Trump Humor

I realize that even though late night talk show comics are having a field day with this year's presidential race, there are some folk who see nothing funny about the current political reality show. The New Yorker, naturally, wanted to prove the contrary position and did so by having every single cartoon in its April 25 issue be about Donald Trump.  Inasmuch as it came out the weekend before the New York primary, it did not have a great impact on the outcome in the Empire State.

Last night before heading to slumberland I got a little late night reading in, and it was this April 25 edition of The New Yorker. Now I realize that reading the cartoons first is probably akin to young men looking at the pictures of women in Playboy first, but I'm willing to confess that I did that last night. (I don't usually do that, because what I usually do is look at the cartoons as soon as my magazine comes in the mail.) Some of the cartoons were pretty hilarious.

I knew right away that something was up wen I hit the second cartoon and it was about Trump like the first had been. The third confirmed my suspicions. By the end I felt like I'd just finished a nice dessert after a long day.

Here are a few examples, described.

1) It shows a scene at the beach in which a little boy has made an absolutely gigantic sand castle that spells out his name: Trump. The letters are taller than he and it's about 18 feet wide. The caption reads, The Formative Years At Rockaway Beach.

2) The second is a table of bridge players looking at their cards. The caption reads, "One no-trump. Oh, please, God, no Trump."

3) Two women sitting in a diner holding wine glasses and chatting. The one says to the other, "If Trump becomes president, I don't care how high he builds that wall -- I'm going over it."

So against this backdrop, when I woke in the middle of the night I found that all those cartoons only served to feed my subconscious. Upon waking the first thing in my head was a Trump cartoon. It went like this.

The image is of an unemployment line, with a large sign at the top that reads, Unemployment. But the line is made up of famous monsters from Hollywood. The Wolf Man, the Mummy, Frankenstein etc. Frankenstein says, "Before Trump came along I was the scariest thing going."

After that one made me smile I thought of another one that would be a spin-off for a conservative magazine. At the end of the line we see Hillary.

O.K. you can replace Hillary and have the same effect by putting Trump in that line after Hillary gets elected.

* * *

The next cartoon features two people sitting on a park bench with the N.Y. skyline in the background. They are dressed in stylish clothes, clearly New Yorkers, and happen to both be reading this same edition of The New Yorker. Instead of a caption, they have those word clouds that contain the words they are saying. The first one says, "Wow, Trump's amazing. He not only controls the media, he controls the cartoonists, too. Next thing you know --"

The second one cuts him off: "Don't say it."

* * *

Anyways... hope something here made you smile. If you are a cartoonist and use one of my cartoon ideas, please send it my way to post here, and maybe I will send you a copy of my book A Remarkable Tale from the Land of Podd. Thanks!

Local Arts Seen: Henry Roberts' Venice Carnival at the Zeitgeist

Ah, Venice! There are so many distinctive cities in the world, but none like Venice. It's a city of islands and canals, and history. Indiana Jones and James Bond have both been there (Bond several times, I believe) and many a film has been shot there. But the images we most associate with Venice are these... the canals with their gondolas, and those amazing costumes from the Venice Carnival.

Monday evening was the opening reception for a photography exhibition at the Zeitgeist Cafe. Henry Roberts shared a selection of images from his own trip to Venice, and I make the strongest recommendation that you take a lunch there (the food is fab) to see the images he shot, and printed large. (EdNote: Zeitgeist has a wonderful brunch menu on weekends. Check it out.)

This Venice Carnival show was also a learning experience for me. I have seen the masks from Venice Carnival all my life. But I didn't know much about them other than they produced quite striking images. I even began collecting pictures of masks on one of my Pinterest boards. Having had a long time interest in masks I've even written about it here (and here.) When I have more time I may try to share a little information about the various names and styles of masks worn in the Carnival.

The Venice Carnival has a long history, stretching back to 1162 when people began to dance in San Marco Square. It is similar to Mardi Gras in that it precedes Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday on the Christian calendar. In 1979 the Italian government re-established the traditional Carnival history with the aim of developing the city's tourist trade. Success! Over 3 million visitors a year visit the Venice Carnival.

After being introduced to the Mr. Roberts we talked briefly about how he ended up being there last year. What follows are some related questions and insights he shared.

