The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Kurt K. Kersten here (if there is a family tie, the records have been sealed somehwere in Miississippi, like at the bottom of it, ha, ha, no, you're kiling me, stop...)

Seriously, that is my name and I have been asked by the Road Rake to guest blog for the week.

Of course I am honored.

With consumers on the receiving end of an 87-octane enema for the last few months, it's understandable that various politicians would be spewing forth bile-filled diatribes laying blame for the current situation squarely at the feet of the opposition. Democrats are accused of being so "unmoved by the plight of hard-working Americans, they are unwilling to do anything to alleviate the pain." Republicans, of course, are "in the pockets of oil companies" and just trying to help their cronies reap a windfall at the

In the lean years that will soon follow, survivors will look back upon December 19, 2007 with pain and sorrow in their haunted eyes — for this day marked the beginning of the end. The Seventh Seal will soon be open, for the passage of the first increase in CAFÉ standards in more than 30 years

John Herou isn’t your typical electric-car ideologue. The founder of e-ride Industries possesses a bright strain of idealism to be sure, but fundamentally he’s a practical man, an inventor and classic car buff, more entrepreneur than tree hugger. The cars he builds, called neighborhood electric vehicles because by law they can go only twenty-five miles per hour and drive on streets with commensurate speed limits, are distinctly Minnesotan.

I’d read plenty about Buffalo Ridge, the windiest swath of Minnesota, located in the state’s grassy and treeless southwest quadrant, before I ever got there. I’d heard stories of hats blowing off, of windburn, of tumbleweeds that just kept tumbling. People living in the area are said to suffer perpetual bad hair days. But it was one thing to read about the place and quite another to be there. As I stepped out of my car, the February wind attacked viciously, whipping across my face. I was tempted to crawl back inside and duck for cover.