The Klobuchars

I hope local yokel Amy Klobuchar gets the vote for US Senate instead of the cross-eyed toadie Mark Kennedy. Klobuchar has huge name recognition in Minnesota, partly because of her father's popularity as a newspaper columnist, environmentalist, and radio host. Jim Klobuchar, a former sportswriter for the Minneapolis StarTribune, wrote one of my favorite columns of all time, essentially lifting the veil for me behind the marketing of sports team "homerism". His main premise still holds true: if sports writers never wrote up close and personal stories documenting athletes' private lives, no sports fan would ever care which team wins or loses. Every big-time sporting franchise would lose a significant fraction of their die-hard fanatics because the players would become nameless automatons.

I use to live and die according to the machinations of the Twins and Vikings, but no more. But by effortlessly ignoring whatever some sports hack writes about a millionaire ballplayer going to some children's hospital as a charitable action, I brush off the success or failure of my hometown teams.

Klobuchar wrote about a taboo topic -- that which no sane (i.e. gutless) sports writer should talk about. That kind of journalistic honesty rarely shows up in the big media and in his own way spoke truth to power.

Oh and by the way, Amy Klobuchar, as a Democrat, understands all the important energy issues that a Republican's corporate and 'minionist walking papers would never reveal. I trust she also inherited some of her father's honesty and integrity, and will speak truth to power in much the same way.