Month: May 2020

by William Skink

If they are not occupying their second homes yet, they soon will be. Let’s hope they are not all entitled assholes like Sara.

I’m sure it’s just jealousy motivating me to opine so harshly. I mean, who wouldn’t land their helicopter on the banks of a river in a wilderness area if they had the resources, am I right?

This poem is for you, Sara.

ENTITLEMENT
for Sara Schwerin

they want to escape
and have bank accounts
that allow them to set
their helicopter down

in a wilderness area
where motors are banned
horsepower means horses
in this wild land

but when you’re a banker
perched above laws
with rust on the guillotine
there is no pause

want to cast line
the first day you can?
fuck yeah, they say
this land is our land

by William Skink

Can a summer of rage translate to electoral support for Democrats? I’m sure the strategists hope they can exploit this latest tragedy of a cop murdering a black man, but will they be successful?

Mint News has a piece out about how Minnesota’s chief prosecutor between 1999-2007, Amy Klobuchar, played the broken windows game to appear tough on crime and further her political career:

Activists allege her embracing of the broken window-style policing was a deliberate strategy to win support in the white suburbs of Minneapolis, to the detriment of the city’s non-white communities, bolstering her successful run for senate in 2006. A case in point is Elsayed Salim, who was convicted of failing to declare a secondary income that put him above the threshold for welfare and food stamps. A judge sentenced Salim to 364 days in jail – deliberately attempting to protect him from deportation by keeping his sentencing under a year which downgraded the case from a felony to a gross misdemeanor. An outraged Klobuchar appealed the decision, lobbying for an upgrade and condemning the state’s judges for “letting offenders off the hook too easily.” Mr. Salim was subsequently deported.

While it may not be the first city that comes to mind, data shows that Minneapolis is among the most racist cities in the United States for racial profiling and police stops. The police force’s own data shows that, while black people make up only 18 percent of the population, they were involved in nearly half of all police stops. Conversely, whites make up 60 percent of the population but figured in less than 21 percent of the stops. 62 percent of body searches and 63 percent of people whose cars were searched were also black. Thus, Floyd’s killing is merely a viral example of a wider phenomenon, a spark that ignited a powder keg of resentment that had been building for some time.

With this Klobid-20 context in mind, here is a poem in honor of our upcoming presidential election:

ELECTION

they’ve given us a gift
look at these two men
they think you will take it
again, again, again

Joe besieged the hood
because “super predator” kids
were used to spread THE FEAR
making prison CEOs rich

but black man question Joe
he’s helping evil Don
Dems expect your vote
their tent a prison song

the other swinging Dick
Don, from NYC
knows where the tapes are
so has them on their knees

don’t underestimate
the scope of their dark goal
when all is said and done
they aim to own your soul

by William Skink

The reopening is weird.

I think I engaged in some civil disobedience yesterday with my daughter. Let me explain.

Yesterday we went on a morning bike ride adventure to allow my boys to better focus on the shit-show of remote learning. We started at McCormick park and headed toward the Good Food Store to get some food for lunch.

The grocery shopping experience was my daughter’s first commercial retail experience since the shelter-in-place order was proclaimed by our Governor in March.

She was so excited.

I had my mask, which the store requires, but not a mask for the little one. Luckily the grocery store provides bandanas at the entrance for anyone who isn’t prepared, so I tied one on and we procured our lunch.

With our food packed, we proceeded to bike along the Clark Fork river trail toward the worst performing University flagship in the country. As we approached, the smell of chemicals hung heavy in the air, which was confirmed by signs indicating all the grass had recently been treated.

So we biked onward, toward Bonner Park.

We arrived around 11:30am. We found a picnic table and settled in. My little girl wanted to play, so she played. There were about 4 or 5 other kids playing as well, the progeny, I deduced, of two women sitting on a park bench. Should I snitch and expose them for sitting closer than 6 feet away from each other?

Here’s another question: did I see the sign that said the playground was closed before allowing my daughter to play? Yes, yes I did. And did I allow her to play and make a new friend anyway? Yes, yes I did. And did two police officers bike through the park and ignore all this rule-breaking going on with our children? Yes, yes they did.

