God bless Russ Stewart. Apparently, he is going to begin an effort to remove the stupid laws from the books, beginning with Duluth's controversial anti-loitering ordinance, which so many people fought so hard to pass, but no one has ever seen the need to enforce.

The anti-loitering ordinance is one example of the misguided attempt of some of our citizens and leaders to mandate civility. See, there are a lot of things that people do that are more or less harmless, but can be somewhat annoying. Instead of responding to these folks by simply behaving as a shining example of kindness and good citizenship, some people respond by getting angry and passing laws to force them to be nice. They're kind of like the father who says "We're going to have a nice family evening together whether you like it or not."

The Trib is sort of spearheading its own forced civility campaign with its series, "The Unshoveled Truth," wherein it invites citizens to submit photographs of their neighborhood's illegally unshoveled sidewalks, which it will publish so to humiliate the neighbors into complying with Duluth's 24-hour shoveling ordinance.

Now, I'm a decent and timely shoveler. Just last night, for example, I brought out the heavy-duty coal shovel to chip a wide path through the 4-foot-high, 6-foot-wide concrete-like mountain left on my boulevard by the snowplow. I'm not legally bound to do this, but I did it just to be nice to the people who visit me, and to myself for that matter.

However, this move by the DNT is insane. Sure, it gives some satisfaction to the shovel-happy nuts in our community, but how many people can that be? And who the hell cares about people who are that mean? Old Lady Anderson down the street hasn't shoveled her sidewalk, and it's been TWO DAYS since the snowfall! What? I don't care if she's 80 years old and has artificial hips! Burn that bitch at the stake! Yeah, let's give that guy some satisfaction.

But then again, I start to think about Super One Foods in West Duluth, and its refusal to clear the sidewalk that runs along the side of its building. This refusal forces me to walk out in the street every day to and from work, with cars whizzing past me, honking and splashing sludge on my Fluevogs. Sure, I could use a different, safer route with clear sidewalks, but I should be able to use the fast route and the sidewalk that is currently buried under four feet of impacted snow. And if that isn't bad enough, whenever I shop there I end up ditching my cart just outside their door and carrying my groceries two blocks home, instead of pushing the cart all the way down the sidewalk and ditching it in the snowbank a mere half-block from my house. They need to accommodate this habit, dammit! One of those bags could easily break, spilling my 18 cans of Chunky Soup all over the street.

Listen, Super One, you are not allowed to make me spill my Chunky Soup all over the street. That's the job of the Rustic Bar.

Fucken A, man. Now I'm upset. To hell with these ideals. I'm reporting the Super One to the DNT, just you watch. And the rest of you lazy bastards in this town better get moving. There's a storm approaching tonight, and I have rather effective digital camera and a big ol' chip on my shoulder. Old Lady Anderson -- I am talking about you.

In the meantime, if anybody needs me, I'll be at the Rustic.
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