Tom Pantera's Open Salon Blog

Hello I must be leaving

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:12:02 -0500

This may be of limited interest here, but I thought I'd post it anyway because it turned out pretty much like I wanted it to. This is my goodbye column for my paper. I'm not going away from here, and I'll still be doing a weekly column for the paper, but it's sort of my last thoughts as a (relatively) longtime resident:

It’s been a few years since I’ve had to say goodbye to this many people at once.

In fact, there are a lot of people I won’t see before I blow town early next week, so I wanted to take this opportunity to do that in print.

As I said before, I’ll still be doing this column from my new home in Missouri, but it’s going to be a while before I see Fargo-Moorhead again. At the earliest, it’ll be this spring, when my son graduates from pharmacy school.

But even then, I won’t be here long; I’ll have long since moved on physically and (mostly) psychologically.

But some part of me will always be here. I lived in Fargo-Moorhead just shy of 24 years, by far the longest time I've lived anywhere. I came here in my late 20s, as a young man with a young family. I leave here as a middle-aged man, no longer married, with grown children, one of them himself married. I came here to work on the largest paper I’d ever worked on and leave having worked on the smallest.

And I’ve seen this city go from a relatively isolated backwater where you couldn’t buy certain things on Sunday to a growing, much more diverse city that is dealing with both the opportunities and problems such growth brings. Streets once filled largely with stolid Scandinavian-Americans are now home to a polyglot collection of ethnicities, faiths and ideas.

I don’t want to overstate how cosmopolitan Fargo has become. We’re still pretty isolated; hell, just recently, we made national news when a candy company sent its sales force here basically as punishment for not making their goals. But believe me, things have changed.

So what will I miss?

Well, my kids, Harrison and Spencer, and Spencer’s wife, Laura. I don’t see my sons nearly as often as I’d like, but they’ve both turned out to be tremendous people – smart, funny and, most importantly, good-hearted. Their mother and I were pretty good parents, but to the extent that it takes a village, I’m glad I got a chance to raise my kids in a city where they could walk down the street without having to worry about the myriad horrors that endanger children elsewhere. And the schools were tremendous; kids here get a public education that requires people elsewhere to pay thousands of dollars to private schools.

I’ll miss my friends, from co-workers and former co-workers to people like my ex-wife, Lori, and the various folks I’ve met over two decades of helping chronicle the community’s life. I won’t name names, but there are people here of whom I’m tremendously fond.

On second thought, there is one person I want to mention by name. That would be Publisher Kolness. John is one of my oldest friends and the best boss I’ve ever had (he’s certainly the most decent publisher I’ve ever worked for, although that’s kind of like saying someone is the nicest serial killer you’ve ever met). I do want to say this publicly: After The Forum invited me to leave, I thought my newspaper career was over. He gave it back to me and in doing so gave me more than he’ll ever know. I will be eternally grateful. And besides, he’s one of the kindest, most decent men I’ve ever known.

While I’m at it, I’ll also miss my current co-workers, all the folks here at Extra Media and the FM Extra. It’s a cliché to say “we’re like a family,” and it’s often untrue, but in this case it’s not. Because we’re a small, relatively strapped operation, we’ve grown close as only people in that situation can – with all the love and dysfunction that implies. I’m not only tremendously proud of what we’ve done, I’m proud of everybody here and love ‘em to death. They’re a great bunch.

I’ll miss the kind of easy familiarity that comes with living somewhere nearly half your life. The little inside jokes that residents anywhere share, the memories and stories, those are things one builds up in the course of living. I’ll probably never know – really know – anyplace as well as I know Fargo-Moorhead.

So what won’t I miss? Well, there are things.

There’s the smug insularity some exhibit here, which, oddly enough, is combined with a sort of upper Midwest inferiority complex. People here so want to be taken seriously as potential big-timers, but they tend to act like hicks at times when a little sophistication would go a long way.

A good example is probably the repeated contretemps over the University of North Dakota’s Sioux nickname. It’s amazing that anybody would give a second thought to the name of a few sports teams, but too many people here not only give it a second thought, but a third, fourth, fifth one until it borders on a weird obsession. And they defend it based on appeals to Sacred Tradition, as though it were that important. It’s not. It’s a logo, folks. If you think of it as more than that, you have a problem.

And the things we should feel inferior about, like the abysmal wage scales here, we don’t. We tell ourselves that we have a great work ethic, but if you talk to anybody who isn’t a cheerleader, they’ll tell you that people here are hard workers because it takes hard work and long hours just to make a decent living. We don’t have all that much unemployment here, but underemployment is a huge problem.