EN: How did you come to take an interest in photography?
Henry Roberts: Many years ago I wrote a Sunday nature column for the Duluth News Tribune which often were illustrated with my photos.

EN: What is it that so captivates you about Venice?
HR: Venice, Italy: I saw a magazine article with pictures of the costumes and wanted to do it myself. The brilliant colors attracted my attention.

The Venice Carnival celebration is more than a month long ending on Lent. I went on a photo safari with eight other people and spent a week photographing.

The participants make or buy at $1,000 or more their own costumes which they are proud to display. At daybeak they come out along the Grand Canal to pose for amateur and professional photographers. They will pose as requested. A half-dozen photographers will gather and take turns directing the participants. Along the Canal and before buildings there will be 20 or 30 groups being photographed and handing out their business cards. I surmise that people feel anonymous in masks and are quite willing to be photographed and display their beautiful costumes.

EN: How many trips have you made there?

HR: I have only been to Venice once, this 10 day photo trip. I wanted to capture the brilliant costumes and masks.

I have been photographing since I was 12 years old starting with my mother’s camera. Of course I began with film and always have preferred color to black and white. For a number of years I have recorded digitally with Canon cameras that shoot an image the same size as the original 35mm film cameras.

These pictures were slightly enhanced in Photoshop computer software. In recent years I have worked more with floral subjects which I like to abstract and manipulate digitally in my computer. Then I make prints and display them in our living room where I can walk by them, see what I like and dislike, then improve my next images. I am most interested in making artistic images than producing an exact replica of the subject.

* * * *
Henry Roberts has a website that he states is outdated, but a brief visit to www.henryroberts.net will introduce you to sites and scenes from many more of Mr. Roberts' travels, from Maui to Mongolia to Chile, Ecuador and more. The stunning images at the Zeitgeist Cafe this month are from that magical trip to Venice.

* * * *

More arts happenings
Tonight is the final installment of the Duluth Art Institutes Design DLH series. The topic is Minnesota Nice: Good, Bad, Nice? The program begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Red Herring Lounge, 208 E. 1st Street. in Duluth. Space is limited so RSVP with the DAI.

This sixth and final session of the series will feature Sean Elmquist, Chaperone Records; Candace Lacosse, Hemlocks Leatherworks; Chris Benson, Frost River; and the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Committee. It should be very interesting.

* * *
Today is also the Tent & Trunk Show at Carlton Bike Rental in Carlton. 3 - 8 p.m. Details here.

Meantime... art goes all around you. Engage it.  

Player Piano, Singularity and the Future of Humanity

When I was in college a friend introduced me to the writings of Kurt Vonnegut. I remember that first book I read, Cat's Cradle,  blue paperback with white lettering. It was Vonnegut's fourth book and I found it simultaneously a breezy read and compelling. I soon sought out all the other books he'd written up to that time, one of which was his first novel Player Piano.

The reason I thought of Vonnegut this week and am writing about Player Piano is because of recent readings on artificial intelligence and robotics. Last week I completed Machines of Loving Grace:
The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots by John Markoff. This week I am in the midst of Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford. Both of these books raise issues about the relationship between computers, robots and people that should be of concern to us.

One of the foremost thinkers in this realm has been Ray Kurzweil, who in the mid-1980's wrote The Age of Intelligent Machines. Kurzweil, a futurist, predicted that a computer would beat a chess champion before the end of the century. And it did. But other things he's predicted are not as much fun to contemplate, because they involve possibilities that are generally reserved for science fiction. One of these is the rise of intelligent robots who become so smart they don't need programmers to make them smarter. They will make themselves smarter. The concept has been termed singularity.

In the film Ex Machina the word is uttered only once, but every computer geek knows what the word means. The Narcissistic robot-making genius is striving to make something so human it has a mind like a human, with constant capacity to learn more, and to teach itself. Wikipedia describes it in this manner:

The technological singularity is a hypothetical event in which artificial general intelligence (constituting, for example, intelligent computers, computer networks, or robots) would be capable of recursive self-improvement (progressively redesigning itself), or of autonomously building ever smarter and more powerful machines than itself, up to the point of a runaway effect—an intelligence explosion—that yields an intelligence surpassing all current human control or understanding. Because the capabilities of such a super-intelligence may be impossible for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is the point beyond which events may become unpredictable or even unfathomable to human intelligence.

