The Rake Magazine

For those of you lulled into complacency by auspicious recent events such as Britney's brief flirtation with lucidity, it's important to note that, not only is the entertainment industry still pumping out fucking loons at a heretofore unheard of pace, but our politicians are providing ample evidence of a world view so profoundly divorced from reality that it's likely only a matter of a few short days until Gov. Pawlenty declares "Blame it on the Rain" our state song and Speaker of the House Margaret Kelliher declares her undying love for Michelle Bachmann's fabulously taut ass. In other words, take heed, Minnesota denizens, for the Oh Shit meter has gone from a subdued puce to an alarming ochre.

And what has triggered these dire portents? What could possibly be serving as the harbinger for yet another pending apocalypse? The answer is disarmingly, deceptively simple - nothing more, or less, than the overwhelming demonstration of the profound stupidity endemic to all levels of our representative democracy.

These portents have appeared at a furious pace as of late. John McCain's assertion that Purim is the Jewish Halloween, thus disappointing a highly influential voting block as they continue a hallowed tradition of offering a big "Fuck you" to yet another culture that tried to annihilate them, was only the beginning. And Dick Cheney's apparent pleasure at providing a big "Fuck you" to the American public as polls indicated two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the war in Iraq was just a cherry on top of the mountain of asshattery displayed whilst our policy-makers grandstand and pontificate on how best to take advantage of the economic reaming the average American feels they are about to receive.

To address the assembled citizenry's fervent desire for fiscal lubricants to ease the anticipated pain, Obama and Clinton have released their economic stimulus and oversight plans. McCain, of course, is standing pat, toeing the GOP line as he has for the last few years and stating that the check going out to taxpayers in May, not to mention the tax breaks for businesses that will surely convince them to invest in added infrastructure while consumers aren't buying anything, is plenty to arouse the economy and stimulate a good old-fashioned consumer orgy.

What baffles me, however, is that the plans put forth by these august candidates are, for the most part, predicated on becoming president despite all three having plenty of legislative power. And since statistically, recessions are generally over within a year to a year and a half, meaning any fiscal policy levied after scoring the presidency won't take effect until January of 2009. Much like downing the morning after pill nine months after the condom breaks, that's long after it could possibly do any good.

Then you might think to yourself, "At least our local legislators, staunch realists like Marty Seifert and the Iron Range's Tom "The Sex Hog" Saxhaug, are carefully balancing Minnesotan needs against the harsh reality of the budget deficit threatening our government services and benefits". If you were harboring such thoughts, you may want to relieve yourself of them via repeated blows to the cranium with a blunt object, since you'd be laughably wrong. To address the state's approximately $1 billion deficit, GOP legislators offered a program of cuts to higher education, dips into the state's rainy day fund, and bizarrely, a token tax cut to make Minnesotans feel better about the panty raid Gov. Pawlenty proposed on the state's health care access fund and budget reserves. DFLers universally derided the deficit fix, calling the proposal shortsighted and damaging. House Majority Leader Tony Sertich went so far as to say, "Everyone knows people from Eagan are twats. And Tim Pawlenty is a twat among twats. The alpha and the omega of twats, if you will."

One might imagine the DFL, after such an ideological salvo, would come back with a solution to the state's budget woes. A solution that would salvage programs to salve the economic doldrums afflicting our state's citizens whilst securing Minnesota's solvency for the biennium and beyond. Sadly, it seems we'll sooner see Michelle Bachmann in an Amsterdam donkey show than have a budget proposal that actually addresses the real issues facing the state. The budget that the DFL's greatest financial minds came back with dips even further into the rainy day fund. And while the $23 million in extra education spending is nice, the proposal doesn't provide any details on the program cuts necessary to cover that spending. Nor did they make any attempt at ensuring solvency in the next biennium. Much like the Pawlenty administration and inflation, reality and the DFL have never quite meshed.

Frighteningly enough, the group we must look toward for fundamental change in our fiscal policy is the Bush administration. They've bailed out Bear Stearns despite outcry from left and right, thus avoiding a repeat of the market crash that triggered the Great Depression. And we've already seen some small changes - allowing the Federal Reserve and treasury some additional oversight of investment houses and mortgage originators. But more meaningful changes, changes that will allow the hand of government to wrap itself around the balls of America's financial system and give a great tug when necessary are not yet forthcoming. Can an administration that has spent the vast majority of its time in Washington on a ranch in Crawford, TX or up its own ass aggressively move to create meaningful legislation? Can a man whose sole method of reassuring the public that the economy is in good hands consists of letting us all know the government worked over the weekend actually trigger substantive change?

