Cam Gordon is ready to forget about the Carlson incident

Minneapolis City Council Member Cam Gordon is taking the high road regarding the campaign exit of his undeclared challenger Charles Carlson.

In an interview with the Minnesota Daily, Carlson admitted he was not being truthful about his background and education (the story is at: tinyurl.com/ bked53; he has also done a KSTP-TV interview).

"I hope it's all behind us now and I can go on with the campaign," Gordon said last week.

That's it? Not chortling about how he wished the Minnesota Daily could dispatch all challengers to Gordon's re-election with such ease?

"You're done writing about it, aren't you?" Gordon said. Oh, I want to be, but I have a feeling every goodbye's not gone where Carlson is concerned.

"I'm ready to move on," Gordon said. "I don't think we're going to hear from him for a while. I think he probably had some good intentions and thought he was going to make a difference and get involved. It [the Daily story] made me feel a little bit sorry for the guy."

I want to feel sorry for Carlson, but I'm waiting until there is documentation that the sad stuff is true. I read and write with a couple of thoughts always playing on my mind: 1) Everything is a hoax until proven otherwise; 2) I can only quote people; I can't make them tell the truth.

The rest of the story There was more of a Minnesota connection than initially realized when writing about a California jury awarding $7 million to Patricia Behr, who claimed that she contracted herpes from Redmond Products founder Thomas Redmond.

Behr formerly lived in Minnesota. In her lawsuit, she claimed Redmond had the sexually transmitted disease for 25 years but did not tell her or use a condom. Behr is also one of two women who sued Walser Imports for sexual harassment in 1995. She is also the mother of actor Jason Behr, who was born in Minneapolis, according to Wikipedia.com and Imdb.com.

As for Redmond, although the Associated Press story on the jury verdict identified him as a resident of Las Vegas, I'm reminded that he has a home in the Twin Cities and is seen here a lot. Redmond Products was originally based in Chanhassen, although it's now owned by Procter & Gamble.

According to the website for Wolf Springs Ranch, the horse business Redmond owns, the company's "international worldwide" HQ is located in Edina; the company has operations in Colorado, California and Arizona. "I've always said, 'What you leave on this Earth is your reputation' and for us it's honesty," Redmond states under the part of the website devoted to "A Word from Tom."

Unless he has sold it, after selling Redmond Products, Redmond founded Onesta, a line of natural hair care products. Onesta is Italian for honesty, integrity.

Davis will read and sign copies of "39 Years of Short-Term Memory Loss" at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Lyndale United Church of Christ in Minneapolis. Minnesota is the place where Davis became half of a famous comedy-writing duo.

With Davis' former comedy partner being Al Franken (who is busy these days trying to settle a 2008 race against Norm Coleman because too many Minnesotans were imprecise) we might expect Kessler to be there to see whether Franken shows. But, no. Kessler will be there because his daughter Meredith Kessler is doing publicity for the book. She's living it up in NYC as a publicity assistant at Grove/Atlantic, the book's publisher. Before going to the big city, the U of M grad got started in the pub biz with an internship at St. Paul's Graywolf Press. "My dad has always been my biggest fan," said Meredith, when we talked a few weeks ago.

Meredith has gone big time on us. "I can't confirm I will be there," she said. However, her dad will be there because his little girl had a hand in promoting Davis' book.