Obi Sium is running for Congress in Minnesota’s Fourth District, a seat currently held by liberal DFLer Betty (I don’t remember the words to the Pledge of Allegiance) McCollum who replaced the late Bruce Vento in the long-time DFL stronghold.



Sium is Eritrean by birth, a U.S. citizen by choice, a civil engineer by profession, and a Republican by philosophy. Oh, and a non-entity by the standards of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which has ignored his campaign except for a short article back in May that both announced and dismissed his candidacy.



Here then are a list of the top 10 things Obi can do to get the PiPress to cover him:

10. Go bar hopping with Mike Hatch’s daughters.



9. Go cruising with Norm Coleman’s dad.



8. Change his name to Obi Ventoson.



7. Say that the streets of St. Paul were laid out by drunken Irishmen.



6. Get bumper stickers that say, “What would Obi do?”



5. Promise to propose a nationwide smoking ban.



4. Propose raising taxes.



3. Call a press conference to criticize the President or the war.



2. Get Michael Brodkorb at Minnesota Democrats Exposed to mention him — and then wait three months for the PiPress to break the story.



…And the number one way he can get the Pioneer Press to cover him…



1. Call the newspaper and say he is “Obama.”

Kevin Ecker is trying to organize a Splatball (or Paintball) Battle Royale pitting the local lefty and righty MOBsters against each other on the field of valor and latex projectiles. So far the righties have shown more interest in getting all Pulp Fiction with it, while the other side appears to have its head tucked under its collective left wing.

If it’s an outdoor event I don’t know if I’ll be able to participate since running around on uneven terrain dodging sniper fire isn’t something on the approved activities list for my knee. I can’t, however, be called a “chickenhawk” because I actually have played splatball before. A few years ago an evening of splatball was the featured attraction of a bachelor party for a friend of mine. It was wintertime so we rented an indoor splatball arena, in this case a warehouse-sized building with an urban warfare motif inside featuring false building fronts, windows, doors, alleys and a no-man’s-land in the middle that also had some cover.

Former governor Jesse Ventura once said, “You haven’t hunted until you’ve hunted man,” and that was one of the few things he said that I could agree with. I’d never played splatball before that night and when the whistle blew to start the first game I got a rush of adrenaline unlike any I’d ever experienced playing football or basketball or even from getting into fights; the thought that someone I might not even be able to see might be drawing a bead on me at that very moment definitely got my heart pumping. I didn’t like the idea of standing still on defense so I decided to join a couple of guys who were going to try and get around the other team’s flank. To do so, however, I’d have to cross an open space about 10 feet wide. I took the first two steps of my dash…and took a paintball pellet on the forehead part of my visor. Actually it hit the air vent of the visor, and the paint dripped through the vent and into my eyes. Thirty seconds into the game and I was baptized, literally, by fire — and I hadn’t even fired a shot yet! The good, they die young.

Fortunately there were several more games to go and many more chances to get my licks in. One problem we were having, however, was that the temperature outside was about 20 below, and the warehouse was minimally heated. With all the energy we were expending the temperature wasn’t uncomfortable for us, but the plastic skin of the pellets we were shooting grew brittle and would rupture easily, squibbing your shot and jamming your gun when it happened. One time I had laboriously worked my way around and behind a guy on the other team; leaping out from cover I shouted, “Die, scum!” or something similar, triggering my gun as my opponent turned. Instead of hearing a satisfying, “pssshh-THWACK!” I heard a muffled blub and purple paint seeped out of my barrel while my would-be victim dove over a box and tried to return fire as I did my own disappearing act.

In another game, each side was allowed a “medic”; if you were hit you could get back in the game if your team’s medic could get over and touch you. Right off the bat this friend of mine took off on a banzai charge right at the middle of the other team’s defensive wall. He was shot down directly under the guns of the other team, and began calling for the medic. Our medic decided, however, that this was a terminal case and not worth picking up a few more welts in the attempt.

Another variation in the rules called for a player on each side, previously and secretly designated by the referee, to turncoat on his teammates. Unfortunately for me, the “spy” on our team was sharing a bunker with me as we tried to pick off any heads that popped up in the sector in front of us. In the middle of the battle I heard,

“Hey, John.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m the spy. Surrender?”

He held his gun on me, the barrel about a foot from my wide target, close enough to raise a welt the size of a popsicle. I considered.