Yeah, I know. We're fucked. But I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords, and will enjoy receiving the benevolent treatment afforded all China's provinces.

 

 

The Minneapolis-Saint Paul Craig's List is a colder and more lonely place these days as foreclosures reach a feverish pace in otherwise sleepy places like Anoka County. Cul-de-sacs once buzzing with activity and excitement now lie fallow. Residents no longer stumble, drunk in hedonistic delight, from house to house, relieving boredom and ennui with the aid of wives, friends and longtime acquaintances in true bacchanalian tradition. No longer will promotions be celebrated with swing parties of legendary proportions, catered by P.F. Chang's and lubricated with the unholy trinity of Franzia boxed merlot, Leinie's Honey Weiss, and industrial-sized tubs of AstroGlide on these subdued side streets. Reality has come crashing down in Maple Grove and points north, south, east and west, not in unwanted pregnancy or odd burning and itching sensations, but in the fuzzy math of adjustable rate mortgages and the American dream stretched too thin.

Traditionally bastions of stability, fiscal solvency, and late-night Cinemax-style extra-marital hijinks, nearly 57 percent of foreclosures are now taking place in the suburbs. Anoka County alone accounted for 190 foreclosures in January. So where will these stricken swingers live? Will they venture bravely forth into the city they fled, seeking low rents and a more diverse group to foist pasty white love handles and a bottle of Reunite on?

If they do, they stand to be disappointed. The foreclosure crisis has left a legacy of awesome ice flows in suburban townhomes and ramblers, but in some neighborhoods of Minneapolis, the housing boom lured investors to take on project homes, renting them out until they could sell them at a profit. Of course, many of those same investors had all the home improvement and property management skills of an inbred ground sloth, and were twice as likely to spend their time quaffing low-end lambrusco in Maple Grove trying to get better acquainted with the ladies of Target's merchandising division as they were to maintain their properties. And after the bank foreclosed? Lenders have a habit of studiously ignoring properties, making them breeding grounds for squatters, thieves and R.T. Rybak, among other undesirables. As a result, the Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation estimates as much as a third of north Minneapolis' foreclosed housing stock should be razed. And while I loves me some wanton destruction, that won't leave much room for the looming wave of homeless Anoka libertines.

Of course, there's a simple solution at hand. The Minneapolis city council is now backing extended NRP funding, with two options currently on the table. Should either proposal pass, these funds could be used to create new zones on the North Side, loosely based on Gov. Pawlenty's now defunct JOBZ program. These areas would be called Beneficial Lateral Orientation Job Opportunity Building Zones (BLO JOBZ). These zones would be used to cheaply resettle the suburban refugees looking for homes with a minimum of disruption to the region.

BLO JOBZ would assist in the gentrification of the North Side, as well as provide a soft landing for these happily humping bon vivants, who would likely be willing to work to improve the housing stock in the neighborhoods. Plus, if all goes well, as the newly displaced suburban population settles in the designated zones and gets friendly with their neighbors, a new era of racial and ethnic understanding could be reached through BLO JOBZ. Truly, a visionary program.

It’s Friday, and like that girl you had in the backseat of your dad’s Buick back in ’82, Spring just ain’t giving up the goods. And while the putrid grey color of today’s sky and frozen water the clouds vomit forth inch by cursed inch may bode well for today’s opening of the new North Face store in Uptown, it may well drive many in our fair state to crack open a bottle of Jameson and toast to today’s freezing over of the Nine Hells.

Now, women in fleece and quilted coats turn me on as much as the next guy, but does the melting of the polar ice caps really have to signal warmer weather and coastal living for everyone but the masochistic souls of the Upper Midwest? Do we not deserve some warmth when we’ve been subjected to a winter of arctic air, partisan bickering, and a plague of douchebags?

