The World's Largest Cement Otter Speaks His Mind

Of course it had to wait until after the holidays but the unpleasant little tale of Claas Relotius deserves a few comments before it fades entirely from memory.  My  friend Otto - seen below - will do most of the talking but a bit of introduction is necessary.

Otto is the World's Largest Cement Otter.  He is hunched proudly in a municipal park in Fergus Falls Minnesota.  He's been there since the 1970s when local high school students built him out of cement and steel.  He is but one example of the local fad for Big Cement Critters.  I think he is the most artistically successful one although I will of course always have a warm spot in my heart for Big Tom, the World's Largest Turkey.

Claas Relotius is an award winning German journalist.  He's written many compelling articles often coming up with dramatic details that nobody else dares to report.  His bosses at Der Spiegel, in an attempt to explain the victory of Donald Trump, sent him off to spend three weeks in Fergus Falls, considered to be a typical American community.  The dispatch he posted was called "In a Small Town", and it was not flattering.

Fergus Falls was described as being in a literal and presumably metaphorical dark forest, where they "..pray for Donald Trump on Sunday", where anti-Mexican sentiments are seen on yard signs, where the City Administrator carries a gun, has never seen the ocean and is waiting for marriage to lose his virginity.  The landscape is dominated by a steam belching, coal fired power plant with six great chimneys.  The local cinema has been showing American Sniper for two years.

The deal is, Claas made almost all of this up.  

Although I live in Wisconsin now my family roots are from up that way.  I know Fergus Falls and communities like it.  Of course they are not perfect and would not claim to be.  But political opinions are diverse and freely expressed.  In fact there is a strain of "Prairie Populism" that tilts towards the Progressive end of the spectrum even in a place that to be fair did mostly vote for Trump.  A detailed evisceration of the Relotius article written by a couple of liberal denizens of Fergus Falls can be found  HERE.

Nobody is shedding tears for Relotius, who has been fired, discredited, forced to give back his numerous awards.  All his previous work has been belatedly scrutinized and found in many cases to contain additional sensational, politically charged.....lies.

I figure the most appropriate punishment at this point would be to simply send him back to Fergus Falls.  I picture him sitting on a park bench.  It's chilly and the wind is whipping in off the treeless expanses around him.   But he finds one sympathetic citizen....

"Well Claas, I bet you wish there really were some trees."

"Mein Gott, have I had so much to drink that I now can hear you speaking?"

"So it would seem.  But then you always were a good listener.  The problems came when you ignored what you heard and just made things up."

"Ja.  But does not everyone do so?  There is your expression...Go Large or to the house...."

"Geh gross sondern, nach Hause comes closer to the correct sentiment."

"You can speak German?"

"Of course.  As the Spirit Animal of Fergus Falls, and one created by our young people, I know all that they do. Had you heard that a group of them are just back from a trip to Spain and France?  And that a group of Chinese educators was recently in town?"

"I lied about so much.  And for a little bit of fame and for a few pats on the back by my political friends.  Can I ever be forgiven?"

"I think so Claas.  Because you accidentally told a few important truths.  Any community that will pray for Donald Trump - who they know to be so badly flawed - will do the same for you. "