So Tony, you can join me in my upcoming blog post criticizing the paper but if you apologize for your Maggie remark, we won’t send Guido over to your house with a baseball bat.

The fish wrap factory, in this town, has always been a place where purple haired old ladies write about their cats.

This annoys me for two reasons. First, “fish wrap factory”–if one is being critical of someone’s writing, I’d expect a comparison less tired than “fish wrap” for a newspaper.

More importantly, the put down of Maggie is uncalled for. She’s a treasure. Check out this exert from her column from her last column. Maggie recounts this from May 1957–you can’t beat this:

“The killing by police of Ytterboe, dog who had been adopted in 1946 as the official St. Olaf campus mascot, caused a massive protest in downtown Northfield. Although a city ordinance required that dogs be tied up during the month of May, Ytterboe was digging in the flower garden of a home adjacent to the college campus. When the owner’s seven year old son tried to shoe him away, Ytterboe nipped the child’s forearm. It was not a serious bite, but police were called. They tried to trap the dog with a snare, but he alluded them, abetted by numerous college students. While about 50 students watched, police then shot and killed Ytterboe on the lawn of Rolvaag Memorial Library and hauled the dog’s body to the city dump.

About a half hour later, throngs of students protested at police headquarters in the Community Building (now the Northfield Arts Guild headquarters in downtown Northfield) and a fabric dummy representing the policeman who shot the dog, was burned on bridge square. The following day an impressive funeral was held on the St. Olaf campus and the dog was buried on the library lawn, attracting national news coverage.”

Thanks for the info on your KYMN show. I had no idea. Why not create a podcast for it for those of us who can’t listen at those hours? I’m sure KYMN would give you an MP3 of the show. That’s all you need, other than a little geeky-type work.

As to the KYMN Radio entertainment show, it’s “What’s Happening Downtown. I shamelessly steal (with permission) information from By All Means Graphics’ Entertainment Guide but add my own information and personal editorials and stories. The show is live on Friday mornings at 8:45 am with rebroadcasts at 5:00-ish and then again on Saturday mornings at 8:45 am. It is sponsored by the NDDC, By All Means and the local places that sponsor music (pubs, bars, etc) Tune in!! By the way, Paul Grandquist follows on Friday mornings with her shw, Art Zany–Radio for the Imagination, which is a wonderful celebration of art and music and creativity in Northfield–so there’s some swell programming at 1080 on your am dial. (Not to mention Wayne’s show every week day from 9-11. but that’s another story that needs to be told)

I should have taken those comments to Mr. Gett personally.

I do wanted to say, that I got in touch with Mr. Gett today, and we had an excellent conversation about the current status of the paper, and my issues. I also accepted an offer to be put on a reader advisory panel, so that I can work as a part of a team to improve the paper.

I have also renewed my subscription.

I try to live by the motto that one should not complain, unless one is willing to do something about it. Well, I will take my complaints internal, and work to help get them resolved.

Thanks for your time. Griff, Ross, and Tracy, thanks for your help.

-J

Mary, good to hear that KYMN delivered. But do tell us about your Friday morning show. With no KYMN website, how are we supposed to know?

Have a good day.

The other day, I mentioned that noise affects the citizens. But there’s more to it than that…

I wrote an article back in September of last year, about how loud noises in Northfield can have a negative impact on businesses and economic development.

It’s a real problem, and I’m happy people are noticing.