In any case, while it’d be much more effective to offer everyone in the Twin Cities metro area free pharmaceutical-grade opiates, instead, we of The Defenestrator bring you Happy Fun Fridays – a new potentially regular feature straight from the land of make-believe and unicorns meant to bring you, our valued reader, the joy that is so profoundly and painfully missing from your life.

So dry your tears, stop touching your outer child inappropriately and get in touch with your inner child as you play the Obama: Race for the White House game! Think Obama is a hypocritical, albeit charismatic, opportunist? Then you’ll be thrilled to offer universal health care as America’s favorite battle-axe in Hillary: Race for the White House! Or perhaps you’re a geriophile with a firm belief that we’re winning the war in Iraq? Then relive the glory days of the war with a little Baghdad Bowling.

Or maybe you’re tired and just need some sunshine in your life and some help figuring out what you want for dinner tonight. Well, before there was Obama Girl, there were bikini-clad cooking tips from the superheroine herself.

 

Obama Girl Cooking Tips

 

So dry your tears and take heart that even though today’s weather and the state of our legislature is evidence that God doesn’t love you, you’ve got a friend at The Rake.

Like the stealthy shinobi, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings slipped in and out of Saint Paul yesterday, accomplishing her mission with a minimum of bloodshed and outcry from those who would oppose her in carrying out the quest laid upon her by her daimyo. Few recognized her shadowy presence, overshadowed as it was with news of racially-charged electoral rhetoric, newly appointed slutty governors, and medical incompetence of nigh-mythical proportions.

Spellings' quest is, of course, to stump for George W. Bush's premier education program, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which has been up for renewal since September 30. Her stop in St. Paul yesterday, complete with Pawlenty photo opp, concerned her decision to allow some states to make modifications in how schools are penalized for not making "adequate yearly progress". According to Spellings, the modifications are intended to allow states to differentiate between schools that are barely missing benchmarks and those that are dramatically underperforming on a year-to-year basis. Strangely, no mention was made of providing the money promised by Washington to fund the testing required by NCLB.

Spellings' speech emphasized that this new flexibility would not come at the price of accountability. Punctuated as it was by the secretary brandishing her gleaming ninja-to and threats to send her shadowy clan of kunoichi to "encourage" adequate yearly progress from the nonconforming and recalcitrant school districts not living up to the administration's lofty standards, many in the Washington offered their confidence that these measures would make a monumental difference in closing the education gap.

Oddly, Minnesota isn't one of the states eligible to participate in the pilot program. Minnesota has yet to secure approval for the alternative exams developed for English language learners, so won't be able to participate in the program. DFL lawmakers seized upon this opportunity to question why the secretary chose to come to Minnesota at all if the state wouldn't be reaping the benefits of the Department of Education's enlightened new policy - wondering if, in fact, this was all just a way to bring attention to Norm Coleman's campaign for reelection. Given the nature of the news, this was unlikely at best. Regardless, Spellings quickly silenced these voices of dissent with a torrent of shuriken before vanishing into the quickly fading twilight, as ninjas are wont to do.

Despite these modifications, which are intended to address one of the primary complaints about NCLB - namely that a school that doesn't make adequate yearly progress gets bent over, sans lube, regardless of how close or far from the mark they hit - Congress and the Department of Education are unlikely to come to any significant agreement on renewing NCLB in the near future. The upcoming presidential election makes it even more likely Congress will sit on its collective arse expressing shock that baseball players would stoop so low as to take steroids, all the while informing the public on how hard it's working to come to an agreement that "...will serve the best interests of the children. My god, won't you think of the children?" Clearly our legislature has our best interests at heart.

Once we reach the end of the interminable two-year slog known as the modern election season, our elected representatives in Washington may stop wetting themselves every time a significant policy decision needs to be made long enough to create meaningful legislation. As a result, the act is very likely to be modified heavily, or even disappear altogether, after the election. Obama and McCain both want to modify the act heavily, and despite voting to put NCLB in place originally, Hillary Clinton is the only candidate who has stated she'll put an end to the act, though she hasn't yet provided a plan to replace the accountability measures many have agreed are good for several of the groups struggling with the achievement gap.

And if that prognosis spawns an odd feeling in the pit of your stomach that feels remarkably like hope for the future, there no reason for concern. You can rest easy in the near certainty that the next administration, whoever may lead it, will almost certainly put an asinine, overpriced and ill-advised education policy in place that makes the reaming our schools have received under NCLB look like a threeway with Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite. Then again, Strawberry Shortcake turned out to be quite the tramp.