The books cited above and others like them all point to a future where machines will be increasing displacing jobs and people Rise of the Robots begins with automation that is already being tested to replace fast food jobs. All through the Sixties autoworkers resisted the machines that were displacing jobs in Detroit. Repetitive tasks may be boring, but they paying jobs. On the other hand the machines never get tired, never need breaks, and never go on strike. The helped the shareholders and upper management obtain revenue while disrupting families and workers' lives.

Today a new wave of machines is coming and it's going to disrupt even more lives as robots and automation replaces white collar workers's jobs. I believe that there will need to be a complete re-thinking of how people are compensated or we've got a seriously problematic and potentially hurtful future ahead. By hurtful I mean, it's impact on humanity.

Which brings us back to Vonnegut. Player Piano was Vonnegut's first novel. Published in 1952 it addresses the negative impact increased automation will have on our quality of life. Here's the beginning of an overview of the book, again from Wikipedia:

The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. This widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class—the engineers and managers who keep society running—and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines. The book uses irony and sentimentality, which were to become hallmarks developed further in Vonnegut's later works.

And further on from the same source:

Player Piano is set in the near future after a third world war. While most Americans were fighting overseas, the nation's managers and engineers faced a depleted work force and responded by developing ingenious automated systems that allowed the factories to operate with only a few workers. The novel begins ten years after the war, when most factory workers have been replaced by machines. The bifurcation of the population is represented by the division of Ilium into "The Homestead", where every person who is neither a manager nor an engineer lives, and the other side of the river, where all the engineers and managers live...

The automation of industry and the effect this has on society is predominant theme of Player Piano. It is "a novel about people and machines, and machines frequently got the best of it, as machines will." More specifically, it delves into a theme Vonnegut returns to, "a problem whose queasy horrors will eventually be made world-wide by the sophistication of machines. The problem is this: How to love people who have no use." Unlike much dystopian fiction, Player Piano's society was created by indifference, both of the populace and the technology that replaced it. As such, it is the sense of purposelessness of those living in a capitalistic society that has outgrown a need for them which must be rectified.

The message of Player Piano is that people need to have a sense of purpose, and that if you take that away from them their lives will be empty. Many books address this issue, but Vonnegut combines it with a unique perspective that is quite perspicacious. That it predicted such a bleak future while the U.S. was enjoying a sudden burst of prosperity and "happy times" with jobs a-plenty, sock hops and dance parties, a bowling explosion and the rest, well, not very many people were giving much thought to the future that all this technology was going to bring us.

But it was an article by Jon Evans in TechCrunch that really got my brain stimulated this week. His title is "We should be worried about job atomization, not job automation." In this piece Evans reminds us that automation of labor is not all that bad. Wouldn't it be great if no one ever had to clean a toilet again? Or had to do mind-numbing, back-breaking repetitive tasks? Evans writes, "I submit that the actual problem is that full-time jobs are assumed as the fundamental economic building blocks of our society, and that we lack the flexibility or imagination to consider, much less move towards, any alternative structure."

I really think this is the crux of the matter. For may of us who have grown up reading about dystopian futures, our feelings coincide with Woody Allen's statement about death. "I'n not afraid... I just don't want to be there when it happens."

But what if those dystopian visions were nothing more than vapor. As the saying goes, 98% of what we worry about never happens.

No one entirely knows what the future will bring, simply because the law of unintended consequences is always going to be at work. Nevertheless, I will submit this proposal for consideration. The technology will exist to feed and shelter everyone and it may be that machines replace untold numbers of jobs, but the only real bottleneck will be how to make sure everyone displaced has a decent quality of life. So, do our politicians have the political will to take the lead on this, to really and truly tackle this problem? That's the bottleneck that I see. So I propose we find a way to replace the politicians and let good-hearted robots run the country. What do you think?

* * * *

While preparing for this blog post I queried Google (an intelligent machine) and asked what he/she/it thought of Watson. Google led me to this article by Kurzweil on the significance of Watson. Something to think about.