Likewise, “Minnesota nice” is grossly overrated. It’s really a mile wide and an inch deep. The really good things people do here – like those guys that help you move your car when it’s stuck in a snowbank – aren’t a matter of “Minnesota nice.” In fact, to call that kind of deed by that name cheapens the act. It’s simply being very decent. “Minnesota nice,” on the other hand, is the pinched smile, the damning with faint praise, the strained, insincere compliment that is really a cutting remark. It’s hard to see that if you’ve lived here for a while, but just ask a recent arrival in this area. We could do with a whole lot less “Minnesota nice” and more honesty.

I’m sure the things about living here that rankle me will have their equivalents in Missouri. Every place has its strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the Missouri version of “Minnesota nice” is “Missouri taciturn” or something. I’ll just have to see. After all, that’s part of the adventure.

And leaving here is part of the cost.

Goodbye, Fargo-Moorhead.

Here we go again

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:12:15 -0500

One of the debates I’m glad I won’t be around to hear over the next couple of years is the predictable, dreary argument about whether the Vikings should get a new stadium.

That debate would have heated up soon anyway, since the Vikes’ lease with the Metrodome is in its last year or so. But the recent, rather spectacular collapse of the dome’s inflatable roof is going to bring the debate on even earlier. And the team, which will want the nicest stadium, with the maximum part of the bill footed by the state, will keep pointing to the collapse as empirical evidence that the Metrodome is totally useless and they won’t play there and if you don’t give us a better house, we’re going to move.

One of two things will happen: Either the taxpayers of Minnesota will foot the majority of the cost of a new place or the Vikings will move to Los Angeles (and probably change the team name to the “Surfer Dudes”). Here’s what most assuredly won’t happen: That the Vikings will pony up the full cost of a stadium. That just isn’t done any more.

Having gone through that in the last few years with a new stadium for the Twins, you’d think people would have learned something. It’s a pretty safe bet nobody did, though. The arguments will be virtually the same. Here’s a fun little experiment for you: Go back and find some old news stories about Target Field, cut and past them into a Word document, do a search and replace “Twins” with “Vikings” and see how much difference it makes. Won’t be much.

Folks here will be told over and over again how important the Vikings are to Minnesota’s identity, how you can’t be a “big league city” without a major pro sports franchise, how they’re part of Minnesota’s history, on and on, ad nauseum. There will be plenty of political posturing from both sides, although the majority of that will be from the pro-stadium folks who don’t want to look too eager to raid the public cookie jar.

The only real difference this time is the multi-billion-dollar budget deficit Tim Pawlenty is leaving the state in so he can tilt at his presidential windmill. But that’ll probably be under control by the time the cookie-jar raid begins, so it won’t be the biggest part of the issue.

In the end, the debate is going to be like mating elephants. It’s going to be done at a very high level with a lot of bellowing.

Now, I’m actually a Vikings fan. They’ve been breaking my heart for more than 40 years. When they finally win the Super Bowl, just before the world ends I’ll be a happy man.

But let me be among the first to say something nearly identical to what I’ve said before: If you don’t live in the Twin Cities and you don’t watch the Vikings, there is absolutely no good argument why you, as a taxpayer, should put one red penny toward a new pro football stadium. You will not benefit from it in the least. You won’t get any of the economic benefits of having the Vikings stay. And you won’t be entertained by watching the games in person (nor, it should be said, will you see an increase in your stomach acid, given how the Vikes have been playing lately).

The problem with these kinds of political debates is that it’s hard to talk about them without sounding like you’re a member of the tinfoil-hat club. But the debate over things like public stadiums raise larger issues, things that really speak more to what one believes the purpose of government should be, how one would like to be governed.

For example – and this is going to make me sound like a Marxist, which I’m not, unless you count a fondness for Groucho – the stadium discussion will be very much a class issue. You won’t hear that talked about much, but it is.

The cheapest single-game ticket in the Metrodome starts at $39. Given that plus the price of food, parking, gas, the absolute minimal game experience for two people probably is going to cost at least $100. (By the way, I’ve watched a game from those seats and you’re far enough away that if you can rent the Hubble Telescope for a few hours, you might be able to make out the numbers on the jerseys.)

Obviously, enough people can afford that much for three or four hours of entertainment that they can fill the dome for every game. But there are more people who cannot afford that kind of expense. You just don’t see a lot of lower-middle-class folks in the stands on Sunday afternoons. For them, the talk about how much the Vikings mean to the Soul of Minnesota will be worse than useless; it’ll be an insult.

There’s just a whiff of ancient Rome in the whole idea of using public money to build the workplace for 100 or so very wealthy guys who beat each other up once a week. When children anywhere in this country are going to bed hungry – and trust me, it happens in Minnesota – use of public money for professional sports is completely and utterly morally indefensible.

But even if you hear that argument made, it’ll be ignored. The pro-stadium folks won’t even deign to answer it because they really have no answer.

