News Cut: December 13, 2007 Archive

Swastikas in St. Cloud

Posted at 7:02 AM on December 13, 2007 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

At least part of the mystery surrounding swastikas appearing around the St. Cloud State College campus may have been cleared up.

According to the St. Cloud Times, a "cartoon was found Thursday on a bulletin board at St. Cloud State University. It contained people talking about 'rednecks' wearing swastikas on their arms, holding alcohol containers and applying bias-motivated graffiti."

The man turned himself into the police, who determined he was not a suspect in the investigation of swastikas on campus.

A man claiming to be the person who drew the cartoon, called "Hillbilly Hitler," wrote to MPR Thursday. Disclaimer: I can confirm that he's a guy who says he drew the comic, but I can't confirm he actually drew the comic, since he didn't sign his work. Nonetheless, he brings up some observations on the history of the swastika.

I am the creator of the comic book style political cartoon found Thursday at SCSU. My message was clearly missed. Although there are some swastikas on the "Hillbilly Hitler's" arm it also shows them vandalizing SCSU with backwards Swastikas.

But the main word that should be underlined in this statement is "Comic Style Drawing." The "Hillbilly Hitler" also looks to be about 400 pounds, has few teeth, little hair, huge ears, a misshaped head, and had a pile of cheeseburgers next to him. But most people have not even seen the political cartoon and they can only speculate and go from what they hear in the media (who also have not seen the political cartoon).

For a Swastika to represent Hitler, the symbol needs to be facing right and tilted at 45 degrees. But in the drawing, the Swastikas were backwards and were not tilted at a 45 degree angle. The true meaning of a Swastika not tilted 45 degrees is a symbol of good luck that has been used for thousands of years by many faiths such as, Hindu, Buddhist, and even Christian faiths.

So before you jump to conclusions and go on a witch hunt, maybe you -- the media -- should do a little research about what you are reporting on and get the facts straight before you publish a story... but that wouldn't make for good news. So I am sorry that people misunderstood my drawings and I didn't want to give any ounce of support or connection to these Neo-Nazis.

I just thought students and faculty at SCSU could see the cartoon and have a cheap laugh at the expense of the overall stupidity of these vandals and that they have little or no support for their ignorant cause on campus or in the community.

In other words...

Good	Bad

"Hillbilly Hitler" was a phrase coined by Julian Bond to describe David Duke, the former Klan leader who ran for president a few years ago.

As the link above shows (BBC), the swastika did have an anti-Semitic life before Hitler.

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Led Zeppelin tests the 'net

Posted at 10:00 AM on December 13, 2007 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

A lot of things have changed since Led Zeppelin played its last concert. There's this Internet thing now changing all the rules.

Led Zep performed in a comeback concert earlier this week, its first since being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

Now the band is getting You Tubed. Silicon Valley Insider has been tracking the rapidity with which people are posting videos of the concert in London, and an investigative firm is trying to take them down just as fast.

In the shadow of the writers' strike over the role of online rights, this latest test of the "free Internet market" has the "I want it free" crowd pitted against the "it's my content" crowd.

Says Alexander Wolfe on Information Week:

Despite the lack of clarity on where we're headed, I think we've at least reached the point where we can retire the simplistic argument that's been the mantra for the anti-IP crowd for the last decade. Namely, the Web wants to be free and content creators should all just get over it. No, thank you; I prefer to remain steamed.

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How the glitch stole Christmas

Posted at 12:00 PM on December 13, 2007 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)

Technology is a wonderful thing -- most of the time. But sometimes it's what takes Christmas presents away from kids in the poorest county in Minnesota.

Thom Blackbird, who runs the Cass Lake Family Service Center, an agency that helps residents in the town, including those who are not enrolled members of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, says about 2,000 people depend on the center for help, including obtaining GEDs, attending at-risk programs for kids, getting computer training, and obtaining employment assistance. And Christmas presents.

Last year, kids in 350 families got toys, thanks to the Marines' Toys for Tots campaign in Minnesota. This year, none will.

Here's why. The Marines use an online sign-up form to collect the requests for toys shortly before Thanksgiving. Blackbird says his assistant filled out the form this year, but when she pressed submit, she got no confirmation message. So she filled it out again... and again.

