To the Big Island Rendezvous and Festival.

If you didn’t get a chance to make it to Bancroft Bay Park for the Big Island Rendezvous because of foul (and fowl) weather on Saturday, the forecast calls for more friendly skies today. Sunshine and highs in the 50s should improve the turnout.

The Big Island Rendezvous is not merely a chance to recall the frontier days in America, but it is just a plain-old good time, too. Kids can discover real root beer, which is much better than the root beer-flavored pop they mistakenly call root beer. There is entertainment played with actual musical instruments and sung with actual voices, not done through digital processors and tuners and other gizmos. There are crafts made with the hands of actual people here in America, not in some machine in a foreign land across the ocean. And there is a cannon, which we shouldn’t have to explain why children will love that experience.

Get out of the house and go to the Big Island Rendezvous. You will be glad you did.

 

To the University of Minnesota.

The university administration has revealed itself as out to extract every dollar out of the experience of being a deep-in-debt college student. Gopher Athletics this year implemented a policy bundling season passes for season passes to sports events, all tied to football. For example, to go see hockey games, students are forced to purchase football season passes, and some students cannot afford both. Many students, including the Student Senate, have lambasted the administration for the unfair move.

On Friday, Gov. Mark Dayton expressed disappointment with U of M President Eric Kaler: “The Legislature and I did not provide the additional funding for the University to freeze students’ tuitions over two years so that you could invent other ways to increase their costs.”

Wisely, Kaler said he will request Gopher Athletics to review its policy.

 

To the Vikings playing Christian Ponder.

We don’t grasp why Christian Ponder, a hesitant and interception-prone thrower, is paid to play quarterback in the National Football League while Tim Tebow, a strong man and a fighter who has won a playoff game and had led the Denver Broncos to surprise victories in 2011 despite a goofy throwing style, is not.

No doubt, Vikings QB Ponder is playing only because he has a guaranteed contract, which came based on hopes for his talent to develop rather than his performance. Meanwhile, Tebow is not playing backup QB somewhere mainly because his strong religious views and avid fanbase could be a hefty media distraction for whoever gets to be the starting quarterback ahead of him. But considering all the distractions the NFL has been under lately for much worse things, what would be so bad about giving fans of pro football what they want — Tebow in a uniform, Ponder on a couch?

It’s harsh, but it’s the truth. By the way, perhaps the Vikes would do better to bring back Sage Rosenfels, who has a higher career QB rating than Ponder, to back up Teddy Bridgewater. Letting Rosenfels go was a mistake in talent judgment.