A Response to the NoMi Tornado: How Can I Help?

Post and photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

I've said it already, but it bears repeating:  Hawthorne was lucky in that the tornado left us relatively unscathed.  There are trees down in the EcoVillage, but none on houses, a few garages were hit with a downed tree, and a smattering of properties lost a few shingles.

We were even more forunate, though, in the response.  Our office was inundated with phone calls the next day; virtually all of them either offering something specific in response or simply asking "How can I help?"  Forget the isolated case or so of looting.  Forget the unfounded fears that crime would somehow be out of control (although the heightened police presence was still, in my opinion, the right call).  The real story in the aftermath of the tornado is that so many northside organizations stepped up, along with thousands of volunteers from across the metro, all of them asking "How can I help?"

Without a doubt, my biggest (organizational) thank-you goes to Urban Homeworks.  You wouldn't know it from the coordinated response, but...

Buying Into NoMi Presents Initial Difficulties

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

Some time ago, I made a pledge to become perhaps what could be described as a one-man north Minneapolis chamber of commerce.  I wanted a project, and thought that spending an entire year buying as much as possible within or connected to NoMi would allow me to do that and find creative ways to support my community.

I decided to start the day after the last Polars' football game of the season, which was Thursday of last week.  So until 10/21/11, I'll be blogging about this effort on a regular basis.  The first two challenges are shown above, and let me emphasize that they are COMPLETELY SEPARATE from each other.  Either that, or I'm going to show some kids the Pixar movie Ratatouille right before Halloween and then I'll have the perfect way to just scare the snot out of the little buggers.  Take your pick.

Ok, what's REALLY going on in these two pictures above...

Cooking With the Feared Ghost Pepper

Available at Cub Foods on Broadway

Yes, the ghost pepper is strong enough that you must wear gloves when preparing it.

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, except where I am in pictures.  Above photo of me taken by the Irving Inquisition.  Below photo of me taken by my sister-in-law.

Earlier this year, I heard an NPR bit about the hottest pepper on the planet, the ghost pepper, or bhut jolokia.  This little baby is so strong that farmers in India and Bangladesh - where it is native - cut it open and rub it on fenceposts to SCARE OFF ELEPHANTS.  In fact, in India, the government is actually looking at weaponizing it as a tear gas/crowd deterrent.  Do you sometimes have trouble with a jalapeno?  Well, that clocks in at about 1,000 Scoville units.  The hottest habanero can get up to 577,000.  A ghost pepper hits as high as 1,050,000 - 1,300,000.  The Scoville scale is imprecise, as the same kind of pepper can vary in hotness depending on cultivation conditions.  At times the Trinidad Scorpion pepper has measured around 1,463,000 on the scale, and could now be considered the hottest pepper in the world. "Trinidad Scorpion," which would make an excellent name for either a death metal band or a WWE wrestler.

There are peppers that are simply hot.  Then there are those that make you respect the pepper.  Finally, you have spiciness that's the equivalent of a religious experience because it makes you realize there are forces in this universe that are far more powerful than you will ever be.  The ghost pepper is one such experience.  I've tried it once before, on chicken wings in a restaurant in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan of all places.  In terms of the religious aspect, it did not disappoint.

My pastor says I make the same face when I take Holy Communion.

I turned a healthy shade of purple, I was dripping sweat from just about everywhere, the entire lower half of my face was numb, and I needed two beers to chase down six ghost pepper wings.  It was glorious.  If there is a Heaven, it might be exactly like this.  If there is a Hell, then these meals don't come with beer.

Naturally, when I saw the ghost peppers for sale at Cub on Broadway, I absolutely had to try my hand cooking with them.  There was one little problem though...

Shoplifters - How a Community Cannibalizes Itself

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, image from the Jane's Addiction blog.

On the Upper Willard Homewood (U-WHO) listserv, shoplifting at CVS was a recent concern raised by members. I've also been hearing buzz that Cub Foods on Broadway is really struggling financially from the costs of shoplifting - both paying off-duty police for prevention, and the loss of items successfully stolen. Some of the same sources say this was a large reason why the Target store left Broadway several years ago.

Folks, if this problem continues, our community faces the very real threat of losing core services and employers. I won't pretend to know the answers for how to stop this from happening, but I do hope to provide a forum where this can be discussed. What products are being stolen from stores in our community, especially on Broadway? For what purpose? Surely businesses like Cub and CVS factor in some degree of shoplifting into their bottom line. So how much worse is the problem here, that financial viability is threatened? Who are the people doing the stealing? What can be done to stop this?

As I am able, I will be going to these two businesses and discussing these very topics with the managers. In the meantime, I encourage North by Northside readers to weigh in as well.