70-pound carp lashes back at Dayton over speech

When Gov. Mark Dayton delivered his State of the State address on Wednesday, many would rightly have focused on the policies or political nuance.

I am unable to let go of one section of Dayton’s speech:

Minnesota has a proud history of tackling environmental problems and finding effective solutions. When I was a boy in the 1950’s, our neighboring town of Long Lake was dumping its untreated sewage into its namesake, Long Lake. It produced giant, 70 pound carp, for unsuspecting customers in Japan; but it made the lake unfishable and unswimmable for humans. A modern waste-water treatment plant starved the carp, but saved the humans. That was progress.

I realize this is a real story and it belies an environmental point of view I find admirable. But it reads straight out of a science fiction story. I tried listening to it, too, but that was no better.

Dayton was all …

But that couldn’t have sat well with the carp …

Outrageous! Which would have made Dayton say

Is that really the first thing you say to a talking fish, though? Never mind, so the carp says

The paradigm shifts

The carp was having none of that.

Now it appears that this spat is based on conflicting views of the world, the subjective nature of interpreting the past.

Ah, but beneath the sea the skies are deep and deadly.

~fin~