After not hearing anything from the Marines, Blackbird left several messages for the Toys for Tots organizers and heard this week that when the Marines saw multiple submissions, they assumed someone was trying to submit phony requests, and ignored them; all of them. They also told him, according to Blackbird, that they didn't want to provide toys to two agencies in the same area, and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe was already getting toys, to be given only to Native American children.

"They're doing a fantastic job," Blackbird says of the Marines, "and I thanked them for their service here and overseas. It's just a case of technology that didn't work."

But there's no "give" in the Marines' decision not to include Cass Lake Family Service Center, partly because there are no toys. Blackbird says toy donations are lagging badly -- 50,000 are in hand, but 200,000 are needed. It's a startling drop-off in donations that I've, so far, been unable to confirm with the Marines, but KARE, which partners with the Marines, reports a significant enough drop that it's unlikely there'll be any extra toys for the Cass Lake kids. Blackbird will find out Tuesday.

It's a theme repeated all over the country -- tough times for grown-ups means tough luck for kids.

So yesterday, Blackbird called 100 families to tell them there'll be no presents in Cass Lake. "They were all so gracious. I had only one negative response. But, still, I hung up the phone at one point and said, 'just take me outside and beat me. It'd be better than this.'"

Thom Blackbird can be reached at 218-335-7837.

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Requiem for a meter reader

Posted at 4:02 PM on December 13, 2007 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

To a list that includes buggywhip factories, elevator operators and righthanded sluggers in Twins uniforms, we can add another vanishing species in these parts: meter readers.

The Duluth City Council will vote Monday on spending $9.5 million on a system that will replace the need for 10 employees to walk from house to house, reading 53,811 meters, according to the Duluth News Tribune.

In Duluth’s case, a person would drive around the city using a GPS map and a laptop, said John Hall, the city’s chief administrative officer. After the van comes near a meter device, it would send a signal to a laptop registering the reading. A light would go off on the laptop, letting the driver know a reading was taken.

Nationwide, there were 45,000 meter readers in 2006 with a median income of about $29,000. Only 440 are left in Minnesota, the Labor Department says, with a mean salary of $40,720.

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Opening the reporter's notebook

Posted at 5:43 PM on December 13, 2007 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Fellow newsies were predictably -- and rightfully -- piqued on Wednesday when it was revealed that St. Paul cops got the cellphone call list of a TV reporter to try to figure out who leaked the police record (public record as it turned out) that the reporter was looking for.

After a day of being berated by journalism groups, and media columnists, St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington restored the idea of reporter privacy by ending his department's hunt through the phone records.

Case closed on the privacy of reporters' sources, right?

Wrong.

"In obtaining my phone records they basically opened up my reporter’s notebook,” said the reporter in question, Tom Lyden. "They basically looked at my notes. They have looked at sources. They have looked at people I have tried to protect.”

But the reality is, you can't protect your sources and call them on a cellphone. And it doesn't take a warrant or a ticked-off police department to figure out who they are.

Getting a list of phone numbers called to or from a cellphone, in fact, is easy, so easy that Congress held a hearing on the problem last year and found out that quite often, according to MSNBC, the customers were police departments and the FBI.

A publicly elected official caught up in the congressional inquiry also has said publicly that he obtained phone records for law enforcement officials. Colorado state Rep. Jim Welker, owner of Universal Communications Co., told the Rocky Mountain News earlier this month that he sold phone records to law enforcement officials, as well as debt collectors and financial companies.

How easy is it? Pretty easy. Last year, for example, a blogger bought the cellphone records of Gen. Wesley Clark, a former candidate for president.

All of the call records, of course, come from the cellphone companies, and were obtained illegally. The companies, in many cases, have sued data brokers, but they continue to proliferate on the Web. And there's still an active exchange of cellphone records between the companies and the federal government. And quite often, the authorities are targeting journalists. A few months ago, the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed to a deal to give immunity to those companies who participate in the exchange.

Perhaps reporter sources can sleep easier tonight, knowing that John Harrington's forces aren't figuring out who they are. But any reporter who's congratulating himself on turning back an assault on journalists, is missing the bigger story.

There's a reason old-time journalists like dark garages.

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