“Ah, oui, mon ami,” I said.

All in all it was a very fun time and it took a couple of hours for my heart rate to return to normal afterwards, and another day or two for the various bumps and bruises on my body to fade. The memories haven’t faded yet, and I have warm thoughts of my night on the front lines. If I do it again, however, I’m going to be sure my ammo is warm, too.

An interesting and illuminating history lesson, courtesy of today’s The Writer’s Almanac. Check out the Wikipedia link in the article below for more details.

It was on this day in 1793 that Maximilien de Robespierre, became the head the Committee of Public Safety, which led to the Reign of Terror in France.

Robespierre had started out as an idealistic lawyer and judge. He was well known for representing poor people in court, and he often spoke out against the absolute authority of the king. Even after he became a public figure in Paris and Versailles, he lived an extremely frugal life. He lived as a lodger in the house of a carpenter. He worked on the first French constitution and fought for universal suffrage. He opposed all forms of religious and racial discrimination, taking the unpopular view that that even Jews and black slaves should be granted full citizenship.

After the French Revolution broke out, Robespierre was elected to the new National Convention, where he called for the execution of the king. He then worked to unify the various splinter groups within the revolution. At the time, France was being threatened by war with Austria. There was also a great fear of civil war breaking out between the various revolutionary factions. In his diary, Robespierre wrote, “What is needed is one single will.”

And so, a man who had fought for constitutional democracy and universal citizenship found himself helping to organize a military dictatorship. On this day in 1793, he took his place on the Committee of Public Safety, which would rule France for the next year. And in order to keep French citizens in line, Robespierre advocated the use of the guillotine, a new machine that was supposed to make all executions efficient and humane. The guillotine was set up in the Place de la Révolution, which later became the Place de la Concorde, and over the next year more than 2,000 people were beheaded for having opposed the Revolution.

At first Robespierre executed people who had supported the monarchy. But then he began to execute revolutionaries who were too moderate. And finally, he began to execute people who had merely opposed him on one issue or another. Eventually, members of the National Convention began to realize that no one was safe, and even they could be the next victims. So they turned on Robespierre. Exactly one year, to the day, after he had taken control of the Committee of Public Safety, he was arrested, and the day after his arrest he went to the guillotine himself.

For more than a year Robespierre had been executing people in the public square to cheering crowds. When Robespierre went to his own death at the guillotine, onlookers said the crowd cheered just as loudly as ever.

Samuel L. Jackson will be the voice of God on a new CD version of the New Testament due to be released this September. (HT: Robbo at The Llama Butchers.)

It sounds logical; Morgan Freeman has already played God (and George Burns is dead), and the producers must have liked Jackson’s reading of “I will strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brother and you will know my name is THE LORD when I lay my vengeance upon you.”

I guess I buy it; about the only person cooler than Samuel L. Jackson is God, but doesn’t it make you kind of wonder who’s been cast for the other roles?

Who’s Satan, Mr. T — or Gilbert Gottfried? (Though I might characterize that voice as being more like Barry White’s.) How about Jon Lovitz as Judas, and William F. Buckley for the Apostle Paul?

As for voicing Jesus himself, Brad Pitt would be great box office, but I’d prefer E.F. Hutton. After all, as the old commercials always said, “When E.F.Hutton talks, people listen.”

Today’s Strib has the details on the sentencing of a man who pled guilty to helping his wife and her teenaged sons kidnap two young women who where then prostituted and used as sex slaves until one escaped and brought the situation to light. Newspaper accounts suggest that the wife was the ringleader.

Lamiea Kerschbaum, Kerschbaum’s wife, has been charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment and is in the Ramsey County jail awaiting a competency hearing on July 26. She recently spent months at the state mental hospital in St. Peter being evaluated…

…Investigators think the Kerschbaums used pistol whippings, drugs and threats of voodoo to keep the girls under their control.

While her husband and one of her sons have pled guilty, Lamiea Kerschbaum’s trial has yet to begin.

Lamiea? That sounds an awful lot like one of the recent “Challenging Word of the Week” entries I posted back in May. An excerpt:

Lamia
(LAY mee uh)noun

The lamiae, in classical mythology, were a race of monsters with female heads and breasts and the bodies of serpents, who enticed young people and little children in order to devour them. The story went that the original lamia was a Queen of Libya with whom Jupiter fell in love. Juno became furiously jealous and stole the children of the queen, who went mad and vowed vengeance on all children. Lamia became a term for any vampire or she-demon. The literal meaning of lamia in Greek is “female man-eater.” In medieval times, witches were sometimes called lamiae.

