This was bare grass yesterday. Only a few spots of snow in the shade. And now this. Even for a dedicated snow-a-holic skier, the dreams of mountain biking had infected me, and now....Too sticky to really enjoy skiing...Aaaahhhhgggg.

So I have been remiss. I did not realize it has been two months since a post. But life has been busy. I have relocated to the Iron Range, a place I'd never thought I'd return to. I even live in one of the cities, and not the country to the north as I planned. And it has been an adventure, even for someone originally from the area. No coffee places with wifi open in evening hours within 15 miles. Alcoholism and other addictions run rampant. Teenagers with a look that says " get me out of here!". And those that stay are well, hmm, sometimes frightening. Mudder culture is everywhere, and generally amongst the males it is alcohol mixed with gasoline for enlightenment. There are entire missing age cohorts, especially gen x and y. Ant then this...the local paper...
. I hope the tag I want people to see shows up. You can guess from the tone of this vile piece of greasy fishwrap the editor's mentality. He berates the local school for apparently joining in this. According to him, and most of the right wing nutballs of his ilk ( I know, it is a redundancy), this is pushing the " homosexual agenda", whatever that is. I suppose that means they demand not to be assaulted, verbally abused and, oh my, to be treated like everyone else. Obviously a conspiracy of grand proportions. Last week, I spent the day at a conference where local officials were discussing planning. The question always is " how can we attract younger people to live and work here?". The blame has always been the economy, with some justification. But there are other components; namely, social life, the local culture, the land itself, etc...etc... As one of the local mayor's said, " if you want barriers to change, I will give you about 200 names and addresses to start. "This is a perfect example; The reptile who runs this paper is part of the problem, and so are many others like him. It is no longer the same world, and hoping for some bizarro place populated by happily working, white, nutball christians is not going to help your cities grow. Neither will holding on to mudder culture, or celebrating the digging of repulsive giant holes:large hole. Hey...most of the world thinks nature and art are pretty and are not attracted to toxic waste sites and industrial brownfields. They also do not like insular people who aren't friendly. I will not even speak of the heifer like women...I will save that for my next post after the angry replies are done.