Otter Ranch

Ms. Mullein, Where Are You? Another Love Letter To Mullein
By Wayne Stephen

Every day this summer I've been scanning our backyard for mullein.

Nothing.

Not one.

And I've been waiting.

Last year she came strutting into the yard in all her strange, statuesque glory—tall, soft, wild, those long silver-green leaves and that ridiculous golden stalk reaching toward the sky.

Mullein doesn't exactly blend in.

She makes an entrance.

And goddamn...she's beautiful.

This isn't my first love letter to mullein, either.

I've written about her before.

I can't help it. She's got a helluva resume.

Those soft, almost absurdly fuzzy leaves have a long history in traditional herbal remedies, especially teas and preparations for coughs and irritated throats. That towering stalk becomes a little high-rise of yellow flowers that bees and other insects work their way up all summer. Birds will eventually pick at the seeds. And she'll happily grow in some miserable patch of disturbed dirt where fussier plants would take one look around and ask to speak to management.

Beauty, usefulness, resilience....

What's not to love?

This morning I was walking the country road we live on, past the big meadows up the way—rolling acres on both sides—and caught myself looking for her there, too.

A couple....way out there. But barely.

And of course the neighbors are tryin'da run a golf course, so there's sure as hell no mullein over there.

But that's when it hit me:

I've been waiting for her.

The way I once waited for that little red fox to come back.

The way I still wonder about the yearling doe and whether she made it through another winter.

Something wild shows up often enough around here and apparently I get attached.

And now I'm like some nervous fourteen-year-old sitting by the telephone waiting for Darcee to call.

C'mon, mullein.... Where are you?

Come on, girl.

Show yourself.

You tease.

And then— Easy, Wayne....

Did you just catcall a w**d?

Well, s**t....

Apparently even the flora isn't safe from the male gaze.

I'm fifty-five years old. I should know better.

I should examine my language.

Interrogate my assumptions.

Reflect.

Grow.

Do the work.

And I did.

For several seconds.

Then I looked back across the meadow.

Ms. Mullein?...

C'mon, girl.

Don't be like that.

You know you look good.

THE LEFT THAT NEVER WAS
A Shot Across the Bow
A Political Polemic
By Wayne Stephen

Shot fired. Across the bow. And frankly, it was fired a long fu***ng time ago.

The Democratic establishment just keeps pretending it didn't hear it.

Something is happening in America that our political class—and especially the comfortable old guard of the Democratic Party—seems absolutely determined not to understand.

People are moving left.

Not everybody. Not overnight. And certainly not because America has suddenly undergone some great Marxist awakening.

They're moving left because they're beginning to realize something much simpler:

Because millions of people are beginning to realize that much of what they've been taught to fear as radical leftism isn't fu***ng radical at all. Healthcare. Strong unions. Affordable housing. Living wages. Public education. Taxing extreme wealth. Keeping corporate power from swallowing democratic government whole.
Which leads to a much more uncomfortable realization:

America never had a Left.

Not a powerful one. Not one capable of seriously challenging concentrated wealth, corporate power, our private healthcare empire, the military-industrial complex, or an economy that creates extraordinary wealth while millions of Americans remain one bad month away from financial disaster.

We were told we had a Left. Jesus Christ, were we told.

For decades, Americans were warned about the terrifying radicals lurking inside the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, those terrifying radicals were proposing s**t like healthcare, affordable college, paid family leave, higher wages, stronger unions, affordable housing, taxing billionaires and making corporations pay taxes.

And, apparently most radical of all:

Stop fu***ng bombing people.

Which brings us to Palestine.

Because you CANNOT understand what's happening inside the Democratic Party—especially among younger Americans—without Gaza.

For decades, Americans were handed an extraordinarily skewed and propagandized range of opinions about Israel. Republicans supported Israel. Democrats supported Israel. Presidents supported Israel. Congress supported Israel. Weapons kept moving. Money kept moving. And AIPAC, its political network and the larger universe of wealthy pro-Israel donors and organizations made absolutely fu***ng certain Washington understood the political consequences of stepping outside that consensus.

Then Gaza happened, AGAIN, and millions of Americans watched it unfold on their phones.

Dead children. Destroyed neighborhoods. Hospitals devastated. Families buried beneath rubble. Starvation. Displacement.

Again and again and again.

Apartheid.

Whatever Washington wanted to call it, people could see what was happening. And something broke.

The old language stopped working. The old accusations stopped working. The old gaslighting stopped working.

