You know, it’s not necessarily cool to idolize the late Louisiana Gov. and Sen. Huey Long, who was assassinated at the peak of his power in 1935. Most people don’t know who he was and, technically speaking, he was a corrupt despot. But he took a poor state, Louisiana, and brought it from one century into the next when most folks thought it’d be stuck back there forever. How? He just did it. He got the money and he built the roads, schools and hospitals. It was ugly. He fought powerful interests and used rough tactics. But his name is still on all the stuff in Louisiana.
Today, we have paved roads in northern Minnesota. They’re not always great and should be improved, but they are paved. No one could fathom forcing rural Minnesota to go without paved roads just because they weren’t close to the Twin Cities. Without these paved roads, we’d be mired in poverty forever just as Louisiana seemed to be in the 1930s when Long was governor and the rural roads were so bad farmers couldn’t move their crops.
Well, today, the most pressing issue isn’t unpaved roads. The issue is affordable high-speed internet access for every Minnesota (heck, American) at work and at home. It’s the new utility that will bring us from one century into the next. It is a very expensive concept with millions of miles of cable to install. There are a lot of reasons not to do it, but those reasons will all seem pretty silly when the Internet — and thus the economy — is controlled by other countries in the future, counties that invested in high-speed internet throughout their population.
Here’s a practical op-ed by the Blandin Foundation’s Jim Hoolihan that ran in Wednesday’s Pioneer Press regarding rural broadband. This is the first step toward what must be done. It’s what Huey would do. We have access to as much or more resources in northern Minnesota than Huey did in Louisiana 1930. We could build the best rural internet network in the country. Not because our retiree population demands it (they don’t), but because that’s what needs to happen to make this region competitive in the future.
Your pornography addiction is not as important as paved roads.
Thanks for lowering the tone, Paul. I can always count on you.
Actually, I work from home as an online college instructor, which is my real (and tax deductable) reason for wanting faster and more reliable internet at home. In the future, people who work in jobs like mine can live anywhere they want. Rural northern Minnesota is a great place to live … if you have a job. If we get a broadband network people will figure this out soon.
Oh, hell. Why I am even trying to argue? Once the word “porn” enters a discussion everything falls apart. Thanks, Paul.
I enjoyed your historical perspective and couldn’t agree more with the sentiment. In August, I left my home in St Paul to live in Dublin for a year. Thanks to decent broadband in Dublin (and a job that’s primarily online) my work transition has been almost seamless. I talk to clients via email or Skype. If it weren’t for the time difference I think many people would be unaware of my location.
With the broadband infrastructure in place, Northern Minnesota would have a lot to offer to a tech-based consultant like me or to larger businesses with a need for home-based workers. With broadband, Minnesota could be an international player!
If we felt like a theme song would help – I vote for “a little less hooey a little more Huey” sung to the tune of “little less talk a little more action”.
I work extensively with rural communities on the broadband issue, some of it on behalf of the Blandin Foundation. This is an issue that communities across Minnesota and across the world are facing. I met yesterday in Lac qui Parle County in western Minnesota with a group of more than 30 community leaders just beginning to consider their situation and their options.
It will be helpful to have some aggressive state policies that will support the pursuit of high speed broadband here in Minnesota.