Category: Uncategorized

The hotel proposed for the southeast corner of Lake Street and Emerson Avenue has inspired dueling petitions (pro-hotel vs no-hotel). The petition battle has become TV-newsworthy. A shadowy group has even put out a pretend 30-second ad against it.

Site of proposed hotel. Lake Street in background.

There’s something happening in the Lyndale neighborhood. Many people think of Lyndale as the Rhode Island of our tri-neighborhood area. And these people are right, so it’s not worth trying to understand or explain the underlying issues (something about 17 dwelling units and a parking crisis). So let’s go straight to the videotape.

Year’s end means it’s time to clear out the draft folder on my blogspot. There were many times this year when I felt compelled to write a post, took the time to actually write it, but couldn’t pull the trigger. The following excerpt is from a draft entitled “Orthghazi II: The Screenshotting.” Written around the time of the 2320 Colfax demolition, it’s a tell-all about my experiences before and after writing this post. But I named too many names, and left it to languish. Until now.

Written in March of 2015.

Feb 24, 9:35 AM: The first photo of the demolition of 2320 Colfax is Tweeted. I hustle to the site for pictures and video. Healy Project people are already there.

Madeline from The Healy Project approached me, asked which side I was on. I told her, “The wrong one.”
— Wedge LIVE! (@WedgeLIVE) February 24, 2015

Feb 25, 6:00 PM: Nicole Curtis posts a series of Facebook statements about the demolition. She coins the phrase “Lisa Bender lied, the Orth died.” No one can articulate what Bender is supposed to have lied about. Over the course of three posts in 24 hours, clueless commenters piece together that Council Member Lisa Bender is the very corrupt, suspiciously liberal, Mayor or Congressman responsible for this crime against house-manity.

Feb 26, 1:22 PM: I try desperately to stay out of the Facebook cesspool. This causes domestic strain for @WedgeLIVE, as revealed in this social media conversation with @WedgePAL.

Panicked DM sent from @WedgeLIVE.

News tips/screenshots via DM were all the rage in early 2015.

Was the Orth demo faked? I’ll never tell.

Mar 5, 10:58 PM: Nicole Curtis calls me a racist.

I’m also the real carjacker.

Mar 5, 11:31 PM: I remain unaware of Curtis’ re-posting of my video, until one of her rabid fans sends me a hilarious late-night text.

Who knew my mom reads Twitter?

March 6, 7:20 AM: Curtis fan “Kelli” posts a shaky pirated copy of my demo video recorded from a computer screen. In retaliation, I record a much shakier video of her shaky video of my original video.

Mar 6, 11:36 AM: The source of the racism allegation (and of 12 pages of PDF’d Tweets) is telling tales in the Strib comment section. If anyone knows the whereabouts of the allegedly violent Ivy Leaguer, I’d love to hear his side of the story.

“You have the right to peacefully demonstrate, but you can’t block traffic, and oops we disappeared the sidewalk.”

Marcy-Holmes is frighteningly young.

In June 2004, approximately 90 people packed into a crowded room to partake in the annual election meeting of the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association, the organization designated by the city of Minneapolis to represent the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood. Neighborhood meetings are typically low-key, casual affairs, but this one was monitored as thoroughly as a U.N.-supervised election in a Third World republic. Representatives from the League of Women Voters scrutinized the credentials of all attendees. To be eligible to vote, they would need to be certified members of MHNA (which required the submission of a valid membership registration at least 30 days prior to the meeting) and they would need to present a photo ID as well as proof of residency in the neighborhood. The MHNA board also hired a parliamentarian from the city’s Neighborhood Revitalization Program to ensure that all proceedings were conducted legally. They even hired an armed beat patrolman to maintain security in case matters got out of hand.

What issue could possibly have been so contentious that the board apparently felt the need to prepare against the possibility of violence? In short, reformers were trying to amend MHNA’s bylaws in order to make the organization more accessible to student residents. The previous fall, a group of students had worked with an MHNA representative to prepare a list of amendments designed to enable greater student participation. The biggest change the reformers wanted was to change the month of the annual meeting — when elections for board officers and directors are held — from June to October. The reason was obvious: Students are less likely to be around during the summer. Despite this fact — or as I suspect, because of it — the association voted to reject the schedule change as well as every other student proposal.

