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

 'Tis the season again.  Atheists, free thinkers, and other assorted non-Christians purposely sit out the most over-blown religious holiday of the year.  Some are passionate in their non-participation; others simply watch the procession from the sidelines.  While some have pointed out the incongruity of an ostensibly secular government proclaiming Christ's birth a national holiday, others have countered that such observations constitute a war on Christmas.  When we consider the drain on the environment and checkbook that is Christmas, coupled with the overt religiou

While it is impolitic for one person in advertising to criticize another's "work,"* I feel that the rules are different when the effort in question is produced by a conglomerate.

(* It is also only fair to submit a competing idea, as I will do. Maybe it sucks more. So. I live here too.) 

I am questioning the effort put forth recently by a number of design and public relations firms (at the pleasure of Rybak and that guy in St. Paul) to promote Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The theme is "MSP. More to LIfe."  

What?

One muggy Minnesota morning during the summer straddling the scrawny divide between my fanciful childhood and jaded adolescence, my best friend Robby and I found religion. It'd been hiding, not surprisingly, inside the whitewashed pine chapel of Lake Bronson Galilee Lutheran Bible Camp.

I have been struck by lightning.

BMW now apparently wants the Popemobile biz (proposal depicted above). As a Mercedes (exclusive builders of Vatican limos for an eternity) owner, I pray for an intercession.

As no self-respecting Swabian would be seen in a high-end Manure Wagen, neither should His Most Holy Benedict.

The first time it happened, he was sitting in the kitchen behind me.

I was at the counter cutting vegetables for dinner when my older son said, "When God talked to me earlier today, before I went to school..."

That's how he spoke as a child. He was only 11, but his diction was formal, biblical almost, and he habitually attached clauses to make his points more precise. If he heard from God, it would be important to know not only that it was today and that it was early but also that it had occurred before school.

The place was mostly filled up by five o’clock, with solemn-eyed hipsters, middle-schoolers, and graying seniors seated on a motley assortment of older sofas arranged in rings. Wine bottles and plump bread loaves sat on scattered coffee tables, which, along with antique rugs and lamps, contributed to the overall feel of a living room (albeit a sizable one). A man with slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair half-shouted greetings to a gangly youngster.

One morning last summer, leaving my apartment on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, I noticed there weren’t many people outside. It was a fine June day, but there wasn’t the usual line of cars in front of Starbucks. No commuters schlepping insulated mochas, no dog walkers, no window washers at Cafe Latté, and no one else waiting for the 7:23 bus to downtown Minneapolis.

You know, this is just too easy.

In case you missed Kersten today, the topic is "Why St. Thomas University is going to hell in a handbasket". The short answer is, (and I'm only telling you this because reading the column will just cause you to think ill of thoughtful Catholics) because they don't have the archbishop of St. Paul as an automatic member of the university board of directors any more.

But, in good conscience, I can't spare you the punch lines.

Number one:

I made a mistake the other day and accidentally tuned in to KTLK and whatever right-wing boob they have on during the late morning. With a little checking after I got back to the office, I found his name is Dan Conry, and he has, like so many of his ilk, the IQ and eloquence of a doorknob…or of Katherine Kersten, whichever is higher.

For he was haranguing about Kersten’s column of Monday, in which she asserted (surprise) that the government was out to take your kids and brainwash them.

Until last week, everything I knew about Scientology came from Tom Cruise on Oprah, and from an experience I had last summer.