So get ready for that posturing, for stiff doses of hot, crapola-scented air. You folks are going to have to put up with that for probably the next four to five years.

In the end, the rich folks will be happy. That’s what matters in America these days, isn’t it?

A shout-out to a friend and colleague

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:12:31 -0500

New OSer Tammy J. Finney is one of my columnists. She's totally untrained as a writer (she's a hog farmer, as well as being an absolutely crackerjack ad salesperson) but is, hands-down, the best natural writer I've ever worked with.

Her column is sort of Erma Bombeck on the farm, but that's really an inadequate description.

Anyway, her column this week is, I think, the best one she's ever done. I know people here really appreciate good writing and this is a real doozy. Check it out at: http://open.salon.com/blog/tammy_j_finney/2010/12/14/fishin

You can check out some of her other work on her OS blog. She also recently privately printed and released a book of her columns, which is selling like hotcakes.

Personal archaeology

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 14:12:49 -0500

I’m about to begin a new life and part of that is finally getting rid of the old one.

There is a storage garage in north Fargo that contains a lot of that old one. Because I’m going to be living in graduate student housing -- an efficiency apartment -- I won’t have much storage room, so I’m pretty much chucking things wholesale.

A lot of that stuff has been in storage since I moved out of my old house four years ago. Before that, it was in the basement. Obviously, a lot of it hasn’t seen daylight in a while.

I also have keen memories of cleaning out my mother-in-law’s house after she moved into a smaller place. She wasn’t exactly a hoarder, but she had the same kind of pack-rat tendencies I do. The pile of to-be-pitched stuff on her boulevard ended up being about the size of Mount Ranier. After that, my wife and I – mostly at my wife’s behest – started getting rid of a lot of things. My wife, quite sensibly, said she didn’t want to burden the kids with that kind of chore if we died.

And after my divorce, I simplified my life considerably, possessions-wise.

Many years ago, a friend of mine accused me of living in the past. It’s hard for me to admit, but up until relatively recently that’s been true. I tend to brood not necessarily over old slights and pains – although there’s some of that – but it fascinates me to think about the arc of my life, how I got to where I am, and the forks that would have sent me off to some kind of alternate universe.

But in the last year or so, especially with my situation about to change so radically, the present and that future have taken on more urgency. As Al Stewart says of living in the past, “the years run too short and the days too fast.”

And anyway, if you’re healthy, there comes a time when you have to surrender what was.

Doing the kind of personal archaeology one has to do at times like this has, of course, been interesting.

I’ve been surprised at how little bittersweetness there has been in letting go. Maybe all those years spent thinking about what was have inured me to actually getting rid of it. My kids also have some stuff in that storage garage, and I have a much more emotional reaction to stuff of theirs that I see. Those years have gone really fast.

But as for my own stuff, it can go. In fact, there’s a lot of it I’ve carted around for 30 years for reasons I don’t even know. If you can tell me why I kept so many of my old college notebooks, I’d learn something. I have an impressive collection of old National Lampoon magazines, which I really like, but I’ve practically memorized all of them by now. And what in hell was I going to do with some of my childhood toys? (I will keep the G.I. Joe stuff and the View Master reels, because those were my favorites). There are boxes and boxes of books, many of them unread. Those are at least worth something from the used book store.

It gets to the point where I half-expect to open a box and find Jimmy Hoffa.

There are plenty of little mysteries in those boxes as well. I’ve pulled out a piece of paper here and there that contained a reference to some long-forgotten inside joke; sometimes, I’m not even sure who gave me the piece of paper, which kind of ruins whatever humor it contains. I guess you had to be there and even though I was, the limits of memory have faded it to blank white.

Of course, I’m not throwing out everything. There’s that G.I. Joe; when I pick him up, I’m suddenly, briefly, 6 years old again. There’s a box full of memorabilia from my time in Japan; that was perhaps the single most important experience of my life, in terms of my personal development, and I can’t part with those things. There are certain touchstones that simply are too heavy to lift into a garbage can.

Still, I’m figuring I can get rid of enough so I can actually pack all of my remaining possessions into my car for the move.

There’s a certain freedom in all this. I don’t know what my future will be; I think everything will turn out fine, but one never knows. That’s part of the thrill of this whole thing, the thought that at my age, I’m still willing and able to roll the dice. All those old books and magazines have been nice to have somewhere, but in the end, they’re a more-than-metaphorical anchor.

It’s not likely, but I suppose somewhere down the road, I’ll think of something from my past and then realize it got thrown away in the move. Hopefully, I’ll be wise enough to just shrug my shoulders and move on to the next thought. But then, I’ll have to forget the pack-rat’s credo: “You never know when you’ll need this.”