Meantime, life goes on... all around you. Make the most of it.

Will Computers Put Journalists Out Of Business? Check Out These 7 Stories

For many of you this is probably nothing new and though I may have noticed it in my peripheral vision, recent events have caused me to take a more serious look at the future of journalism as a profession. Due to the internets we've already seen deep cuts on the payrolls of publishing houses these past twenty years, and I suspect the damage there is not yet done. One publishing house that used to have 60 magazines has either sold off or pared down their portfolio to ten publications.

Lately I've been devouring a number of books about the robotics, artificial intelligence and the future, including most recently Rise of the Robots and Machines of Loving Grace, both well researched and eye opening. What was formerly catching my attention out of the corner of my eye has now captured my full attention.

If you are a professional writer, or a student pursuing a writing career, you might wish to read through these articles and see how your career will mesh with tomorrow's advances in A.I. There's a part of us that cringes at the notion of art made by computers, or poetry. But what will the next generation think about these things? Check out the sixth story about how a computer covers a sporting event. There's almost no question that future fans will adapt fairly quickly to these automated game summaries.

Maybe one day I will get a freelance bot to write my blog post for me. Hopefully my efforts to put a bit of human personality in my writing will keep me in the game. But you never know. Those computers are getting pretty smart these days, and one day they might just figure me out.

The journalists who never sleep
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/12/artificial-intelligence-data-journalism-media

And the Pulitzer goes to... a computer.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/28/computer-writing-journalism-artificial-intelligence

Can an Algorithm Write a Better News Story Than a Human Reporter?
http://www.wired.com/2012/04/can-an-algorithm-write-a-better-news-story-than-a-human-reporter/

This Geek Will Put Reporters Out of Business
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/06/this-geek-will-put-reporters-out-of-business.html
"Artificial intelligence systems can turn structured data into stories so sophisticated they're indistinguishable from those penned by humans. How robots are taking over the newsroom."

Will robots replace journalists?
https://fojproject.com/blog/will-robots-replace-journalists

Robo-journalism: How a computer describes a sports match
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34204052

Will Writers Become Obsolete?
http://www.leftistreview.com/2013/11/24/will-writers-become-obsolete/kelliaramares/

What's your take on all this? Just curious.

Meantime... life goes on. Hallelujah. 

Designers to Talk About Minnesota Nice at Design DLH

Hard to believe we're nearing the end of another great Duluth Art Institute series. This one has been titled Design DLH, a series in which professional designers from various industries have been making presentations around various themes. This Thursday's topic is Minnesota Nice: Good, Bad, Nice? The programs begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Red Herring Lounge, 208 E. 1st Street. in Duluth.

This sixth and final session  of the series will feature Sean Elmquist, Chaperone Records; Candace Lacosse, Hemlocks Leatherworks; Chris Benson, Frost River; and the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Committee.

The program, if you haven't been to one yet, goes like this. Each Design DLH gathering incites local designers and creative thinkers to present ideas around a prompt that addresses some aspect of Duluth's visual identity. The focus of Session Six is the pros and cons of "Minnesota Nice": the politeness, the aversion to confrontation, and a tendency towards the stoic. As with all our other themes, this was looks to be again an interesting and potentially lively topic. Because space is limited, you will need to RSVP at info@duluthartinstitute.org.

Sessions are free and open to the public. Can't make it? You can also join the conversation via Twitter, using the hashtag #DesignDLH.

* * * *
Also slated for Thursday is the Carlton Trunk & Tent Show at Carlton Bike Rental (CBR). Joelene Steffens, founder of CBR, also has an art framing business called Art Dimensions. Her work is of the highest quality. Though this event is designed for bicycle enthusiasts, I recommend CBR as a stop for creatives as well. The Trunk & Tent Show runs from 3 - 8 p.m., so theoretically you can make it to both events if (a) you are not working that afternoon and (b) begin in Carlton.

* * * *

This month's Design DLH topic might be interesting as a starting point for more discussion about the roles of art and artists in general. Occasionally we hear expressions of the sentiment "we can't afford for our artists to be politically neutral." Perhaps being Minnesota Nice keeps us from discussing this and other potentially divisive themes in the open square.