Membership requirements of the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association.

Linden Hills is typical of vast majority of Minneapolis neighborhood orgs.

White gunman stalks Muslim woman in Texas last week.

Last Monday night, four men showed up to the Black Lives Matter protest outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct and shot five unarmed black protesters. This was after a week of similar visits from white men—armed with guns, cameras, and racist commentary—streaming live video to the internet for the entertainment of their fellow racists.

It’s become a cliche after such attacks to ask overly timid headline writers, “What if the white guy with a gun was a brown guy with a gun?” When armed men in masks menace unarmed civilians; when these men post video of themselves delivering hate-filled messages and flashing weapons; when this ends in a mass shooting… This describes an act of terrorism.

Here’s why it matters. We treat terrorism differently than other violent crimes. We go to much greater lengths to protect ourselves from it, and to punish those responsible. We see some greater value in stopping politically motivated acts of violence which are intended not just to maim and murder, but to intimidate whole populations.

I worry we’re not taking seriously enough these threats from well-armed whites with a political axe to grind. The Thursday before the 4th Precinct shooting, a video was posted online showing two men in a car, driving to the Black Lives protest. The driver held up a handgun while promising to engage in some “reverse cultural enriching,” finally signing off to his viewers with the phrase “Stay white.” Sitting in the passenger seat was Lance Scarsella, who returned to the protest with three other men on Monday, the night of the attack. These are the four men now under arrest in connection with the shooting.

Minneapolis Police had four days prior to the shooting to track down the two men in the video. The driver was correctly identified by name in a comment on the “Black Lives Matter” Facebook page three days before the attack. As a resident of south Minneapolis, it took me five minutes to retrace the route taken in the video—right back to the driveway they pulled out of—using a basic knowledge of local landmarks and Google Street View. If it was a priority, these details should have led police to Scarsella.

As MPD’s union head was comparing the Black Lives Matter protest to “Benghazi” on talk radio, the job of intelligence gathering was left to an unpaid social media detective:

Scarsella, Gustavsson and Macey, along with the man who was questioned and released, are featured in several videos of a now-deleted YouTube page. The page’s banner featured two dozen men — some masked — holding weapons, along with a pair of Confederate flags. The videos were deleted by Monday afternoon, but they had been archived by Minneapolis-based researcher Tony Webster.

I’m a big Tony Webster fan, but we shouldn’t have to rely on the work of a skilled volunteer to track and archive the online activities of the violent white extremists who threaten our city. It’s just too big of a job.

Since 9/11, domestic terror attacks by white Americans have killed anywhere from two to five times as many people as those carried out by jihadists. We often hear about the social media prowess of ISIS; far less publicized is the degree to which sites like 4chan and reddit are an increasingly effective recruiting tool for a new generation of white nationalists. Though the idea of white terrorism doesn’t seem to break into the headlines, police from across the country are aware of the threat: a 2015 NY Times national survey of law enforcement agencies identifies right-wing terror as the top threat facing American cities.

I assume there are people in positions of authority who are aware of these facts, but recent events do not inspire confidence in local law enforcement. The racial and religious diversity of the Twin Cities makes them a tempting target for hate groups. Let’s be sure we’re focusing our anti-terrorism efforts, both locally and across Minnesota, beyond the usual suspects.

Is @CMAndrewJohnson proposing to round up and euthanize all unleashed cats, lizards, ferrets, weasels, and red hens? https://t.co/qQ9crcJBy7

— MRRderouSVLD (@MRRSVLD) October 17, 2015

RECIPE: Uncle Wedgie’s Extra-Burned Pumpkin Seeds

Now it’s time to cook your pumpkin seeds. Google around for a sriracha-based recipe. Make sure this recipe calls for you to cook the seeds for way too long, and at much too high of a temperature.

Sriracha, vegetable oil, soy sauce.

Perfect.

FYI

LHENA had a board meeting last night. As you may know, I am a board member. During the meeting we learned of two grievances. The individuals attached to these grievances were unnamed (a “grievance” is a new process LHENA uses to resolve complaints lodged against the organization or individual members).

One grievance had to do with a pizza-related social media post (I immediately recognized this as one of my tweets). The other grievance was something else that happened on social media–no content was specified (I also recognize this as one of my tweets).

