I have long opposed spending hundreds of millions on a new stadium for our beloved Minnesota Vikings, but my eyes have been opened to the plight of Zygi Wilf, our plucky NFL franchise owner who has not let naysayers like me prevent him from bellying up to the public trough and elbowing all those school kids and other scroungers out of the way.
If we don't give Zygi a stadium, we will kill the Golden Goose and force Minnesotans to live without pro football. Make way for Zygi Wilf, kids! Stadium coming through!
Count me in. I have three kids in the public school pipeline, but their pathetic need for books and supplies must not obscure the big picture. Minnesota is in trouble, with a $5 billion deficit staring us in the face and more red ink to follow. We can't cut our way out of budget problems like that. We have to spend our way out. That's where Zygi comes in. Thanks to Zygi, we are almost out of trouble already.
Billion dollar football stadium? What are you talking about? That ain't no stadium. That's a public works project.
Friday's Star Tribune carried the news that despite the distraction of his team making the playoffs for the first time since the Wilf family paid $600 million for the Vikes, Zygi has taken pity on the public, many of whom are suffering in the economic downturn. It takes an extraordinary person to see the purple lining at a time like this. But Zygi is a man of vision; plus, he has public relations people who help keep him focused on the big stuff.
So he is offering Minnesota a unique chance to build a billion dollar football stadium that will help keep us clothed and fed during the bleak days of recession. Charity like this has not been seen around here since the first leaders of the state were telling the Indians that pennies per acre was a fair price for worthless black dirt. It would be smart for us to build this public works palace on the edge of downtown Minneapolis, a place now checkerboarded by half-empty parking lots that could be put to much better use as part of a brave new Wilf World.
A stadium that helps soften the blows of unemployment, hunger and homelessness? If Mother Teresa were alive, I believe she would plant a kiss right on Zygi's little mustache.
I imagine a football stadium with a soup kitchen, a food shelf and a place where the homeless can bed down after the game, perhaps making little beds out of purple pompoms. We are talking "multipurpose" here: Day-care centers, classrooms for retraining the unemployed and turning them into contributing members of society, perhaps as hotdog vendors.