I was briefly worried, as was my mom, who arrived just as the cops biked through the park. But there was no need to worry; this park is in the University district, which means lots of deep-pocketed Caucasian Karens bring their kids here, and since I am blazingly Caucasian, the cops just breezed on by.

The next phase of reopening Montana for the tourist hordes hits June 1st. With an alluringly low case count, we better prepare for a massive influx of cabin-fever-crazed tourists flooding the state.

by William Skink

My wife and I were talking about our whiteness the other day. She had just watched the video of a New York Karen flipping her shit because a black man had the temerity to approach and inform her that her dog needed to be on a leash.

When Karen called 911 she knew exactly what she was doing. Telling emergency services she was being threatened by an AFRICAN AMERICAN MAN could have been fatal for the man, but thankfully he had the good sense to film his interaction with his phone. If it wasn’t for the ubiquitous presence of cameras on phones, the chance of this man being arrested and/or killed by law enforcement would have been much greater.

While I might be critical of being politically correct and the cancel culture that has emerged in recent years, I will never deny the existence of white privilege.

White privilege is difficult to identify for us white people because it primarily hinges on all the things we DO NOT experience.

I’ll again use myself as an example.

During my senior year in high school I was transporting beer from one party to another in my car when I was pulled over for speeding in a school zone. In addition to beer, my buddy and I had just smoked a bowl. So I was pretty worried as the cop approached my car, as was my buddy, who tried hiding his open beer under his seat, spilling it everywhere.

I was given field sobriety tests, but luckily not searched, so the glass pipe, wooden dugout, and bag of weed bulging out of my sock was not discovered. The beer in my trunk was discovered, and the chubby patrol officers called my mommy and gave me a ticket for being a minor in possession of alcohol.

My white privilege is that I am alive to write these words, and clear of a criminal history that would haunt me for the rest of my life as I try to get jobs and housing.

I don’t think it’s possible for most white people to really understand what it means to experience blackness in America, and I include myself in this statement. The stress that accompanies most day-to-day interactions simply doesn’t exist for us.

I never worry when I walk into a store. My heart rate doesn’t go up when I see a police officer. If I wanted to be a jogger (I don’t) I could jog anywhere I wanted to without fear of being lynched. My wife and I don’t fear our boys will be shot. Our oldest is 11, so he’s beyond the age black boys start looking like criminals to the police state (and Karens violating leash laws).

The accumulative effects of daily stress from just existing as a black person in this country weakens immune systems and increases the chances of developing chronic illness. And we are learning more and more about how generational trauma is literally transferred across time through our genes.

I’m writing this as Minneapolis smolders from dozens of blazes last night, and I’m writing this as NPR is conspicuously not talking about it, maybe because there are simmering powder-kegs of rage all across this country ready to explode.

Is last night a harbinger of things to come? Are we facing a summer of rage? It’s hard for me to envision a summer that won’t feature more conflicts between a beleaguered public (of all colors) and those tasked with maintaining law and order while the elite pull off a robbery on a scale never seen before in human history.

It’s too bad the public rage isn’t more accurately directed at more deserving targets. The number of elites pulling off these end-times-themed schemes is actually quite small.

Who am I talking about? Let’s start with the billionaires who have seen their wealth increase by 434 billion DURING THE PANDEMIC!

This from Forbes:

America’s billionaires saw their fortunes soar by $434 billion during the U.S. lockdown between mid-March and mid-May, according to a new report.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg had the biggest gains, with Bezos adding $34.6 billion to his wealth and Zuckerberg adding $25 billion, according to the report from Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies’ Program for Inequality. The report is based on Forbes data for America’s more than 600 billionaires between March 18, when most states were in lockdown, and May 19.

The billionaire gains highlight how the coronavirus pandemic has rewarded the largest and most tech-focused companies, even as the economy and labor force grapples with the worst economic crisis in recent history.

There were those who benefited from the last Great Depression as well, sometimes even from the same families. Isn’t it funny how that works?

by William Skink

I’ve been doing some research this morning on Missoula’s odyssey to develop the Fox Theater site downtown, and while it might have made sense a few months ago to build a regional event center in Missoula, a few months ago we lived in a different world.