Criticizing the Israeli government is not antisemitism. Opposing Zionism as a political project is not hatred of Jewish people. Demanding Palestinian freedom is not support for Hamas. And saying American weapons should not be used to destroy Palestinian civilian life should never have been considered a radical fu***ng proposition.

Yet much of the Democratic establishment behaved as though questioning America's virtually unconditional relationship with Israel represented some terrifying departure from respectable politics.

That's the problem.

A country of roughly ten million people has managed to exercise extraordinary influence over the foreign policy of the most powerful nation on Earth. Not through some mystical conspiracy, but through something considerably less mysterious:

American politics.

Lobbying. Campaign spending. Super PACs. Donor networks. Access. Primary challenges. Political pressure.

The same machinery Americans understand perfectly well when the subject is oil, pharmaceuticals, insurance, defense contractors or Wall Street.

But mention Israel? Suddenly everybody was supposed to pretend money had stopped influencing Washington.

Bulls**t.

Gaza ripped the curtain down.

And then there was Kamala Harris.

Some of us were screaming about this for months: "Stop taking the fu***ng money!!!"

Stop allowing the Democratic Party to remain financially entangled with AIPAC, its political network and the enormous pro-Israel donor machine surrounding American elections. Break with Netanyahu. Stop sending the weapons. Condemn what was happening to Palestinians in Gaza. Show people—especially young people—that there was actually a line the Democratic Party would not cross for donors, political convenience or some sacred Washington consensus inherited from another fu***ng century.

She wouldn't do it. The party wouldn't do it.

The money and political support flowing through that ecosystem remained part of Democratic politics, while Harris refused to make the clean break with America's support for Israel that millions of voters were demanding.

And then Kamala Harris lost.

To Donald. Fu***ng. Trump.

And she didn't go down alone. Hell no.

She may have ruined Tim Walz's political future with her loss.

Walz came into that campaign and gave it something it desperately needed: life. He was plainspoken, funny, Midwestern, comfortable in his own skin, he had the bonafides, and for a brief moment he made the whole goddamn thing feel human again. He attached his wagon to Harris, defended the ticket, inherited its decisions and ultimately inherited its defeat.

That cost him.

And the bill will eventually come due for Minnesotans, too—especially Minneapolis. Because when national ambition pulls a governor into a losing presidential campaign, the political consequences don't simply disappear when the campaign signs come down. That s**t follow him home...

That's what makes the Harris failure bigger than Harris. Political cowardice has collateral damage. It damages movements. It damages promising political careers. And eventually, it can damage the people those politicians came home to govern.

The Democratic Party faced a man it had spent years correctly describing as an existential threat to American democracy—and still couldn't bring itself to say:

Maybe we should stop alienating our own fu***ng voters over Benjamin Netanyahu.

Palestine alone did not cost Harris the presidency. But Democratic leadership would be fu***ng insane to conclude there was no lesson there.

Because Palestine became something larger than Palestine.

It became a window.

People looked through it and saw how American power actually works: lobbying, donor influence, weapons manufacturers, super PACs, politicians terrified of crossing organizations capable of spending enormous sums in American elections. They saw Republicans and Democrats suddenly speaking almost the same language. They saw American weapons and Palestinian bodies, and then watched Washington explain why none of these things were supposed to be connected.

Bulls**t.

People connected them anyway.

And they started asking the same inconvenient question they were already asking about healthcare, housing, wages and Wall Street:

Who the f**k does this government actually work for?

That's the connective tissue.

Bernie Sanders. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Zohran Mamdani. Graham Platner. The movement we're watching in Michigan.

Different people, places and constituencies.
Same fu***ng tremor.

Despite years of being told these people and their ideas are too radical, too dangerous, too socialist, too unelectable, too far outside the American mainstream... people keep showing up for them.

That's the part Washington should probably start paying attention to, because this isn't merely about personalities. It's about what they represent.

What ties this emerging Left together isn't simply socialism.

It's a rejection of bulls**t.

Economic bulls**t. Corporate bulls**t. Military bulls**t. Lobbying bulls**t. And the neoliberal bulls**t that tells ordinary people structural change is impossible while somehow finding trillions of dollars, weapons, tax breaks and political will whenever powerful institutions need something.

People are tired of being told the only politically responsible position is somewhere between a Republican Party disappearing into authoritarian madness and a Democratic establishment nervously checking with its donors to determine exactly how much economic justice—or Palestinian humanity—is electorally permissible this quarter.

That's not a political spectrum.

That's a hostage negotiation.

