News Cut: February 19, 2008 Archive

On Castro's exit

Posted at 7:07 AM on February 19, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

The resignation of Fidel Castro as president of Cuba prompts us to recall one of the more intriguing moments in Minnesota politics -- when Jesse Ventura met Castro.

It wasn't on a big diplomatic stage, but a not-quite-by-chance meeting when Ventura led a trade delegation to Havana to try to whip up some business for Minnesota farmers

"For his age, he looks in pretty good physical shape. And if our policy is is we're going to wait until he's gone, I would say we may be waiting a long time," Ventura said at the time.

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Post your NWA-Delta merger questions

Posted at 7:28 AM on February 19, 2008 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)

News Cut's role in the MPR coverage of the Northwest Airlines - Delta Airlines merger (which could be announced today) will be a fairly large in-one-spot series of questions and answers surrounding the merger -- what happens to your frequent flier miles, how fast will fares rise etc.

If you've got some you want answered, post them here.

Both boards have "emergency meetings" scheduled, although the Wall St. Journal says if pilots haven't given the deal their blessing by the time they're held, there'll be little action. The Detroit News, however, says the pilots have now signed on.

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Hendricks' last stand

Posted at 9:20 AM on February 19, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

Honk, if you remember full-serve gas stations. It wasn't that long ago that you could drive up to a pump, hear the ding-ding as your tires passed over the hose that announced your arrival to a guy working on someone's car in the garage, tell the attendant to "fill it up with high-test," and then get a set of steak knives for your trouble.

The last vestige of that era disappeared in the Minnesota city of Hendricks on Sunday night when, according to the Marshall Independent, the Hendricks Gas Stop burned to the ground.

Milton Johnson was the man at the pump for at least 50 years. He started as an employee before he left for the military in 1944. He became part-owner in 1946 and bought out his partner Peder Moen in 1956. Johnson sold the station to a local man in 1997.

When Johnson joined the station there was only one building with a front awning over the front door area. “At that time, we had a hoist sitting outside,” Johnson said.

He and employees used the outdoor hoist and an outdoor ramp to change oil and do other work.

(Photo from Marshall Independent newspaper)

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Change not likely in Cuba, Minnesota expert says

Posted at 12:50 PM on February 19, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

Don't expect much to change between the U.S. and Cuba once Fidel Castro is no longer the president of the country. Gary Prevost doesn't and he should know. Prevost, a political science professor at College of St. Benedict - St. John's University in Collegeville, is a member of the Minnesota Cuba Committee, which supports normalization of relations with the country. He was last in Cuba in November 2006, a few months after Castro fell ill.

"As long as the Cuban Communist system remains in place -- and there's no reason to believe that it will at any time in the immediate future change -- it's not likely that there will be fundamental change in U.S. policy toward Cuba," according to Prevost. "Part of that is because more and more, Cuba has not needed the United States. Its very close relations with Venezuela, increasing ties with China, have made the United States less important to Cuba, meaning the likelihood that they would make dramatic concessions to the U.S. to gain better relations are not likely."

That's not to say there hasn't been somechange, however. Minnesota companies, and small farmers, have benefited from a warming in some trade. The country, according to Prevost, ranks 25th in agricultural imports from the U.S. But there is no reciprocation; Cuban products are not available to U.S. consumers.

Prevost, who has written a couple of books on the subject, dismisses the importance of Florida as a political prize as a factor in Cuba-U.S. relations. "Basically, the continued hostility toward Cuba has to be seen in the whole history of Cuban-U.S. relations, going back to the 19th century when the U.S. saw Cuba as an island to be annexed... It's that the Cubans have continued to insist that they are not going to re-enter the United States' sphere of influence, to be directly under the control of Washington, from their perspective to surrender their sovereignty."

Listen to excerpts of my interview with Prevost (All in MP3 format):

* On Castro's decision not to stand for election as president. (Listen)
* Eighteen months of Raul Castro's leadership has given us a glimpse of the future. (Listen)
* Political importance of Florida is not the biggest barrier to normalized relations. (Listen)
* The chance of change. (Listen)
* About the Minnesota Cuba Committee (Listen)

Photo: A Cuban citizen reads the front page of Granma, the official organ of the Communist Party with a statement of Fidel Castro in Havana, on Tuesday (Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images)

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What's in a name?