I’m trying to better understand the timeline of this 16 year effort to develop this prime parcel downtown. A Missoulian article from 2015 pegs 2004 as the year interest first developed. Here’s a brief summary from the article (written by Gomer Kidston during his Missoulian days):

The idea of building a performing arts center was first presented in 2004 when a committee that included Valeo submitted its plan to the Missoula Redevelopment Agency.

The proposal suggested that Missoula’s existing facilities have stage constraints and limited support space. The Dennison Theatre is often booked with UM functions. A new community facility, they said, could help bring touring arts to Missoula.

MRA backed the committee’s proposal by reserving a portion of the Riverfront Triangle at Orange and Front streets for 30 months to give the center’s advocates a chance to finish design work and find the financing.

But by 2007, even with the design in hand, the effort remained a long shot, and by 2010 it was dead. In 2011, MRA gave Hotel Fox LLC exclusive rights to the Riverfront Triangle to build a hotel and convention center.

The performance center supposedly died because there was no big angel investor driving the project. The article continues:

While discussions continue softly on the city’s artsy back channels, no single leader has stepped forward to push the performing arts center forward. Valeo believes fragmentation continues to stand as the arts community’s biggest challenge.

“These big ideas suffer more because people get some broad idea to proceed with something without talking to an existing group that’s working on something and getting others to buy into it,” he said. “It’s fragmentation. There has to be some leadership from somewhere.”

Four years earlier that leadership had already arrived. Nick Checota established Stonefly Capital, LLC on June 8th, 2011. Stonefly Capital is the legal entity that holds the ownership of Checota’s venue empire, which includes The Wilma, The Top Hat and the Kettlehouse Amphitheater.

While those venues were getting the Checota makeover, Missoula was doing what it does best: paying consulting firms to study and produce agreeable data backing up whatever scheme the Engen regime is planning.

Here’s how a Missoula Current article from last year put it:

A study conducted by the national planning firm Conventions Sports and Leisure in 2015 estimated that a Missoula conference center alone would bring $14 million in direct economic impact to the community each year.

The city believes the events space will increase that figure, boosting local businesses.

“The new facility will create a cultural civic center for the Missoula community, as well as serve as a destination venue for a broader regional audience,” Missoula Mayor John Engen said. “There’s no other facility in the region that can successfully accommodate this range of events. It will continue to expand Missoula’s growing reputation as a cultural hub in the Northwest.”

After this 2015 study, Missoula’s effort to acquire the Water Company took center stage and dragged on for years. Our Mayor, an admitted alcoholic who was NOT in recovery back then, told Missoula citizens the legal costs would be between $400,000-$800,000 dollars.

At the time of this article (June, 2019) the legal cost was 13 million and STILL growing, as lingering legal disputes continue to crawl through the courts.

Mayor Engen’s alcoholism reached a crisis point near the end of 2016, when he disappeared for in-patient treatment, only coming clean to his constituents AFTER completing treatment that he suffers from alcoholism.

The Mayor’s announcement of his disease doubled as an announcement of his reelection campaign, and the following year Engen was reelected to another term.

Since winning reelection, the unaffordable housing situation has worsened, the University of Montana is still one of the worst performing flagships in the country, homelessness has worsened (despite PR efforts to convince us otherwise), and now a global pandemic has upended the long shift from a resource extraction economy to a service-sector tourist economy in just a few short months.

In this NEW NORMAL of social distancing, who really thinks a 100 million dollar event center is going to be a viable project any time soon? How much more time is the city going to give Nick Checota? Will MRA still pledge 16.5 million in public money? How is the city going to deal with the inevitable budget shortfalls that are coming?

There are many unanswered questions that the public deserve answers to, considering the public is the piggy bank our illuminated leaders like to squeeze when they need more money for schools and parks and police officers and art parks and bridges and electric buses and water companies.

Engen is up for reelection in 2021. Who is going to challenge our drunken sailor Mayor? I would vote for the Paddlehead Moose mascot at this point.

I hope someone with a bit more self-control throws their hat into the ring. I know it’s a political cliche to say this, but we really can’t afford four more years of Engen.

Pay attention, Missoula, and, next year, vote accordingly.