Man I hate those things.

Nick Coleman is at ncoleman@startribune.com.

Don't Mind Me, I've Been Zotob-bed

Yesterday, around noon, this pleasant bitch paid my work computer a visit. It created a lot of problems, and basically killed all yesterday afternoon and most of this morning.

On the plus side, as a result, IBM is installing Windows XP on my system rather than the ancient Windows 2000 I was working on previously.

So, you know, there's that.

Best Laugh of the Week and it's only Tuesday!

Fark photoshop contest: Rehabilitated horror-film slashers trying to make it in the regular world

You will NOT see a better entry than this:

Journalism Stuff

I read this thought-provoking post tonight about journalism, and naturally it prompted me to think about my own j-school experience. Some thoughts.

Next was Dianne Lynch, dean of the School of Communications at Ithaca College, a journalist, and former executive director of the online News Association. She told us a startling story about an exceptional student who gave up a four-year scholarship worth over $200,000, including tuition, room and board, even travel money. The student came to the dean’s office to let Lynch know that she was quitting journalism and switching to sociology. “I decided that I just can’t be in such a terrible profession,” the student said, adding that it did not seem to her a field where a young person could “make a difference.”

There was a slight gasp in the room at that. This was because the phrase used, “make a difference,” though tedious and vague, was once the very thing that identified to journalists their own idealism. You didn’t do it for the money, and it wasn’t the wonderful working conditions, or a chance for advancement. For a certain generation (whose mortality was lurking about the panel, way under the laughs) journalism, at its best, was all about “making a difference.” Speaking truth to power, and all that implies.

Honestly, I can't remember any of my professors saying anything about "making a difference." Almost every one of them warned us that we shouldn't expect to make any money starting out, which was spot on true, but I don't think anyone of them mentioned "making a difference."

I wasn't drawn to journalism for some altruistic reason. I was drawn to journalism because I could write reasonably well and had a knack for interviewing others about mundane shit. Mostly, I was drawn to journalism because I was frantically trying to find an alternative to the English/Teaching degree I had decided wasn't for me and I needed something that transferred most of my existing credits. Hey, JOURNALISM! WOO HOO!

But, "making a difference." Something about that phrase bothers me. I guess it's because, in my mind, it's not a journalist's role to "make a difference." Because, if you go into journalism to "make a difference," you're automatically implying that something's not right to you and should be changed. In short, you bring your own agenda to the profession right from the start. So much for non-bias and objectivity.

It's also not about "speaking truth to power," because that's automatically saying that power does not speak the truth; which, obviously, power doesn't a fair amount of the time. But, "speaking truth to power" implies that power NEVER tells the truth. So, again, right from the gates, you're entering the profession with your own preconceptions and bias, which runs entirely counter to what journalism professes to be: namely, unbiased and objective.

Even more than that, as self-empowering and self-righteous as it is to say you're in a profession that "speaks truth to power," you're automatically establishing the "us versus them" battle lines. If you proclaim that you're going to speak truth to power, you're saying that you don't trust power. So, why the hell would power trust you? From there, you end up with stuff like forged memos being accepted from deranged sources or White House press credentials being granted to male escorts. How the hell is either case serving the public in a positive way?

I don't know. I guess "making a difference" is a pretty piss poor reason to go into journalism. Obviously, dork-knobs like Nick Coleman think it's their duty to "make a difference," and we've repeatedly seen here what kind of nonsense that produces. Granted, Coleman's a cynical moron with the writing skills of a flea, but still.

If practitioners of the craft want to position journalism as a field in which people can "make a difference" or "speak truth to power," they had better clue into the fact that journalism is not a non-biased and objective profession and admit it, up front, as such. We can't have it both ways.

Personally, I'd prefer it if they shaky "objectivity" facade was dropped altogether, but I'm biased like that.

At least I admit it.

An Open Letter To My Fellow Motorists

Dear Fellow Motorists:

First, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Ryan Rhodes. Like you, I'm a motorist, a person who journeys from place to place in a motorized vehicle. My vehicle is a car.

Make no mistake; I am not a perfect motorist. I make my share of driving oopsies. They're typically minor oopsies, like almost merging without seeing you in my blind spot. For that and other oopsies, I apologize.

Today, my fellow motorists, I have to take an opportunity to chastise you for a spreading epidemic within our ranks that threatens the very fabric of our motorist existence. I've noticed a growing problem, and I feel it is my duty to point out this problematic trend and try to reverse it before it gets completely out of control, although I may, in fact, be too late.

You see, dear motorists, perhaps you've forgotten, or perhaps you've never known, that there's a stick-like appendage that juts out from the steering column of every automobile. In most vehicles, it's on the left. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with this protruding device while I explain its use.

You'll notice, if you push up or down on the sticklike protusion, it will lock into place and, depending on which direction--up or down--you pushed it, a corresponding flashing light will appear somewhere on your dashboard.

Likewise, on the front and back of your vehicle, lights will begin flashing on either the right or left side--again, depending on which direction you pushed the sticklike protrusion.

The flashing lights are commonly referred to as blinkers, or turn signals, or trajectory change indicators, or intent-to-turn heads-uppers. Simply stated, these lights let other motorists know that you're about to make a turn, or that you're about to merge, or, in the case of hazard lights, that you're having vehicle trouble and need assistance.

Please, dear motorists, for the love of Jeebus: START USING YOUR DAMNED INTENT-TO-TURN HEADS-UPPERS!!

I can't take it any more! They're very simple to operate! Mind numbingly easy to operate! If your blinker is on the left of the steering column, and you want to turn right, push it up. If you're going to turn left, push it down. Reverse this in the odd chance your blinker stick is on the right. It's actually really quite intuitive.

Yet, every day, every SINGLE day, I encounter at least five of you who apparently think using your turn singles burns up blinker fluid or something. Newsflash: there's no such thing as blinker fluid! So, use your blinker!

You know when you're at a four way stop or traffic signal, and you don't use your blinker? Guess what? People assume you're going to go straight. When you don't, it can be kind of surprising to your fellow motorists, who were patiently waiting for you to pass straight by, but then you suddenly hang a left and. . . HOLY CRAP I almost hit you! You absent-minded dill hole!

Ever more nerve-wracking are those of you who merge and weave maniacally in and out of traffic without even the mere hint of advance notice. Newsflash: other motorists can not read your mind and, if you somehow think we can, chances are pretty good your mind is probably not worth reading. Blinkers, people, blinkers!! I cannot stress enough the importance of this apparently alien automotive alert system.

Thank you. That is all.

Yours truly,

A Nerve-Wracked Motorist

Name Calling

Evelyn says: Quick question.

Ryan says: Yes?

Evelyn says: The author for your cover story for the Nov/Dec issue?

Ryan says: Yes?

Evelyn says: I have down "Curt Jews." Is that the proper spelling?

Ryan says: Yuppers.

Evelyn says: Okay.

Ryan says: Unusual name. Cool, but unusual. Why not "Dismissive Hebrews?"

Evelyn says: lol