This morning Bruce Anderson, Eric Johnson, John Stull, and I met with Northfield mayor Lee Lansing as a follow-up to our February 12 proposal to the city council to create a city Nonmotorized Transportation Advisory Board. Mayor Lansing stated his concerns about creating a new board, particularly his feeling that he did not want to take staff and council time away from the many other issues the city is dealing with. He also stated that he did not think a new permanent advisory board would meet with council approval.

He did speak in favor of creating a task force to address the issue, possibly of one year in duration. We advocates were in agreement that this seemed the best approach to take. The mayor seemed to like our idea that the task force might include neighboring towns such as Dundas and Bridgewater Township. I mentioned that the city of Edina, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, has created the Bike Edina Taskforce, which has an ambitious agenda to create a city bike plan and to apply for specific grants. See also the Bike Edina web site.

We left the meeting promising to write up some documents that outline the mission and specific goals of a task force. The next step would be to get approval of the new group from city councils.

Today’s Northfield News contains an article that briefly covers my February 12 presentation to the Northfield City Council, in which I proposed creating a city Nonmotorized Transportation Advisory Board. The article is accurate when it states that council members “seemed hesitant” to create a new advisory board. It does not, however, mention some of the positive things that council members said about such a board. Also, it does not mention that the city Park and Recreation Advisory Board voted in favor of creating the new board.

One of the most important news items this past month, in my opinion, was the February 2 release of a report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This was the panel’s fourth report. Here is an overview of the report’s conclusions from the Wikipedia entry on the IPCC: Read the rest of this entry »

We had a big snowstorm here in the Upper Midwest this past weekend. First ice arrived on Friday night, then snow on Saturday and Sunday, and even today a little snow was still falling. Winona, in southeastern Minnesota, had nearly 30 inches of snow, while other parts of the state generally had from 5 to 15 inches. The weather forecasters largely got this one right. In drought-stricken northern Minnesota, the storm brought needed moisture. Wisconsin also got a great deal of snow.

I took advantage of the snow and did some urban cross country skiing on Sunday. There was enough white stuff for me to ski on streets and sidewalks until I could make it to some open areas.

Another storm is likely to hit on Wednesday and Thursday. Boy, am I glad I put winter tires on our car. More on that in a future post.

Meteorologist Paul Douglas offered an overview of the stretch of cold weather that ended last weekend: “As of Monday morning, the [Twin Cities] area had experienced 23 days in a row below freezing; 38 of the past 39 days were subfreezing.”

This week has been a welcome respite from the cold, though now a big snow storm is likely this weekend.

I haven’t written much about my own faith in this blog. In part that comes from me being respectful of the diversity of readers out there, but it also arises from my own lack of experience and uncomfortability in speaking about my faith and an awkwardness in doing so in our multicultural, largely secular culture. To speak about Christianity is to broach a fraught subject; it also means using a discourse that has often been misused, one that many people cannot listen to without hearing chords of self-righteous judgment and even bigotry. Read the rest of this entry »

From his StarTribune weather column of February 13, 2007:

The combination of geography (bowl-shape terrain that allows cold air to collect), sparse vegetation and a lack of towns nearby makes Embarrass one of the lower 48 states’ coldest spots.

On the evening of Monday, February 12, I made a presentation to the city council of Northfield, Minnesota, where I live, proposing the creation of a Nonmotorized Transportation Advisory Board. I was speaking as a resident and as a volunteer with RENew Northfield. Joining me in the audience were other interested citizens who support the proposal: Bruce Anderson, Charlie Stark, John Stull, Eric Johnson, Randy Perkins, and Dave Davison.

From my impression, the proposal got a mixed response from the council – some interest mixed with concern about stretching staff and council time and commitments too thin across too many boards and commissions. Mayor Lee Lansing suggested the option of creating a temporary task force.

Now those of us advocating for the board need to talk some more and see where to go next with this. Thanks to those who helped prepare for this meeting, including Bruce Anderson for making the Powerpoint slides for the presentation.

I wanted to share the quote below from my pastor, Clay Oglesbee. It’s from his blog, Soul to Sole:

Humility is a matter of claiming in our own current awareness that which we have done or said and lived to regret, as well as that which, wisely anticipated, we do not wish to experience in the future.

I recommend this beautifully written essay on the recently deceased celebrity. I particularly liked these words on the two Annas, younger Playboy centerfold and older reality-show actress:

what’s striking is how in these two incarnations she traveled light years from unattainable fantasy to attainable mope, snaring wildly different audiences in each orbit. Is there any other such journey in cheesecake history? I imagine neither crowd liked the “other” Anna, particularly not the sweaty strict constructionists who’d rebel at the idea of their fantasy amazon going post-modern schlub.

I love the image and sound of “sweaty strict constructionists.”