Like Jabba the Hutt, whose only purpose was to give George Lucas an excuse to put Princess Leia in a slave bikini, this year’s $1 billion budget deficit seems only to exist to further divide a legislature already spoiling for a fight. And much like the epic struggle between Empire and the Rebellion, the battles are pretty damn fun to watch, but the fallout is pretty painful for those affected by the proposed cuts.

Now, there are any number of groups making their case to the legislature, whining and mewling like the drunken babies Arne Carlson is trying to preserve funding for as the state government digs deep for beer money. And while it’s tempting to sit back and laugh at the knee-jerk responses that treat the former governor as if he were just another political opponent running for office, accusing him of supporting tax increases and questioning the size of his genitalia, there are more important things at stake here.

Among many others, our state’s system of universities is particularly hard hit under the proposed budget cuts and faces having $54 million summarily hacked from its coffers. $27 million of this money will come directly from the U. University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks has stated that such cuts could well raise tuition, reduce the university’s ability to invest in research and technology, and force the University Extension Service to start selling the primo weed the master gardeners have been growing (for purely medical purposes) to cover expenses.

Strangely, the response to these issues was to call the university fat, and accuse it of carrying too much dead weight in the administration, saying that dropping a few pounds would do it some good. Now, the state government would seem to not have much room to talk in that regard, but rather than comparing one group’s Rikki Lake to another’s Kirstie Allie, we can do some quick and dirty analysis. Ohio State, a Big 10 school much like the U and roughly on par in terms of student population, had expenditures of more than $4 billion last fiscal year. The U, in comparison, is operating with around $2.5 billion. OSU, of course, charges nearly $6,000 per year for tuition at the least, while the U charts in about $1,300 less and is already falling behind in research rankings. So maybe further starving Ms. Lake isn’t wise. She looks thin enough as it is.

Of course, the true victims here are the coeds of the university system. Everyone knows the hale and hearty Minnesotan male will be able to hunt food to survive when tuition rises and they’re no longer able to afford a quality education. However, the gentle females of our fair state, still in need of an education to survive, will turn to stripping and prostitution to pay their tuition and buy enough beer to make sleeping with the males left at the university moderately palatable. They will flood the Warehouse District in competition for the limited funds available in our economic downturn and lure our congressional leaders into sensibly priced motel room trysts -- because charging Emperor's Club prices just wouldn't be right for a nice Lutheran girl.

With this phenomenon will come inevitable moral and economic decay, our great cities deteriorating until we’ve become nothing more than a poor man’s Amsterdam – albeit with shitty mass transit and more difficult access to quality recreational pharmaceuticals. $54 million seems a small price to pay to avoid such a fate.

Just as disturbing is the potential assault on the criminal justice system. $11.9 million of the proposed $16.52 million in public safety cuts is aimed directly at reductions in budgets for courts and public defenders. The right to a fair trial is quickly sauntering toward a brutal slaughter.

Caseloads are at an all-time high for the state’s public defenders – sitting at twice the ABA’s standards. Now, when the Board of Public Defense was already looking at a deficit of $2.1 million dollars, the proposed cuts put them even further in the hole – at $4.8 million. And since the office has already instituted a hiring freeze and cut administrative staff, all that’s left is lawyers. According to the Talmud, that’s one of the portents of the coming apocalypse.

Now, in the case of an apocalypse, tradition says the moral few would be whisked away. But those of left behind may still be thinking that our public defenders will be so harried we may see more criminals put away. But along with that possibility comes longer waits for trials, so the accused are out on the streets longer. Not to mention the increased chance of success on appeal, mistrials, and other assorted legal entertainments of the sort most Minnesotans have heretofore only enjoyed whilst watching omnipresent Law & Order reruns on TBS.

Now, these are dire predictions, to be sure. But take heart, fellow tundra-dwellers. The DFL majority in the legislature is eager to score points with you by restoring quality legal services and ensuring our state’s ample population of drunken coeds give it away to drunken frat boys, not well-heeled legislators like the Sex Hog. Just do your best to ignore their attempts at raising taxes to pay for all of it.

Or, like me, you can just pray for a robot uprising.