News Cut: February 15, 2008 Archive

The Bush administration has come up with a cure for all the economic bad news: make it harder to find.

Citing "budgetary constraints," the government is shutting down economicindicators.gov, a site that aggregated all of the various economic reports into a handy spot that puts it all in context.

This is the site Forbes Magazine awarded with its "Best of the Web" award, saying...

The site simply links to the relevant department's Web site. This might not seem like a big deal, but doing it yourself--say, trying to find retail sales data on the Census Bureau's site--is such an exercise in futility that it will convince you why this portal is necessary. Site may soon offer data delivery to wireless devices.

Conspiracy theorists are at the ready.

It probably wasn't much of a surprise to Blake VanderWert and her seven kids that there was a living room full of media types in her New Prague home today. The dozens of shoes on the porch would've given it away if the four TV people who ran outside to stick microphones on her hadn't -- the better to capture her surprise when she walked into her home that volunteers have been renovating over the last three months for her and her husband, Sgt. Jonathan VanderWert.

The VanderWerts bought the home a couple of years ago to house their blended family. Jonathan intended to fix up the fixer-upper, and had stripped the roof when a massive storm rolled through last June, forcing him to gut the house and start over... except that the Minnesota National Guard picked a fine time to tell him he was being called to active duty and sent to Camp Anaconda in Iraq with the 2-147 Assault Helicopter Battalion.

With a house falling down, seven kids to feed, and a husband heading overseas, Blake VanderWert sought help from an agency, which put her in touch with Rebuilding Together Twin Cities. She was afraid the county would take her kids. Instead, a funeral home that owned a house nearby, gave it to the family to stay in while dozens of volunteers and companies renovated the home at no charge. Some of the kids stayed. A few others stayed with VanderWert's ex-wife.

"It's overwhelming and I have such a sense of gratitude," Blake VanderWert said, as reporters tried to pull more out of her. But what else can you say besides "thank you" when a town contributes the money to buy all new furniture for the house that someone just rebuilt for you?

Her loss for words was shared an hour later by her husband, who was shown by satellite from Iraq (see above). "I'm very curious to see what's been going on," he said, sounding a touch concerned that it wouldn't be just the way he had planned. But the volunteers planned on that, too. They shored up the damaged third floor, but left much of the work for him to do when he returns, which is just the way he wants it.

As compelling a story as the VanderWerts are, perhaps more camera time should've been given to some of the volunteers. Take Marty Schirber, for example. He's the contractor who's been in the home renovation business for years, but his son has taken over the business and "once you've driven the bus you don't want to just be a passenger," he said. So he now works with Rebuilding Together Twin Cities.

Before Sgt. VanderWert left for Iraq, Schirber had a long talk with him. "You just have to trust us," he said.

"He was so proud of his wife for finding this resource and doing this on her own and he knew how much it meant to her. She's written us letters saying, 'you saved my family.'" he told me today.

Schirber is already planning a similar effort. "When you put a group of volunteers in a house like this and you work a day, at the end of the day, those volunteers have never felt better about themselves. They're walking around high-fiving each other. My typical day is to show up with 30 volunteers and do 280 hours worth of work in a house. We can make a huge difference in a family, taking them from behind a curve, getting them ahead of the curve, in one day, just doing things that need doing around the house. It's some of the most satisfying work I've ever done. I can't talk about it without bawling."

For the first time in months, the VanderWert family -- except for one -- will live together under the same roof tonight.

"I imagine the sliding hill down by the high school is in full force," Jonathan said prior to the start of a news conference. It wasn't. All the action was at his place.

It's pretty obvious now that there's no stopping the merger of Delta and Northwest. MPR's Marty Moylan, by way of the Financial Times, says the smart money is on Wednesday, when the Board of Directors meets.

What's changed in the last day or so? Apparently the pilots have given the merger their blessing, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The unions did not work out every detail, as airline management had hoped, but they did reach a "conceptual plan of integration," said one person describing the talks. The airlines are now moving ahead with final details of their tie-up, the people familiar with the talks said.

Under the deal, the pilots will reportedly get a seat on the "new" Delta's board of directors. Pilots would also get an equity stake in the airline. The headquarters for the airline, which will be named Delta, will be in Atlanta, and the Minnesota headquarters of Northwest will be an "operations center."

Doug Steenland, the current CEO at Northwest, will have no management role with the combined company, but will have a seat on the board of directors.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Continental and American Airlines are now talking about a possible merger.

Says the Journal:

Houston-based Continental has said it prefers to remain independent unless the competitive landscape changes and its rivals pair up. The carrier for now is precluded from merging with another airline because Northwest can block such a move by virtue of holding a "golden share" in Continental. But if Northwest agrees to merge with Delta or another airline, Continental could buy back that blocking preferred stock for a nominal fee and be free to chart its own course, even if Northwest's own deal later fell apart.