Vikes stadium post: just hold your nose, vote no

Despite what Klout might have you believe, Bluestem's editor is agnostic about nearly all sports. She supposes they exist, but doesn't care. For public investment, though, one might use a rational standard rather than personal taste, and so Bluestem simply wanted a good deal.

This stadium doesn't seem like it--and the jobs it create? Those building trades workers could just as well build and fix up roads and schools if the political courage to fund these things were there. 

Our colleague on the Range, Aaron Brown, says it better than BSP can in his post today, Fear and wolving in Minnesota, though we think there's good reason to hunt wolves. But this stadium? Brown writes:

And for those scoring at home, large groups of people chanting in the halls of the legislature on behalf of education are socialists. But when they are wearing football jerseys and asking for similar amounts of money to build a Colosseum for a privately-held gladiator farm, it's about jobs. Oh, and state pride.

I'd trade the Vikings for a competitive world class education system. A good high school can give you a year's worth of sports entertainment, speech, theater, music and marching band. A citizen can be entertained 365 days of the year by a strong local school. That is, if preparing a whole generation for a better life isn't enough for you. I understand the delicate partisan political gamesmanship that brought us to this point, but that doesn't mean we should celebrate what appears to be a massive systemic failure.

Brown is far more sensitive than Bluestem with that last sentence. Let us be more blunt:

I get what brought you to this point, but don't ask me to cheer your flustercuck.

Photo swiped from the AP via Newsday.

 

Comments

[Phoenix Woman]

The sad thing is that the same groups that rigged the Boondoggle Bridge deal in Stillwater are also behind the Wilfare Payments deal that just passed -- and for the same reason: J-O-B-S. Even if only temporary. Even if (as in the case of the bridge) the temporary jobs come at the cost of destroying the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the city the bridge was allegedly intended to "save".