For most of my lifetime, the center of American political gravity has been dragged steadily to the right while virtually every attempt to pull it back has been described as dangerous left-wing extremism.

Eventually people started asking a very inconvenient question:

Left of what?

Left of billionaires buying elections?

Pharmaceutical companies deciding what staying alive costs? Corporations owning homes? Workers producing more while receiving less? GoFundMe becoming part of the American healthcare system? Sending American weapons halfway around the world while Americans sleep beneath bridges at home?

If that's the fu***ng Left, maybe the problem isn't that America has gone too far toward it...

Its that we've never gone nearly far enough.

And that's what I think we're watching now. Not some sudden socialist revolution.

A correction. A giant pendulum swing.

People are realizing the political boundaries they've been handed their entire lives were bulls**t. They're realizing that wanting healthcare, housing, education, dignity at work, Palestinian freedom and meaningful restraint on concentrated wealth doesn't make somebody a dangerous radical.

It makes them a citizen asking what the hell their government is for.

And here's where the Democratic Party should be getting nervous.

The Republican Party has already demonstrated what happens when an institution refuses to understand what's happening underneath it. Eventually voters stop asking permission. The old gatekeepers lose control. The party becomes something else.

Democratic leadership can sneer at the Left, lecture it, triangulate around it and roll out another consultant to explain why the safest possible candidate is the one who inspires absolutely fu***ng nobody. They can insist Bernie is too old, AOC too radical, Mamdani too socialist, Platner too populist, Palestine too complicated, healthcare too expensive and whatever insurgent comes next simply too much.

They can keep telling voters: Not yet. Too expensive. Too ambitious. Be realistic. Incremental change. Maybe next Congress. Maybe after the next election. Maybe after the next fundraising cycle.

Maybe after the lobbyists finish speaking.

But eventually people stop asking.

That's the shot across the bow. And it was fired a long time ago.

The Democratic establishment simply mistook it for background noise.

They'd better listen now.

Because America isn't discovering that it has gone too far Left.

America is discovering that the Left it was warned about its entire life barely fu***ng existed.

And people are starting to wonder what might happen—

if it finally did.

Sade Adu... It was 1984 when I searched for Nigeria on a map. It was 1993, and I was fresh outta the Navy in Coronado, CA. I went to see Sade and her amazing band play and record their infamous concert at San Diego State University's Open Air Theater. I had no idea it would be one of the greatest live performances ever recorded.

Watch the entire concert on YouTube...or whatever

As a writer, I'm an instigator and a troublemaker. I'm drawn to the natural beauty around us, but I'm just as interested in our shadow selves—the greed, absurdity, cruelty, hypocrisy, and wonderfully f**ked-up contradictions of being human.

Some days I write about birds, rivers, food, music, and the beautiful s**t we somehow forget to notice.

Other days, I poke the monster.

This is one of those stories:

The Bombs Must Flow (Political Satire/Commentary)
By Wayne Stephen

So, apparently we've burned through a staggering amount of America's bomb and missile stockpile. Some of our most important precision weapons? Damn near tapped out.

This is being presented, naturally, as a national security problem. And somewhere in America, a defense contractor just heard the world's most beautiful fu***ng sentence:

We're running out of bombs.

How convenient.

We have a president who didn't merely show a willingness to use American military power. He launched a war against Iran without congressional authorization, offered bulls**t justifications for doing it, and once again treated the constitutional limits on presidential war-making like fu***ng suggestions.

This isn't some theoretical concern about what he might do with American military power.

He fu***ng did it.

And now, months into a war sold with claims that didn't ever square with our own intelligence, the bodies have piled up, the money has poured out, and—wouldn't you fu***ng know it—we're running low on missiles.

Which brings us right back to the people who make the missiles.

Meanwhile, the corporations that manufacture the weapons pour money into the political machinery that puts politicians like Trump in office. Then the bombs get dropped. The stockpiles get depleted. And suddenly there's an emergency:

America needs more bombs.

Well, s**t. Who could possibly solve that problem?

The same corporations that sold us the last ones.

And here's where I stop laughing.

This is fu***ng grotesque.

Human beings die at one end of this machine while shareholders get richer at the other. Politicians drape themselves in the flag, blather on about national security, cash the checks, approve another mountain of military spending, and then act like we're unpatriotic as****es for asking who keeps getting rich every time America finds another reason to blow some brown people places up.

And us?

Oh, we're adorable.

Wave the flag. Put a bald eagle on the graphic. Roll some footage of a missile launching off a destroyer at sunset. Have somebody on cable news say our brave men and women and defending freedom a few times, and half the country is ready to climb into the fu***ng bomb bay.