The designers who have been speaking all year at the Design DLH events are professional and commercial artists. There are some who might suggest that art and commerce should be separate from one another, but then I'd respond with this... do we want homes and appliances and cars with good design or bad design? It really is possible to let function become all that matters and ignore design. Aesthetics play a role in what we value.

Then there is the matter of motivation. Outside our Western art scene we learned from a Tweevening lecture this past year that in other parts of the world, especially the Orient, artist make objects of beauty for their own sake as opposed to making art to make a name for oneself. Art is a contemplative aiming for perfection versus self-absorbed self-expression.

Like life itself, we there are many paths we can explore. Fortunately there's no law that I know of that requires us to check our motivations at the door when we create.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it.

Most of the Time -- Another Heartbreaker from the Dylan Catalog

There are so many layers to grief. Especially in a break up that breaks you as well.

Loss leaves a hole in your heart. And no one who enters a relationship does it with the aim of ending in failure. Loss and failure are two of life's hardest pills to swallow.

The song "Most of the Time" is the opening track on side two of Dylan's 26th album Oh Mercy. The 1989 album itself was critically acclaimed and sent a signal that Dylan was not a has been, could still pull together some great songs and record great music. Produced by Daniel Lanois, who produced award-winning albums for U2 and Robbie Robertson, the album was striking for the the moody ambience it created. One of the great songs produced during the Oh Mercy recording sessions was "Series of Dreams," a personal favorite for many Dylan fans that did not get included on the album when it was released. It found a home later in his great collection Greatest Hits: Volume 3.

The album quickly became one of my favorite Dylan albums when it came out, with nearly every song a favorite at one time or another during many listens. Much of the time it's "Most of the Time." In part it's the mood, in part, it's the word play. And in part it's simply the laconic, masterful way he delivers the lyrics.

Most of the time
I’m clear focused all around
Most of the time
I can keep both feet on the ground
I can follow the path, I can read the signs
Stay right with it when the road unwinds
I can handle whatever I stumble upon
I don’t even notice she’s gone
Most of the time

Who hasn't been there? Is the singer trying to convince others or is he trying to convince himself? "I can handle it. I'm not distracted. "I don't even notice she's gone." But the truth is au contraire. And as the song moves forward there are a whole string of these statements of denial. "I wouldn't change it if I could." "I can deal with the situation." "I can endure." And most poignantly, "I don't even think about her." Most of the time.

Most of the time
It’s well understood
Most of the time
I wouldn’t change it if I could
I can make it all match up, I can hold my own
I can deal with the situation right down to the bone
I can survive, I can endure
And I don’t even think about her
Most of the time

It's typical of Dylan to find the nerve and follow it along, working it through all its permutations, extracting its juice. In his autobiography Chronicles he writes at length about this album, indicative of its importance to him personally and for his career. I was struck by how many verses he would write for many of his songs, sometimes as many as twenty or more. We only hear that which has been distilled and boiled down.

Most of the time
My head is on straight
Most of the time
I’m strong enough not to hate
I don’t build up illusion ’til it makes me sick
I ain’t afraid of confusion no matter how thick
I can smile in the face of mankind
Don’t even remember what her lips felt like on mine
Most of the time

The song's bridge continues the theme but with an altered tune that almost seems to promise something new, but then falls back into the stream of its resignation to the way things are. It's hard to let go.

Most of the time
She ain’t even in my mind
I wouldn’t know her if I saw her
She’s that far behind
Most of the time
I can’t even be sure
If she was ever with me
Or if I was with her

Most of the time
I’m halfway content
Most of the time
I know exactly where it went
I don’t cheat on myself, I don’t run and hide
Hide from the feelings that are buried inside
I don’t compromise and I don’t pretend
I don’t even care if I ever see her again
Most of the time

Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music

It's been said that one of Dylan's great achievements is how knowledgeable he is about music history, especially Americana. But another of his gifts has to be his ability to inwardly dredge those painful places in the soul and put into words what he finds there in a way that connects to universal truths about being human.

Though the somber mood on the album is generated through Lanois's layered production (compare to another Lanois produced song, "Not Dark Yet" on Time Out Of Mind), even live versions of the song can convey that same raw wound feel. Here's the original version of the song as it appeared on the album, accompanied by a photo montage of images familiar to most longtime fans.