Hey two mystery grievances just came up at this board meeting. Sounds like they’re against me and my social media.

— Wedge DEAD! (@WedgeLIVE) October 22, 2015

The pizza grievance was dismissed. The second grievance remains a mystery to be resolved later. While I don’t know who’s behind these grievances, I can guess from whose Facebook posse they might be coming. I think the strategy here is to lodge as many frivolous complaints as possible, establish your crew’s reputation as an incredible cast of goofballs, and then really lay the hammer down when I’m least expecting it (save this sentence for a future grievance).

At the very end of the meeting, during the “new business” portion of the agenda (I’m new here, but I gather that’s where you need to watch out for an ambush), someone handed me this motion: an accusation that I used an account with the name “Wedgelive/Wedgedead” to fool people into thinking I’m the official LHENA Twitter account and a demand that I remove all traces of the Wedge newspaper from my website and Twitter. At least half the board was visibly and vocally irritated to have this pile of unexpected nonsense dumped in their lap after a two-plus hour meeting, right as they thought they’d be able to go home.

Totally urgent, emergency, last-minute motion.

Exhibit A: “Today’s Header.” Distributed at last night’s meeting.

I was elected to the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association (LHENA) Board of Directors in April. Before that, I had been blogging and tweeting about local politics for roughly a year. Not everyone’s a fan.

At LHENA’s May meeting–my first as a member of the board–my blog was made a topic for discussion (surprising because I wasn’t on the agenda). During the discussion I was accused by a fellow board member of “publishing the home address of a single mom.” This was an intentionally vague and misleading reference to a blog post I had written about HGTV personality Nicole Curtis’ permit violations at some of her Minneapolis properties (also a threat to single moms: this WCCO story).

In July, a second board member accused me of “stalking” and demanded I delete a tweet linking to political commentary in a public Facebook post. The topic was parking reform (not vacation photos), so “stalking” seemed over the top.

Four days after the “stalking” accusation, I received an email from an unknown sender using an apparently fake name. The subject line was my girlfriend’s name. The message began by saying, “someone is playing your game.” The email contained a link to a Craigslist ad seeking sex; the ad was written to appear as if it came from my girlfriend, using her name, location and description. The email ended with a threat: “take down all your creepy posts about LHENA volunteers etc. Or who knows maybe her exact address, picture or phone # might show up tomorrow in a different category.”

We reported this to the police immediately. In September, all but one of my fellow board members voted to request the police seek a subpoena for Craigslist and Gmail to determine the identity of the person who sent the threat. I appreciate that, though I’m skeptical the police will pursue it.

You might imagine my initial reaction based on the content and timing of the email threat. Yet I’ve been told that it’s offensive to ask whether someone within LHENA has any connection to or knowledge of who might be responsible. It was said during September’s board meeting that this is no big deal; that putting my girlfriend’s name, location, and description in a sex ad is just someone being “snarky.” It’s also been said that the more important issue is all the unfair attacks (never specified, but presumably from me) coming at LHENA over the past year.

Not helping matters, Minneapolis’ Neighborhood and Community Relations Department replied to my initial email reporting the threat by sending a list of social media guidelines. I forwarded the email to NCR, and they gave me a lesson in discouraging participation. It was disappointing to have the city department that oversees neighborhood organizations suggest–in an email sent to the entire LHENA board–that my actions are the problem.

That attitude has carried over to the months-long debate regarding LHENA’s new “code of conduct” policy, with the argument being that the organization has been victimized by social media. Some folks were very adamant about including broad rules against “disparaging” language that causes a “barrier to participation,” and generally trying to define the most stringent possible standard for speech infractions.

I wish there was the same urgency to address those few LHENA board members who have disparaged me as a sort of predator–to the degree someone felt putting a Craigslist target on my girlfriend’s back was appropriate payback. As for barriers to participation: I’m pretty sure the only reason the anonymous emailer knows her name, or where she lives, or that she even exists, is because I brought her to neighborhood association meetings. She won’t be coming back.

The concerted effort to hype me as a menace has put someone close to me in danger, making it harder for her to feel safe in her own neighborhood. I sense too much denial and defiance from the people participating in that effort. This all escalated over a period of months during which I made the mistake of saying nothing. So I’m writing this post as a matter of self defense. My hope is that calling this out publicly makes it less likely to happen again.