Bogus Brook

“perhaps the sweetest and most compassionate Anderson has ever made.” Are music and film reviews the worst writing in the world? Perhaps? Perhaps they are. If you think it’s the sweetest and most compassionate movie he’s made, then come out and say so! PERHAPS you should stop hedging!

This sentence momentarily took my mind off the fact that I am experiencing the worst pain of my life, in the form of a toothache. If I suck on ice, it abates for a few minutes, then comes back even stronger. Diane is now trying to track down a narcotic for me, which I am loathe to take.
Anyway, here is the distracting sentence: “Sam and Suzy (played by newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, respectively)”? I mean, if you list the characters in opposite order of the actors, then you’re an idiot, and if you’re not an idiot, and you don’t think your reader is, then you don’t need “respectively.” Hack.
Orwell: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

My column from the May 16, 2012, Mille Lacs Messenger:

I realized recently why I can’t relate to the younger generations — meaning anyone under 49: I find their high self esteem incredibly boring.

All the interesting people I’ve known have spent life compensating for feelings of inadequacy.

Opinions about the end of the Baby Boom vary. Some say it was 1962. Others 1964. I was born Jan. 4, 1963. Rob Passons, my lifelong albatross, was born Dec. 31, 1963.

Here’s the main difference between Rob and me: No matter how hard I work, how awesome I am, how brilliantly I shine, I feel deep down like I will never measure up, that I am a fraud and an embarrassment to my species. No matter how often Rob underachieves or how spectacularly he fails, he thinks he’s as handsome as James Dean, as interesting as Hunter S. Thompson, and as lovable as a week-old labradoodle.

In other words, I am the last Baby Boomer and he the first Generation X’er.

Everyone younger than I am believes they are special, that they can accomplish anything they want, and that they are deserving of affection.

To anyone raised before the hippies took over elementary education, this sense of entitlement and innate worth is not only mystifying but annoying.

Sorry kids, but you haven’t really accomplished anything, unless you count all the new ways to waste time and burn fossil fuels. I’ll give you this: Your thumbs are very coordinated and you have an impressive selection of apps on your impressive collection of plastic rectangles.

We boomers never saw the point in video games or MTV, but we could fashion a toy bow and arrow from a lilac bush and a shoelace. You X’ers can’t go back to nature because you’ve never been there. You never cared for camping because it meant time away from your gadgets.

We boomers had to delay gratification. We waited for the bus (no ride from Mom), the mailman, the ice cream truck, summer (no trip to Mexico), and “till your father gets home!”

Space Invaders cost a quarter, so we had to save our money. No pill could cure our anxiety or depression, so we dealt with it. If we missed a good movie in the theater, we waited years for it to show up on TV.

We can’t program a VCR (or a satellite dish), but we don’t need to. There’s nothing so important that we can’t miss it, and nothing so compelling that we need to watch it over and over again.

To us boomers, there is Truth with a capital T and a universal moral code we will never live up to. To you X’ers, what’s true for you is not what’s true for me. Nothing is sacred except irony.

I’m still disappointed that my flower-child older siblings cashed in their counterculture for a minivan. X’ers find their idealism laughable and their materialism laudable.

We boomers know what it’s like to get a lickin’ from Dad. You X’ers know what it’s like to have a heart-to-heart talk with him.

My parents remembered the Great Depression and Hitler. My mom was Rosie the Riveter and my dad was GI Joe. They never listened to rock and roll or talked about their feelings.

Your parents came of age during the ‘50s and ‘60s, when the TV, not the radio, was the focal point of the living room. They were rebels without causes watching Ed Sullivan and drinking soda pop.

My peers, parents and grandparents shared the same philosophy that had served humanity since the days of Solomon: Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. Not only are you not entitled; you are undeserving. So if you ever get anywhere in life, consider yourself lucky, and try not to screw it up.

Ah, the good old days, when everyone was as miserable as I am.

Brett Larson is the editor of the Messenger.

http://www.messagemedia.co/millelacs/opinion/our_columnists/article_4aaca6de-a109-11e1-a40c-0019bb30f31a.html

Saturday
1. Built a raised bed
2. went for a short jog
3. Went grocery shopping
4. Filled raised bed with good well-rotted horse manure.
5. Made a beautiful new pile of the horse manure that piled up over the winter.
6. started planning summer vacation
7. Had a couple Summits
8. Got the tractor started
9. Ate a sloppy joe and some potato chips
10. Sat in the hot tub
11. Signed up for Netflix and watched a movie.
12. Made popcorn

Sunday
1. Ate eggs from my chickens
2. Planned summer vacation
3. Read my cheesy historical novel
4. Went to “Chimpanzee”
5. Went on a longer jog
6. Fixed the tractor
7. Sat in the hot tub again
8. Listened to a record
9. Went to Caribou and wrote a column
10. Visited with my mom
11. Played basketball with Leif
12. Blogged

As always happens around this time of year, folks are coming to the paper with complaints and questions about tribal netting and behaviors of netters, as well as rumors and reports of violations witnessed. Here are a few clarifications, and I’d be happy to add more information or ask questions of experts if you have them. Continue reading →

We received several comments on our website this morning in response to this story on tribal netting.

