Reaction to the design of the Vikings’ new downtown palace continues to roll in. Dave Campbell of the AP writes: “Dozens of purple-jersey-clad fans snatched up the limited amount of free tickets available to the public, singing a couple of bars of the team fight song, ‘Skol Vikings,’ before the program began. They cheered the handful of key officials who helped shepherd the project to approval through the tricky channels of state and city politics. One of the luminaries who appeared on stage to tout the design was former Vikings head coach Bud Grant, who took the team to four Super Bowls. … Minnesota lawmakers hoped they could pay for the stadium without new taxes, relying instead on electronic gambling devices in bars and restaurants to cover $348 million in state debt. But establishments and their patrons have been slow to embrace the new games, and the money has been barely trickling in. The law gave state officials the power to launch a new scratch-off lottery game and impose suite taxes to cover any gaps, but there has been no indication they will. … Bonds to pay for stadium construction are supposed to be sold in August, but the state might alter the process to keep costs down. They’ve insisted that construction will proceed as scheduled.”
In the PiPress, Bob Sansevere’s unveiling story says: “The unveiling was done at the Guthrie theater. It seemed a bit high brow and an odd place to give folks their first look at a new stadium, especially with the guest speakers on a stage with props from ‘The Primrose Path’ encircling them. Then again, the Guthrie is publicly funded, too. It must have made sense to whoever hatched the idea to do it there. … David Garza of St. Paul came to the unveiling with face paint, a Vikings helmet adorned with glued-on horns and his favorite Vikings jersey. Garza called the design ‘gorgeous’ and ‘pretty spectacular’. … The inside of the stadium will have two of the largest video boards in the NFL, each measuring 50 feet high by 120 feet wide. When the dimensions were given, fans roared their approval.” The only things guys like more than football are really big TVs.
The comments on Stribbers Richard Meryhew and Janet Moore’s unveiling story are worth reading. Just three:
“And now comes the fun part. We will soon hear how are taxes are going up to fund this stadium for the owners. We didn't anticipate that electronic pull tabs would become a joke. They said what they had needed to get the bill passed. Its coming — tax increases. Actually I hope they tax tickets and jerseys, etc. Let those who cannot live without the purple pay for it.” …
“Inside a greenhouse, this could be the best natural turf stadium in the world. Close seating to the pitch is spot on! Dig deeper in design, retractable with natural light 'greenhouse' technology is the way to go. Make us proud and get us a Superbowl AND a MLS team.” …
‘It looks a little too much like some California TV preacher's mega-church to me. All it needs it a cross on top of the highest peak and Hallelujah pass the offering plate.”
Just out this afternoon ... The Star Tribune's Janet Moore and Eric Roper report on nearby stadium development plans: "A $400 million mixed-use project near the new Vikings stadium would transform the eastern stretch of downtown Minneapolis, a largely barren area that has long struggled to attract substantial development. The five-block area, now owned by the Star Tribune, would become home to two, 20-story office towers spanning 1.2 million square feet of space, Ryan Cos. said in a proposal released Tuesday. In addition, 300 residential units and retail stores will be part of the development. ... Ryan has entered into a purchase agreement to buy the land by year’s end from the Star Tribune. Terms were not disclosed. The media company will relocate its operations to leased space in downtown Minneapolis."
In The New Yorker, attorney Richard Socarides writes: “Including Minnesota and Illinois, a total of twenty-two per cent of the American population will live in states that have marriage equality. If California rejoins that list at the end of next month, due to a Supreme Court decision overturning Proposition 8, its gay-marriage ban, either on procedural or substantive grounds, over a third of the United States population will live in a state with marriage equality. Minnesota has moved particularly quickly. It was only last November that its voters narrowly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited same-sex marriage outright — the “no” vote then was only fifty-one per cent. It is hard to imagine Americans turning back from the trend toward marriage equality, and, in fact, the speed at which additional states are acting might even affect some of the Supreme Court Justices’ thinking about what their role on this issue should be.”
At MPR, Elizabeth Baier writes: “The same-sex marriage debate has deeply divided parts of the state, including Olmsted County in southeastern Minnesota. In November, voters there were evenly split on a proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman: 49 percent supported the amendment and 49.6 percent opposed it. Last year's vote on the marriage amendment was a watershed that Nora Dooley, chair of the Olmsted County Human Rights Commission, says helped her understand Rochester's changing social and political views. ‘Before, I would have thought we would have had a 75-25 (split)’, Dooley said. ‘The mere fact that we had it so close tells me that things are changing from what used to be, in my opinion, ultra-conservative part of the state. I think we are kind of becoming more urbanized.’ ”
MPR’s Catharine Richert looks at how things changed: “Starting in late 2012, opponents and supporters of the legislation launched an aggressive lobbying campaign around the issue, one that can be measured in stacks of emails, thousands of phone calls, and a host of registered lobbyists. Behind the scenes at the Capitol, internal polling tested how passage of same-sex marriage would play in the 2014 elections. And in the House, a late-session decision to abandon a gun control bill meant some lawmakers were more comfortable supporting the legislation. But as Minnesota becomes the 12th state to allow same-sex couples to marry, opponents say voters will soon learn the unintended consequences of the new law.‘We all witnessed our state Legislature rejecting the beliefs of the majority of Minnesotans — choosing instead to side with the powerful same-sex 'marriage' lobby — and denying the religious liberty rights of over 1 million Minnesotans’, Minnesota for Marriage, the group lobbying against the bill, wrote in a press release.”
A real animal lover, this one …WLS-TV out of Chicago reports: “On Monday, officers of the Kenosha Police Department responded to a home in the 1400-block of 53rd Street in regards to a complaint. While investigating the report, officers said in the back yard they found what appeared to be a 3- to 4-foot skeleton of an alligator in a large aquarium, the body of a large burned snake lying in some weeds, a dead 4- to 5-foot alligator and the carcass of a fawn. Inside the home, officers say they found several aquariums of various sizes, one that contained a large Gila Monster and another with a 4- to 5-foot crocodile. Police say other containers held multiple snakes. In the basement, officers say they found two 6- to 8-foot alligators in a homemade indoor pond and a giant snapping turtle in a tub.”
I know your hopes were running high … But Aaron Rupar at City Pages says it ain’t so: “Sorry, Minnesota, but Michele Bachmann is not fleeing to Oregon over Monday's vote to legalize same-sex marriage. Not because she was bluffing, but because the Daily Currant — the news site that published the report — is satirical. In case you missed it: Yesterday, hours before the Minnesota Senate planned to vote on the gay marriage bill, the Currant published a story about Bachmann threatening to leave if the measure passed. It's really not such an unbelievable claim — Bachmann has said far crazier things — so it's not surprising that many took the story as legitimate news, and the piece lit up on social media for hours before and after the vote. From the Currant story:
In an interview with a local television station, the conservative firebrand said she believes God will destroy Minneapolis once the legislation is enacted, and wants to be far away when the reckoning happens.
‘The Bible is very clear on this issue,’ she told KSTP-TV this morning, ‘Homosexuality is a sin, and God will punish communities that support it. Sodom and Gomorrah thought they could defy the will of God — and we all know what happened to them. If the governor signs this legislation into law the Minneapolis-St. Paul region will be next’.”