* * * *

Each May the city of Duluth celebrates the birthday of their native son with a weeklong festival of Dylan-themed events. Several of these in the past have included a tribute concert called Salute to the Music of Bob  Dylan. The past two years Gene Lafond performed "Most of the Time" with a touching heartfelt power, and if it were possible I would share it here. Dylan himself performed the song 36 times in concert between 1989 and 1992.

For what it's worth, this year's Duluth Dylan Fest is ramping up to be richer and more rewarding than ever. Several additional events have been added to the schedule and you will want to make sure you follow it here.  Tickets are available at Eventbrite. You can find the link to tickets here on the BobDylanWay home page.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Embrace it.

The Law of Unintended Consequences as Illustrated by the Story of U.S. Steel in Duluth

99 years ago this month U.S. Steel announced the building of a steel plant in Duluth. It was not just any old steel plant. According to the Duluth News Tribune is was going to be a "MONSTER PLANT IN DULUTH." Along with the plant came the promise of prosperity for this small town that was destined to become the largest inland port in the world. Or busiest. Or something like that.

That the Iron Range was rich with iron ore was unquestioned. Getting the ore to market was being handled by railroads to the port in Duluth, and by ore ships to Cleveland on Lake Erie and on to the steel plants in Pittsburgh that would produce the girders to construct skyscrapers in New York.

But Minnesota politicians wanted a bigger share of the mining profit pie and a steel plant here would be just the ticket. There would be still more Minnesota jobs and wealth. To achieve this they decided to incentivize the building of a steel plant within the state's borders. How did the politicians induce this investment? They passed legislation to heavily tax the ore being shipped out, with one caveat. Any company that builds a plant in Minnesota would be exempt from this tonnage tax.

U.S. Steel, the nation's largest steel producer, had little interest in paying the these newly imposed tonnage taxes and was thus coerced into opening a plant here on the shores of the St. Louis River in Duluth. The plant was begun in earnest two years later and produced its first steel six years later.

Duluth did indeed grow. With a population of 52,000 in 1900, the new jobs had the desired effect, doubling the size of the city by the end of the Roaring 20's. Northern Minnesota mines would go on to produce heroic quantities of ore that went into as much as 90 percent of our war arsenal during World War II, a major contribution that indeed helped us win the war for the Allies.

But like many things in life, be careful what you wish for.

There is a scene near the end of Charlie Wilson's War in which Gust (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) tells a parable to Congressman Wilson (Tom Hanks) about a boy who gets a horse as a birthday gift. It's a great story about the law of unintended consequences.

Gust Avrakotos: There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. The boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "How terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't because his leg's all messed up, and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."

Charlie Wilson: Now the Zen master says, "We'll see."

In the film, the application pertained to the arming and training of the Mujahideen to defeat the Russians in the 1980s. This training and these self-same weapons would later be a thorn in our own sides, as history has born out. (You can read more about the law of unintended consequences here.)

Getting back to our story... That U.S. Steel plant did eventually leave town. Times changed. And a lot of people were left by the wayside, as well as a very large quantity of spillage, debris and other aftereffects of turning ore into steel were left in our river.

At the time, many of the toxins that industry left in the nation's waterways or landfills were quite acceptable, as in legal. But so was slavery legal at one time. If we've earned anything at all from the Dred Scott decision, legal does not make a thing right.

Cleaning up the mess left behind when the steel plant left has been more than a mess. It's been an expensive mess. This section of the St. Louis River is now a federal Superfund site listed on the Federal National Priorities List, and costing millions upon millions of dollars to clean up. [EdNote: U.S. Steel has assumed most of the financial burden for this cleanup and a critical infusion of federal Great Lakes Legacy Act funds are speeding up the cleanup of contaminated sediments in Spirit Lake.]

There's another negative side effect of this U.S. Steel story. Because of the expensive and disastrous outcome here, the pendulum has swung so far the other way that it may never be possible to create jobs through the mining of natural resources again, for fear of another Love Canal... or U.S. Steel Superfund mess.

What will happen next? As the Zen masters says, "We'll see."

* * * *
Impetus for this article came from a story at zenithcity.com and the One River, Many Stories project.