Here’s another quick roundup for those of you who aren’t braving the long lines outside the box stores (me? I bought online from Dell in 1 minute. No lines, no cold, didn’t even have to leave the fucking house!):
1. According to the Savage Pacer, Savage residents are now pissing and moaning about the water coming in from Burnsville too:
Public Works Director John Powell said the city’s water supply meets all Minnesota Department of Health standards and that the city takes water quality seriously.
He said if the need arises, the city can shut off the interconnect with Burnsville and only distribute water from its wells and water treatment plant.
2. City Pages Hot Dish blog mentions 5 anonymous comments on the review site Yelp and the ever so shitty CitySearch which irk restaurateurs. My favorite:
3. Meritage
The service was so slow that we could not leave the restaurant in two hours. As it took so long to finish our meal, my baby started crying by the end of the night and the owner of the restaurant literally kicked us out from the restaurant.
I am having a kid in February, I promise you that I will never take him to any restaurant, such as the Meritage, where they are obviously not welcome. Get a fucking babysitter or stay the fuck at home dumbasses.
3. The Star Tribune reports that the Lakeville’s Arts Center is looking to begin funding an endowment to keep its operations running in light of tough economic times in the city. Strange thing this Friends of the Lakeville Area Arts Center is… Burnsville has one but they don’t do jack shit.Ti
4. Thisweek reports that entirely too many people take the whole Christmas vs Holidays thing too seriously and need to get a fucking life after a community uproar occurred following a note sent out by the principal of Lakeville’s Christina Huddleston Elementary School reminded staff and parents that not everyone believes in Christian holidays.
Christians (I was raised Catholic and celebrate Christmas myself) are not the only people on the planet and no one really gives a shit if you think that this is an attack on your beliefs–in fact you should take the time to look at the attacks your making on all the other belief systems before you get your panties in a bunch. Afterward please get over yourselves god dammit.
5. Thisweek reports that Eagan pretends it doesn’t want to take 4 acres of land for a new fire station when, in fact, it probably really does. The city doesn’t like how long negotiations are taking and this is the much better option–for them.
6. The Pioneer Press sensationalizes a story about a 40 year old man who raped an underage girl who lived with them for several years by saying she was their “babysitter”.
A 14 year old girl who didn’t get along with her parents and lives with someone else instead isn’t a live-in babysitter, she’s a foster child. I have a hunch that “sex with foster child” doesn’t get nearly as many Google searches and pageviews as “sex with baby sitter”. Way to go PiPress.
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That’s it for this week’s roundup. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and aren’t too bloated! I’m mainly interested in your thoughts on the “sex with a babysitter” story. Was this a calculated attempted by the Pioneer Press to drive traffic to its website via the title or am I just imagining things? But feel free to comment on the babysitter sex story or any of those links I have above and let us hear what you think!
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November 27th, 2009 at 11:19 am
To be fair about the ‘sex with babysitter’ story, I’ve seen it on the other local news outlets with the same headline, no just the PiPress.
November 28th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Personally I’m tired of hearing about how the water meets the requirements of the state for safety. To me, that’s the lowest level of quality measurement. I would like to hear a real explanation of what is going on and what they are doing to solve it. To me, it sounds like they are not doing anything as they imply it’s not a problem. And heck, I don’t even live in either area.
November 29th, 2009 at 3:29 am
Bill: Yes, I suspect the Pi Press sexed up (maybe distorted) this one-in-a-sea-of-many crime news briefs in order to make it more Google-friendly. I would guess this is part of an incremental, yet speculative strategy to wring a relative dollar or three more out of a web presence that accounts for a tinker’s damn of the paper’s overall revenue. This, of course, would supplant any concerns about newsroom credibility. Surely there’s been a memo to that effect. So yeah, good call on your part. Perhaps David Brauer has already covered this topic over at Minnpost. Worth a look?
Mikeh: There is probably info out there about cause, effect and possible remedy. To find it, you might have to search this website or look beyond it.
November 29th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I couldn’t care less about the Pi Press’s headline. The guy is sick either way.
I was more interested in the Lakeville principal’s handling of Christmas. I’d like to see the policy she wrote. According to KSTP’s story on this, which ran on 11/20, the new policy encouraged using the greeting “nature’s seasons” and banning red and green (which seems to contradict Thisweek’s story). Neither story includes the text of the policy, which leaves independent analysis impossible.
Based on KSTP’s story, the principal’s actions are b/s. Based on Thisweek, she was misunderstood. I would venture to guess that she went too far since I’m guessing the firestorm wasn’t fabricated over nothing.
Regardless, the over-secularization of Christmas is pretty ridiculous. What are people afraid of? Theology doesn’t belong in public schools, but trees and “Merry Christmas” are hardly religious. I couldn’t care less that the days of the week have pagan origins so I don’t see what the big deal is with Christmas’s Christian origins.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:30 am
It closed. The Timber Lodge that is. Never saw any talk about it here, but it was my Wife’s favorite place to go for her birthday. I wasn’t a fan myself. Apparently it closed on the 16th of November according to it’s Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Burnsville-MN/Timber-Lodge-Steakhouse-Burnsville/98101596738?v=info#/pages/Burnsville-MN/Timber-Lodge-Steakhouse-Burnsville/98101596738?v=wall
We had driven over on the 17th, and found it closed. Ended up going to Outback.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:40 am
I hope Hooters is next to be perfectly honest.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I have to drive by that area frequently and can second that with Hooters. It’s a horrible retail area though and Timber Lodge is now the second restaurant there to fail in the last year. The other 2 that are left are pretty miserable and by the looks of it the hotels there probably entertain more prostitutes and drug dealers than they do travelers coming through Burnsville.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Joey, what was the first?
Timber Lodge is now the second restaurant there to fail in the last year.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
LL Reader wins: http://www.lazylightning.org/pac-loses-minnehaha-comedy-club-to-new-venue#comment-29096
November 30th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Parrot Island was the other one.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Something like that anyway, my memory is fuzzy, I never went there. Might not have been a restaurant, looked like it from the outside though.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
It was a pet store which I believe specialized in birds.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Yeah, you’re right. Just looked it up…either way, there are a few too many empty storefronts there now.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Go back a few more years and I think it was an Embers. So you just need to lengthen your scope a few more years and you are right.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Yes, that was it. Thanks Thought Leader, I feel slightly less idiotic now!
November 30th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
No need to feel idiotic. Remember we have Mayor Kautz here in Burnsville and she has set the bar very high on the idiot scale. So your insignificant lapse of not recalling a failed establishment when multiple have occurred in just a few short years in the same location does not even register.
November 30th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Well you also have to remember that the mayor doesn’t know when a place is open or closed: http://www.lazylightning.org/burnsville-councilman-dan-gustafson-is-full-of-shit#comment-20959
November 30th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
And she had no clue that the Byerly’s on CR 42 was no longer open 24 hours and pretty much called the person who made the factual statement a liar during a meeting. But hey, Byerly’s is not in the HOC so why should she care?
November 30th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Wow Bill, uncanny memory.
Kautz is currently representing us in Europe on global warming. Aren’t you proud?
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/burnsville-mn-mayor-elizabeth-kautz-represents-us-mayors-at-eurocities-meeting-76397027.html
November 30th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I think restaurateurs need to give consumers more respect when it comes to online reviews. Like you, I’m not going to let the review of an unreasonable mother’s complain influence my decision to go to Meritage.