Well, let’s face it: I’ll never need any of the stuff I’m throwing out. In fact, I’ll never even really want it. Anything I really want, much less need, I’m taking with me; the key is to not want too much.

Now that I think about it, maybe this whole exercise is the first real learning experience of grad school (other than having to relearn quadratic equations for the Graduate Record Exam and believe me, I’ve re-forgotten that). And like all real learning, it feels good. It’s heartening to know I can get rid of frankly useless things with so little real pain or regret. Had I learned that 30 years ago, I wouldn’t have carted around so much paper and so many stale jokes.

Give us simpler problems

Wed, 8 Dec 2010 16:12:04 -0500

One of the reasons public discourse in this country is so infested with crap is that often as not, our real problems are so complicated.

We seemed to have reached a point where even the best and brightest among us – when they haven’t themselves had a huge hand in creating a given problem – can’t understand it. Any of it. How it happened and why it happened aren’t comprehensible, much less a solution and any preventive measures to keep it from happening again.

A persistent theme of stories about the housing crisis, for example, is how complex the problem’s causes were and how hard it is to find anyone responsible to blame.

A recent story in Rolling Stone, “Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners,” is a perfect example. The story was by Matt Taibbi, one of the best journalists working today. It detailed one hour of operation by special Florida courts that speed through legally questionable foreclosures. The courts are known informally as “rocket dockets.”

There’s a lot of substance to Taibbi’s story; he has an amazing gift for making even a highly complex story understandable. But that’s hard work that many reporters are neither willing nor able to do. At one point in the story, Taibbi writes, “Like everything else related to the modern economy, these foreclosure hearings are conducted in what is essentially a foreign language, heavy on jargon and impenetrable to the casual observer. It took days of interviews with experts before and after this hearing to make sense of this single hour of courtroom drama.”

The story goes on to detail the sham that is these foreclosure hearings. Among the biggest problems is that the plaintiffs – those seeking to foreclose on homes – have often either lost or falsified the necessary paperwork.

Now, it would seem to me that if I owed somebody money but they had no real record of the debt, they shouldn’t be able to collect. But this is far from that simple and you’d have to be naïve to the point of disability to believe that’ll happen in this case.

And it’s an open question whether the complexity involved is intentional or just the nature of the beast. It’s probably a little of both; complexity is the handmaiden of financial crime. But even the world’s most honest financier would be hard-pressed to explain to the average person what he does.

Intentional or not, the complexity is a fact of life. That’s why – and this is a point Taibbi makes – so many people fall back on blaming the borrowers for living beyond their means. Well, it ain’t that simple and Taibbi sums it up best in his closing: “And that's why most people in this country are so ready to buy that explanation. Because in America, it's far more shameful to owe money than it is to steal it.”

It’s also more understandable because there are people out there who, as my grandfather used to say, could steal your socks without even touching your shoes.

So there’s been little public discussion, beyond political bloviating, of stopping the housing crisis from happening again. But boy, has there ever been public discussion of things like the military Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.

Gay rights, just to cite one example, is not really a complex question. Either you’re for them or against them. It might take some pretty tortured philosophical justifications to deny rights based on sexual orientation – which really, at the end of the day, isn’t anybody’s business other than the actual people involved – but coming up with a position on it isn’t that hard (nor, for that matter, is not caring one way or the other). You don’t have lawyers coming up with subtle, hair-splitting justifications on either side. It’s a simple matter of one’s view of morality.

Because people can think about it without getting a massive migraine, they’ll come up with a definite position and pretty much stick to it. And because one’s position on the matter rests on some pretty basic and personal beliefs, passion can affix itself like a remora to that opinion. Folks can get all righteous and Lord knows, folks love to do that.

Plus, it’s a handy “wedge issue” that demagogues can use to “fire up the base.” It’s tailor-made for painting people as either black hats or white hats, just because it is such a simple matter. Ultimately, it’s the kind of issue that lends itself to polarized thinking, to no middle ground, to no mitigating circumstances. It’s a sound bite.

It’s also easy for the media to cover. You don’t have to be Matt Taibbi to write a compelling story on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. You also don’t have to be Matt Taibbi to write a good story on the housing crisis, but it sure helps. It takes some very hard work and reporters are like anybody else. They don’t want to work any harder than they have to.

You can say all you want about American’s inability to understand really complex issues, but there comes a point where they’re so complicated, for whatever reason, that the inability isn’t anybody’s fault. When guys with Ph.D.s in economics can’t really understand a financial crisis, what chance does a less educated person have? It’s not like better teaching in high schools can make financial derivatives understandable. Education has its limits.

So what are we left with? Blind faith that the few people who can understand the problem and do something about it will. That’s probably naïve too, but I’m not sure there’s any other alternative. We’ll just have to go back to arguing about gay rights or something else we understand, even if the complicated stuff is vastly more important.