I am the 15%...Who Voted

There are Occupy Wallstreeters that are concerned about the 99%.  Well, I’m concerned about the 85% - the percentage of people that didn’t vote in Tuesday’s local election

Elections in my house are commonly referred to the Super Bowl – and not because both highlight people with a horrendous tendency to commit sexual misconduct (see: Cain, Herman; Clinton, Bill; Roethlisberger, Ben; and Favre, Brett).  However, on Tuesday the local election results were not the top story on WCCO’s 10 o’clock new…or the second or third.  It took until about 10 minutes into the newscast for Frank and Amelia to report that it was Election Day.

Road Ragin'

So Ann Arbor has been having a bit of a pedestrian crisis over the last couple of weeks. It seems like a good chunk of it was spurred on by this video (I’ll let you judge for yourself), but there is definitely some truth to the idea that many parts of Ann Arbor just aren’t very pedestrian friendly.

The question for the city then is how to fix this problem and the answers – at least so far – have been fairly predictable. More laws and more money.

The Springsteen Draft

Ed Note: This post is based on a draft conducted between Joe and Patrick over 20 days in July. For ten rounds, Patrick would pick a song followed by Joe. At the end, the song lists were compared by an impartial expert and Patrick was declared the winner. What follows is those picks and the authors' commentary. Special thanks to Christine Duda for being that impartial expert.
Go ahead and pick your own winner in the poll on our sidebar.

Round 1
Patrick Carter: Badlands
Joey Labuz: Rosalita

JL: Gotta admit, this was a Mario Williams-scale surprise for me. The very first pick in the draft with so many songs to choose from and Carter takes...the song I had always though of as The Promised Land’s little brother. It’s a good song, and the crowd is certainly rocking, I just don’t think any song set in South Dakota can hold a candle to Rosie.
PC: There are two reasons that this version of Badlands was the first pick: its an instrumental jam session and the fans in Barcelona.  Ok, so most versions of Badlands are jam sessions, but the crowd in this video is amazing.  Howabout that version of “Rosie”? Wow.  Speaking of fans, I wise I were at this concert: Bruce and the boys playing follow the leader and hide-and-go-seek while playing - incredible.

Tobacco ban should go up in smoke

First off, I would like to acknowledge that this is a post about chewing tobacco and dip in baseball. I know neither of those involve smoke - I just needed a good title.

"Smokeless" tobacco is no better than cigars. Or cigarettes. Chewing tobacco is just generally bad for you (apologies for the strange voice-overs).

Since it is bad, America does not want its children to pick up the habit. Happy to play the part of Helen Lovejoy are Reps. Henry Waxman and Frank Pallone. They want Bud Selig*, Major League Baseball, and the players union to ban smokeless tobacco from the field.**