AMERICA, F**K YEAH!

The goddamn puppet movie was supposed to be satire, people.

Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex sixty-five years ago.

We didn't dismantle it.

We incorporated that s**t.

Now the cycle pretty much runs itself.

We buy the bombs. We drop the bombs. We cheer the bombs. We run out of bombs. Running out of bombs becomes the reason we have to buy more bombs.

It’s like that anti-co***ne commercial in the ’80s: “I do co***ne so I can work harder, to make more money, to do more coke, to work harder, to make more money, to do more coke..."

And the people selling the bombs help bankroll the political system deciding how many bombs we supposedly need.

That's not some shadowy conspiracy.

That's the business model.

But don't be cynical.

This isn't about money. It's about national security. It's about keeping America safe, folks.

It's about...

FREEDOM.

Who else was outside last night, gazing up at the waning crescent moon, as it served as a giant, illuminated reminder...and thought to yourself, 'Damn, I need to clip my toenails?'

Public Service Announcement: Fresh Fig Season Is Here

Duuude...

Check out these beauties. I know exactly what I'm grabbing at the New London Food Co-op today.

Now, let's pretend we know nothing about figs for a monent; beyond Fig Newtons.

Fresh figs have been treasured 'round the Mediterranean for thousands of years. They're one of the oldest cultivated fruits on Earth. Figs are one of those foods that most Americans never really get to know. They're incredibly delicate, bruise easily, don't travel well, and have a painfully short season. That's why finding beautiful, ripe figs at your local market always feels like stumbling onto a little treasure.

A perfectly ripe fresh fig?... Oh, man...

Slice it in half. Drizzle on a little quality extra virgin olive oil. Add a tiny pinch of flaky sea salt. Maybe just a whisper of aged balsamic. That's it.

If you've never had a fresh fig, prepare yourself. This isn't "Fig Newton" flavor. It's like honey, berry preserves, and caramel all decided to throw a dinner party inside a flower. Soft. Jammy. Delicate. With just enough tiny seeds to give it a little texture.

One tip: treat 'em gently. Don't pile groceries on top of them, and don't toss 'em around the kitchen. They're more like ripe peaches than apples. If they're just beginning to soften when you give them a gentle squeeze, they're ready.

Don't overthink it. Don't bury it under a dozen ingredients. Taste the fig first.

If you fall in love—and there's a good chance you will—then start playing with goat cheese, burrata, prosciutto, toasted hazelnuts, or blue cheese.

But first...

Meet the fig on its own terms.

Fresh fig season doesn't last long, so... Treat yerself.

Airborne Attraction keeps getting better.

I don't know how they keep doing it, but every time I see these youngsters, they're better than the last show.

Enjoy them while you can.

They've only got a few performances left before Airborne Attraction, as we've come to know them, comes to an end. That's the bittersweet reality of a high school band built on friendship. Eventually, college calls. Careers call. Life calls.

Last night at the Little Theater Auditorium, we got somethin special.

Here's Big Brother (Soren) stepping away from his usual keyboard duties to trade licks on the fiddle with Little Brother (Charlie). Meanwhile, Eliana held everything together with that rock-solid bass line that makes a band breathe.

Not pictured? Zach, who absolutely crushed the drums while delivering that smooth, soulful voice of his. And Sam Geddy? Good Odin... what a horn player.

Inside the Little Theater, with the sound system dialed in just right, we could finally hear the little things—the nuance in Eliana's gorgeous take on Sade, and Sam's understated, genuinely lovely vocals. Sometimes a smaller room lets the music do the talking.

But here's the thing that makes Airborne Attraction different; aside from their ages (18-20)

Their foundation isn't Top 40.

It's jazz. Soul. Funk.

The kind of music that teaches you to listen before you play, to leave space, to groove, and to trust the musicians standing beside you.

That's why they can wander so comfortably through yacht rock, soul, funk, jazz, rockabilly, and whatever else catches their imagination. They're not memorizing songs.

They're speaking a musical language.

And that rendition of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia?" Pffff...

Those adorable nerds weren't just playing it...

They were chasing it.

Then there were the parents. And the grandparents. Of course they were there.

They never miss a show.

Just like the parents who never miss a baseball game, a volleyball tournament, or a wrestling meet, these families keep showing up. They clap the loudest. They know every solo. They know every kid.

And honestly... ...you can't blame 'em.

Those kids they raised are some kinda beautiful.

*Golf clap.

We'll see you one more time.