My response:

First, I’m a big fan of community journalism. I wish we had more of it. It makes our job easier when members of the community send us information — photos, videos, written reports and/or commentary. The internet has made it more possible than ever for citizens to contribute to the journalism process, and I’ve tried to encourage our readers to submit, with little response. I’m hoping our new website, which will launch in a month or so, will make it easier for readers to start blogs and submit content. When we do get submissions from readers, we usually use them either as submitted or as part of our own stories.

In this week’s paper I took a web comment from someone who had questions about tribal netting and got a response from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. Yes, it took GLIFWC  more space to answer the questions than it took the other to ask them, but that happens in journalism. Our readers should be glad to hear the official response, and my guess is that most of them were.

Could I have done a more thorough job on the story? Of course, as we could with every story we do. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to track down every potential source for every story, just like we can’t be there for every net lift or fish caught by an angler. We also don’t have space to cover every story with as much detail as some readers would like. Our job as small-town journalists involves a lot more than coverage of tribal netting.

I applaud those citizens for watching and recording the netting. It’s their right (see below), and if they’re concerned that laws are being broken or the lake harmed, they should do something about it.

If anyone knows of a “smoking gun” video or photo showing wanton waste, please send it along or email me the link, and I’ll report on it if it seems legitimate, as I’ve done in the past. Unfortunately I don’t have time to view all the videos of tribal netting out there, and frankly, most of the videos I’ve seen have not been very good or very informative.

I’ve seen videos that appear to show northerns or muskies being released from nets. That’s legal under the bands’ conservation code, if they can be revived. So far I haven’t seen any pics or videos of northerns dead or dying.

I saw one last year of a northern that appeared to be struggling. Eventually it appeared to swim away.

When lost nets were found with dead walleyes in them a few years ago, we printed the pics. When fish guts were dumped on private land or public roads, we printed the pics and told the story, and I  scolded the unknown perpetrators in a column.

We reported on the ‘record’ muskie that was killed in a net recently. We didn’t sugar-coat it, simply presented the facts. Readers were left to make up their own minds about the implications, and we offer our letters page, web comments and guest columnist spots for readers to respond to stories.

Every year we hear rumors about the northern by-catch being left to die by tribal netters, and every year we say the same thing: If northerns and muskies are being wantonly wasted, and someone has photos or videos or even eyewitness accounts without evidence, send them my way and we’ll report it or get a response. My phone number is (320) 676-3123, and my email is news@millelacsmessenger.com.

I’m also happy to visit with anyone and everyone who comes to my office. I have never once turned a reader away — either a phone call, an email or a personal visit. I don’t always give them what they want, but I always listen and give my honest response.

Honestly, I get very few complaints about our coverage or lack of coverage of netting controversies. I think most of our readers are satisfied with our coverage of the issue (and some would prefer less coverage).

The April 4 paper had page 5 set aside for a regular commentary by an opponent of tribal netting. He chose not to submit a column.

One of my critics on the web today used to write for us and left of his own accord.

Today’s scolding of the Messenger is typical of media criticism everywhere: If we’re not biased in their favor, we must be biased in someone’s else’s. From each side, the middle looks like the other side.

Regarding rights of citizen journalists: It is your right to photograph or video in public places — anglers, netters, picnickers, whatever. The courts have ruled on this matter. You don’t have to ask permission to take someone’s photo in a public place — although it is the polite thing to do, especially if it’s for publication.

Our reporter got told by a tribal CO a couple weeks ago not to take pictures of netters at a public access. He can ask us not to, but he can’t tell us not to. I had a conversation with GLIFWC about it, and they’re aware of the laws.

So get out there and get us photos, videos, letters, stories and commentaries. We’ll report the facts, as we always have. And we’ll report on both sides of any controversy (as time and space allow), as we always have.

I picked up 57 chicks at the post office today.

It was kind of an accident. I was there to mail my taxes in, and someone else in the office said, “Someone must’ve ordered chicks, eh?”

And then I remembered mine were coming, but supposedly not until Tuesday.

Anyway, brought them home, got them set up in the basement, where they all looked pretty good. Then an hour later, they didn’t look so good. Long story short, I lost four of them, but the rest are loudly chirping away.

All five layers and the two roosters seem to have survived, and most of the 50 broilers.