Scraping off Southdale's history

What are they doing to Southdale?

They're chopping off the vertical brick lines, that's what. The final steps of deGruenizing the structure. This is the part they haven't smoothed out yet:

Those lines are iconic! Well, no, they're not, but they're part of the style. Here's the old Dayton's in St. Paul, by the same architect. He liked those lines.

I'll make some calls.

VotD Anthropologists may study this one for years; it is a rich vein of sociological information about early 21st century parenting, aggression amidst affluence, the ease with which children can be taught to feel entitled to anything and immune from judgment, the chilling effect of lawsuits on individual initiative, and the inability of people to hold their cameras correctly.

News reports say the combatants were gone by the time police got there. Smoking Gun says:

"Contributing" seems to understate the case.

I was explaining to my daughter the other day that Peanuts is often the most depressing thing on the comics page, and given the competition, that's no small feat. I don't mean "depressing" in the sense that it's supposed to be funny but it's just bad, and you feel sad for everyone involved in keeping this mirthless thing dragging along for another day. I mean it's designed to make you feel bad.

Ha ha it's funny because he's a dog! He can't feel the range of emotions humans feel, and his sadness is a parody of his noble, smarter betters. No, that's not it. We've been trained to accept Snoopy as an equal of the childhood peers, if not superior in imagination and self-confidence. So his heartbreak is real. And sad. It's like Charlie Brown resting his head on the trunk of a tree to lament the loss of another kite. These are deeply unhappy moments. BECAUSE LIFE IS MISERABLE.

It was a great time when the comics page had Calvin, Bloom County, and the Far Side; they balanced each other perfectly.

LAW Spanish judges, looking out for the little people oppressed by inhuman corporations. IBD:

The Daily Mail - yes, I know, I know - said this: