FREE SPEECH ZONE | The World According to Jeff Reinert

Jeff Reinert while not exactly a household name, should be. After all he’s got experience, vision, integrity and common sense. How do i know? His website says so. And those qualities were all but obvious the other night when Jeff himself saliently led the charge of the light brigade for Lino Lakes to BECOME THE FIRST, THAT’S RIGHT THE VERY FIRST Minnesota city to adopt English as it’s official language.

But really going forward, we have a lot be thankful for.

Whenever I go to Lino Lakes and see the signs in Mandarin, Bengali, Portuguese, and even Urdu, I wonder…is this really America? This mini United Nations full of tribal voices, pungent spices, and dress and customs of a thousand lands? Even the street signs, are in Arabic or Swahili.,.so I really make sure to pack my Lonely Planet whenever I venture up to LL.

Here ye here ye. Whenever great leadership is apparent, it becomes a civic duty to highlight and publicize it. So I decided to find out more about this great man, what makes him tick?

So first thing, i visit his website- www.linolakes.org (great ideas and leadership make having a website to call your own essential! ) and when i got to Jeff’s website i wasn’t disappointed. Apparently he has gone to great lengths to merge his magnetic personality with Lino Lakes. Then I had a thought. Could Jeff have somehow become enmeshed with Lino? We know the definition of enmeshment which typically refers to a condition where two or more people (or a person or object in this case) weave their lives and identities around one another so tightly that it is difficult for any one of them to function independently- So in announcing for all the world to see, his complete and utter devotion to Lino Lakes (using the quintessential red heart to signal devotion) Jeff blurts out:

I love Lino Lakes, do you? My word, can he honestly be calling our love of Lino Lakes into question? The mayor? This great mind. No…not for a minute. He must know we all love Lino Lakes…it’s the first thing we think about when we get up in the morning and the last thing before we reflect on upon retiring. Why would he even pose the question?

But now we must become one-identify with one another to truly recognize our common humanity. On his website he writes..

“Like you, I am a resident of Lino Lakes. I am 49 years old and live in Lino Lakes with my wife and three daughters.”

(I think he may be white too- from his picture and all…but he doesn’t tell us that)

Now wait just a cotton picking minute. I want to love Lino Lakes but there’s a problem. A big problem. First, I am not 49. Second I am not married. Third I don’t have 3 daughters. Now I am beginning to have doubts that I can love Lino Lakes the way it needs to be loved… because after all Jeff assumed that i was like him in all the ways he described himself and I’m not. I cannot love Lino Lakes the way a 49 year old white married man with three daughters can. I want to but i can’t.

But there’s more still! Our story continues…

Our protagonist it appears, loves Lino Lakes with a caveat- without subsidized housing! Now the premise becomes if it had subsidized housing, Lino Lakes wouldn’t be worth our love anymore. After the heart and everything! Imagine, conditional love…bring in some subsidized housing and it’s over. For good. Don’t even bother closing the door on the way out.

But what if ….what if Lino Lakes adopted English as it’s official language? Then maybe even it had subsidized housing, it would be worthy of our love. And then…and then everything would turn out all right.

And at the end of the evening Jeff had the crowd in an absolute frenzy when he exhorted:

Give me an L..(audience screams L!) give me an O (audience bellows O) give me a V (they’re wild by now VVVV) give me an E…(they practically in a religious fervor now ) EEEEEE…What’s that spell…What’s that spell…What’s that spell???