Note to soon-to-be parents considering names for your impending children: if you see “Lamiea” or something similar in the baby name book you just might want to cross that one off the list.

My first job was pumping gas at my father’s gas station, back in 1970. The price per gallon fluctuated, but was usually around 34 cents. Gas stations competed for customers then, offering full service window-washing and offers to check the oil and tires. We also awarded Top Valu stamps and frequently gave out promotional gifts like glassware and steakknives, or had game pieces to attract repeat customers.

When the ’73 OPEC oil embargo came along the availability of gasoline dropped, the price shot up, and my dad happily trashed the Top Valu stamp machine. The new price of gas was shocking – as much as 42 or 44 cents per gallon (41.9 and 43.9 cents, actually), and consumers were very price sensitive. We once had our price at .41 and our driveway was crammed with cars while the driveway of the station across the street — at .43 — was as barren as the ANWR during the caribou’s non-breeding season. As I recall, I was also making less than $2 an hour back then.

Ah, the good old days, eh?

Not necessarily, even with gas pushing or exceeding $3 per gallon. A National Policy Analysis report by David Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research has an interesting comparison between the price of gas and other commodities in April of 1981 and today. According to data he cites from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gas (sans taxes) in ’81 was around $1.26, which would be $2.83 in inflation-adjusted dollars today. Yet the average cost per gallon of regular unleaded (pre-tax) in May of this year was $2.29, about 19% below the adjusted cost. Furthermore, he indicates that in the late 70s and early 80s the adjusted cost was regularly over $2 per gallon, while the .25 per gallon pre-tax cost of gasoline in 1922 is the equivalent of $3 today.

By comparison, the report shows that a half-gallon of milk in 1981 cost $1.12, and $2.09 in May of this year. Both milk and gasoline have increased at slower rates than inflation over this time, but milk prices have increased at a slightly greater rate than gasoline. I figure we don’t notice this so much because we rarely buy 20 gallons of milk a week. (But can you imagine a “Got Gas?” advertising campaign?)

Another popular commodity, bread, has also increased 103 percent in the past 25 years, which is about 8% below the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, the cost of postage-stamps offered by our government-run monopoly have just about matched inflation over the same period.

While it’s never fun to pay out the big bucks at the gas station, the impact on the family budget hasn’t been as extreme as it might appear. Furthermore, we can be very glad that our cars don’t run on bottled water, which on a gallon-to-gallon basis is nearly three times that of gasoline. As Ridenour notes:

If I’m not mistaken, water is the most abundant resource on the planet, it is not controlled by a cartel, its known reserves are not limited primarily to volatile areas of the world and it requires substantially less refinement than gasoline to bring to market.

Anyone interested in getting into the Big Water bidness with me?

I’ll be back at Keegan’s tonight for the first time in five weeks (sans Diva, who has to work).

Is the patio open yet?

An interesting juxtaposition from today’s The Writer’s Almanac:

We don’t know when Adam Smith (books by this author), was born, but it was on this day in 1723 that Smith, the economist who popularized the idea of free trade, was baptized in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. His first important book was The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), in which he argued that all people are selfish, but that the combined selfishness of many people benefits everyone. He wrote, “[We are] led by an invisible hand … without knowing it, without intending it, [to] advance the interest of the society.” He developed this idea in the book for which he is best remembered, Wealth of Nations (1776). That book established many of the most important principles for economists for the next two hundred years.

Adam Smith wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Today is also the birthday of the economist John Maynard Keynes, (books by this author), born in Cambridge, England (1883). He’s best known for his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published during the Great Depression in 1935. He argued that governments can correct severe depressions by spending lots of money, even if it means running a deficit, to put people back to work. Keynes greatly influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, and his ideas have been used to justify budget deficits ever since.

It’s well worth following the links to read more about these men and their work, especially the section in the Keynes link that describes his relationship with Friedrich von Hayek and their commentary on the book, “The Road to Serfdom”.

Onboard Northwest flight 43 en route to Minneapolis from London-Gatwick. We’ve got 7 hours and 58 minutes of flying time; substantially more than the battery life on my laptop, but I’ll offer some encapsulated thoughts and observations on our trip.