Secrets of the City

i applaud their attempts to raise money unconventionally, but they have to give you something more than a long, cold walk and a peice of paper…

So. . . the Winter Carnival wants handouts to buy ice with? Amazing. Too bad there is a television writers’ strike or Leno and Letterman would have a field day!
Some of the reply posts over the weekend to a similar Pi Press story were pretty scathing and I’d have to agree with the critics.
So many legitimate charities are hurting these days. It seems like a huge greedy waste to beg for money to pay for ice when we have food shelves that are struggling, charities that cannot meet basic needs, etc.
The carnival doesn’t get sponsors because many businesses think it it irrelevant. Times have changed and maybe St. Paul should move on.
What a waste the carnival is. It is boring parades, old geezers and their young babe princesses, lame and pitiful attempts at ethnic diversity, the obnoxious Vulcans, lawsuits and general embarassment to the city. Thank God City of St. Paul is too broke to give any public $$$ to this nonsense.
So we sell (make quote marks with your fingers here) stocks and shares. Honestly, how stupid do the Winter Carnival people think the public is? Let the sculptors get their own sponsors and carve their own blocks.
Better yet, why not let the bars donate the ice and then put the blocks in giant public mixed drink troughs? I’d LOVE that. It would make my 21A rides home much more interesting. . .

Honestly, how stupid do the Winter Carnival people think the public is?
Well, there is considerable precedent . . . .

But there’s a friggin Hot Dish tent.

HOT DISH MAN! HOT DISH!

Great. Let’s have no fun at all because somebody in Bangladesh is still starving.

Party pooper, you!

Submitted by not from here at

Duly noted.

Well, JACC, you’ve got me there. I forgot about the Full Monty-style Klondike Kate pin-up calendars. . . Ew. . .
I used to work in a St. Paul neighborhood where some of the aging powers that be thought it was a big deal to be knighted by the Royal Family from the carnival. A group of us neighborhood volunteers usually refused this dubious honor.
My rationale was that my ancestors left England in the 1600s to get away from all of this royalty crap.
One of my friends pointed out that he wasn’t going to kneel for anyone, especially a bunch of guys in silly robes.

and noodleman, the Winter Carnival could be fun. But right now it’s just stupid.
bring on the mixed drink troughs!

mixed drink troughs?
Just call me Long Island Piggy . . .

I’ve been to these St. Paul “events” and can’t see myself putting out 122 cents to be part of this thing, but like the Cities 97 Sampler, its continued existence is probably one of those things that stopped being rational a long, long time ago.

considering buying a hunk of ice…

but the button’s are so ugly…

and the figure skater twist is terrible as the national figure skaters don’t care about the carnival….dumb move IMHO.

Hi, Kitch. Might remember me.

How’s the Cooler Crew?

Sigh … Laura Yuen from the PiPress reported on this thing a few days ago … Strib is playing catch-up. Not being mean, but I hate it when everyone links to Strib stories when an issue has already been reported elsewhere.

http://www.twincities.com//ci_7610649?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com

P.S. No, I’m not Laura but I’m a friend.

Old news, I’d love to read more PiPress stories online– but the RSS feed only appears to be of the Most E-mailed/Viewed stories. Is there a better one I’m missing?

The reality is: If there’s no good RSS feed, most bloggers aren’t going to read it and link to it.

Like how I didn’t read Jason’s blog when his RSS wasn’t working.

RSS – It’s the way to go.

Star Tribune > Pioneer Press.

Please, I wasn’t trying to turn this into a Strib versus PiPress thing … just wanted to give my friend credit for her piece. Both papers have their qualities and I’m a fan of both publications.

And Jason, you’re spot on about the RSS feed thing. It’s terrible. The Web site, although it’s much better than before, still kind of sucks.

My organization is involved with the Winter Carnival this year, as once again you can Make Bob Suffer for a worthy cause.

Any MNspeakers want to join me? I’ll post a link to my pledge site once it goes live.