Posted at 3:01 PM on February 19, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

With the coming merger of Northwest and Delta Airlines, it's worth pausing for a moment and honoring the airlines that have given their lives to the Delta brand.

It started with Delta Air Corporation, which was a cropdusting service in Louisiana in the '20s.

But the roots -- and the routes -- go to Boston.

Boston & Maine was part of the old B&M Railway Company, and it operated under contract to National Airways, founded by -- among others -- Amelia Earhart. National eventually became Northeast Airlines. The airline was famous for its yellow airplanes, called yellowbirds.

The airline merged with Delta in 1972, which is how Delta became such a big "player" in the northeast.

In the '50s, Delta picked up Chicago & Southern Airlines, which had previously been known as Pacific Seaboard Air Lines.

In 1986, Delta picked up Western Airlines, another airline that started in the '30s as a mail carrier.

Delta acquired the transatlantic routes of bankrupt PanAm, and then the lucrative Boston-New York shuttle from the same airline.

Northwest, similarly, started as a mail carrier in 1926.

In 1968, Pacific, Bonanza, West Coast were merged into Air West.

Just a few years later -- 1971 -- Howard Hughes bought the airline and renamed it Hughes Airwest.

With airline deregulation, Southern Airways and North Central Airlines merged into Republic Airlines in 1979 . A second "Herman the Duck" joined the logo and flew in the other direction.

Republic acquired Hughes Airwest in 1980. In 1986, Northwest acquired Republic.

And the rest is...

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Can you hear me now?

Posted at 10:00 PM on February 19, 2008 by Bob Collins

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a challenge to President Bush's warrantless wiretap program.

The court, without comment, turned down a request by the ACLU to hear the appeal of a Cincinnati court ruling that said, basically, the ACLU couldn't sue because the people who were suing had no evidence that they were being wiretapped.

With no warrant to check, how would anyone know that they've been wiretapped?

Patriotism

Posted at 10:41 PM on February 19, 2008 by Bob Collins (45 Comments)

Wince.

If you follow politics and world events at all, even Barack Obama supporters had to have winced when Michelle Obama said, ""Let me tell you something — for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." (See the video and the full quote here.)

You had to know that we'd be off and running. The TV pundits would be occupied for days, the bloggers would be up in arms, and pretty soon the campaign would come down to a debate of who's the real American in the race. We all know where this is headed, because we've been down the road so many times.

Cindy McCain had a not-so-veiled retort to Mrs. Obama on Tuesday when she said, over and over again, at a campaign stop, "I'm proud of my country."

I see your wince, and I raise you a wink.

So let the record show that what we have here at this point in time are the spouses of two presidential candidates who are proud of their country.

Sure, but who's the "patriotic" one? That can't really be answered until we reignite the debate surrounding a much more critical question: what does it mean to be patriotic?

When last we visited this question, "Liberate Iraq" signs still dotted the lawns of America, and the American media was taking a pass on doing its job out of fear, some say, that it would be labeled unpatriotic.

USA Today's survey a few years ago revealed that 94.5% of those polled consider themselves patriotic, though agreement on what the word means was hard to come by.

In a general way, patriotism means love of country — love of one's country, one's homeland — a very simple emotional attachment to the place where you're from," says Jack Citrin, professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley.

"After that, agreement tends to dissolve."

Some people religiously salute the flag; some wrap themselves in the flag — literally. Others burn it and say patriotism is about protest.

Peter Canellos of the Boston Globe, in a June 2005 op-ed piece, summoned the words of William Dean Howells, the superintendent of libraries in New York in 1912, when he said.

'While I would wish you to love America most because it's your home, I would have you love the whole world and think of all the people in it as your countrymen. You will hear people more foolish than wicked say 'Our country, right or wrong,' but that is a false patriotism and bad Americanism. When our country is wrong she is worse than other countries when they are wrong, for she has more light than other countries, and we somehow ought to make her feel that we are sorry and ashamed for her."

Canellos said no one -- left or right -- would disagree with Howells's claim that the U.S. has more light than other countries. "People disagree only on whether the greater light is immutable or must be fed, like a fire, through conflict and dissent."

What is your definition?

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