Next Wednesday, August 12, on the main stage in their hometown—the cultural mecca of the Midwest...Dassel-Cokato.

At the... Corn Carnival.

Yep.

I said Corn Carnival

Public Service Announcement: Unwritten Rules
By DJ Bueno Wayno

If you invite your friends over to help with a project, and you promise beer and food...
..cousin, you'd better have beer and food.

Not long ago, a buddy asked a bunch of us to help with some serious yard work.

"The least I can do is provide beer and food," he said.

Fair enough. We gotchu.

Now, in my mind, I'm thinking pizza. Maybe tacos. Maybe Summit EPA. Hell... maybe old boy's grilling steaks.

Around hour four, he fired up the grill.

Perfect.

By hour six, after busting our asses all afternoon, we were desperate for a cold beer.

First stop...

The cooler.

Drat... Bud Light??

Not my first choice.

But gratitude...It's in a cold can.

Then we wandered over to the grill.

By then, his wife, her friends, cousins, and half the neighborhood had already eaten.

"Aww, man....whaddya mean they're all gone?"

I looked down into a hotel pan holding nothing but cloudy, greasy, lukewarm wiener water.

No brats.

No hot dogs.

Just...

Wiener Water Soup.

Friends, this is a serious breach of the social contract.

If people spend their Saturday helping you, they eat first.

Don't become a legend...
..for all the wrong reasons.

Love you, Kid.

Stay Golden...

The Little Movie That Knew Fear Was an Industry— Cultural Commentary
By Wayne Stephen

Monsters, Inc. was the best film of 2001.

Yeah, I know. Memento. Mulholland Drive. The Fellowship of the Ring.... SHREK. That year came loaded.

But Pixar pulled off something those films didn't.

They built an entire civilization whose economy depends on keeping children terrified.

F**k yes. Who the hell thinks of that?

The greatest children's movies aren't really made for children. They're smuggled into adulthood disguised as cartoons.

Monstropolis has built its prosperity on fear. The corporation harvests it. The workers normalize it. The public is told children are dangerous. Management knows the system is running out of steam, so instead of changing course, it simply tries to squeeze more fear out of the powerless.

Sound familiar?...

Then Sulley does something every frightened society tells you never to do.

He actually gets to know the "enemy."

And wouldn't ya know it, Boo doesn't destroy his world. She exposes the lie holding it together. And then comes the delicious twist: laughter turns out to be more powerful than screams. Terror wasn't even the better business model. They'd been hurting kids because nobody in charge had the imagination to try anything else.

That's the quiet brilliance of Monsters, Inc. It never climbs onto a soapbox. It gives us doors, slapstick, a one-eyed smartass, and a giant blue workingman... then quietly slips in a devastating argument about fear—and the people who profit from it.

Then, history played a helluva trick.

The movie opened just weeks after 9/11.

America had just entered an era where fear suddenly became one of our most valuable national resources. Pixar didn't predict that moment.

They just happened to understand it.

Shrek won the Oscar. Fair enough. *Cough...bulls**t.

But Monsters, Inc. understood civilization.

Fear is easy fuel.

Every institution knows how to burn it.

Fear can build an empire.

It takes imagination to build something better.

Stop That S**t

For the people obsessed with the perfect golf-course lawn...

Stop that s**t.

The river can't sustain it. The lakes can't sustain it. Our bay can't sustain it. Hell, we can't sustain it.

Living on the back bay of the Middle Fork of the Crow River, I've had a front-row seat to this. I've watched it firsthand.

Nearly every property within sight—with one notable exception, our friend Jason—has bought into this uniquely American facade: that a flawless, emerald-green lawn is somehow evidence of virtue, responsibility, or success.

And to the folks who climb onto a riding mower every other damn day...

Nobody thinks you're noble.

Nobody looks at your lawn and mistakes it for good stewardship.

Here's the irony:

The thing you're fighting so hard to protect doesn't even belong here.

Most of the grass you're worshipping isn't native.

We've convinced ourselves that poisoning native flowers, killing pollinators, burning fuel, and pouring chemicals and precious water onto imported grass is somehow responsible stewardship.

It isn't.

A few dandelions won't end civilization. Clover isn't the enemy. A yard alive with bees, butterflies, dragonflies, frogs, and birds is healthier than one that's silent.

Somewhere along the way, we confused domination with stewardship.

Your lawn isn't a measure of your character. It's not a moral achievement. It's just fu***ng imported grass.

Maybe it's time we stopped sacrificing our river, our lakes, and our bay for the illusion of a perfect lawn.