News Cut: March 2008 Archive
Keeble's medal
Posted at 9:59 PM on March 2, 2008
by Bob Collins
At the White House Monday Woodrow Wilson Keeble will finally get his Medal of Honor for his heroism in the Korean War. Two previous submissions for the medal were lost, so his Distinguished Service Cross will be upgraded.
Unfortunately, Keeble died in 1982. The Fargo Forum has the story. (Reg. possibly required)
Between hero and goat
Posted at 7:41 AM on March 3, 2008
by Bob Collins
(9 Comments)
An amazing video of the landing of a Lufthansa jet in Germany in ridiculous crosswinds has got us thinking today:
The pilots tried a standard technique called "a crab," in which the nose is pointed into the wind, then the rudder is used at the last minute to kick the plane's nose straight down the runway. Only in this case, the wind lifted the upwind wing and that was that.
The pilots did a terrific job aborting the landing and avoiding what would've been a disaster.
But, perhaps, lost in the adulation is the fact the pilots tried to land in the first place. According to the Daily Mail, winds were blowing at 155 mph at the time. As told, something's not right with this story (Update: See Aaron's comments below) because the "crosswind component" (the amount of crosswind in which an A320 has been demonstrated to land safely) is in the 40 knot range.
If everything is as reported, it could've been one of those kinds of pilot errors that often leaves people dead.
International inspiration
Posted at 10:36 AM on March 3, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
On Friday night, the Minnesota International Center at the University of Minnesota hosted the annual Worldquest quiz game to raise money for its International Classroom Connection program, in which international students visit Minnesota classrooms.
A team called "At Least There Are Door Prizes" won the competition, narrowly beating out the defending champions, the Norwegian consulate. Sadly, this is the last year the Norwegians will participate, because Norway is closing the consulate. Apparently, we are getting an "honorary" consulate, which wouild be great only if Norway were an honorary country.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to acknowledge that the Minnesota Public Radio team finished 41st in a 48-team endeavor, dashing hopes of making it into the 30s this year. We did OK in the early rounds, thanks to team leaders who studied the various flags, and blowing a second round only because we forgot the capital of Germany isn't Bonn anymore. But those of us with a news pedigree let the team down in so many way, including not knowing (I like to think of it more as "remembering") that it's the Czech Republic that, along with Poland, is being eyed for an anti-missile defense shield by the U.S.
After that, we knew we were in trouble when we tried to come up with the answer to a question about the Italian presidency, by trying to remember "the name of the guy who looks like Elvis Presley." In the end, we lost -- badly -- to a team that included an 11-year-old kid.
Somewhat more inspiring, from what I read from James Lileks, was the actual student tournament a few weeks ago:
The questions were tough, and the students were smart; there's something reassuring about a table of young people whooping and clapping because they knew the answer was Mumbai, and they were right. Congrats to Chaska, and better luck next year to Mounds View.
If you think you're up to the challenge, the Powerpoint versions of previous years' quizzes -- and I presume this year's will be posted soon -- can be found here.
Tuning in at the Legislature
Posted at 11:13 AM on March 3, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
Now that we've gotten the poet laureate problem solved in Minnesota, lawmakers are moving on to the state anthem. You know, the one we don't have.
HF2961, which gets a hearing today at 4 p.m., creates a state anthem commission with the idea of having an official anthem in place by the end of the year.
Judging by the bill's text, however, the fix is in for "Hail Minnesota," which apparently is the most popular of all the songs about Minnesota that most people don't know. While it is the state song, it is not the state anthem. And apparently we need a state anthem to sing, ummm, when?
Minnesota, hail to thee!
Hail to thee, our state so dear,
Thy light shall ever be
A beacon bright and clear.
Thy son and daughters true
Will proclaim thee near and far,
They shall guard thy fame and adore thy name;
Thou shalt be their Northern Star.
Like the stream that bends to sea,
Like the pine that seeks the blue;
Minnesota, still for thee
Thy sons are strong and true.
From the woods and waters fair;
From the prairies waving far,
At thy call they throng with their shout and song;
Hailing thee their Northern Star.
A similar version presently exists as the University of Minnesota hymn.
This, however, may have rough sledding. "Thy sons are strong and true?" Well, at least it didn't say anything about them being able to carry a tune.
We are not alone in this endeavor. Massachusetts, for example, unable to agree on a state song, has seven of them instead, including the official polka of Massachusetts, "Say Hello to Someone from Massachusetts," by Larry Gomulka. As if you didn't already know.
I'll tell you what, if you'd like to take a stab at an alternative version (for Minnesota, that is), send it along and I'll try to scrounge up some prizes.
How about helping out by writing a state song?
An 'ordinary day' in Baghdad
Posted at 12:55 PM on March 3, 2008
by Bob Collins
The BBC program, "World Have Your Say," posts a missive from one of its regular contributors today. A woman named Lubna set out to school to take an obstetrics exam.
As we got closer to the district in which my college lies, a roadside bomb has exploded at a close distance ahead of us. So we all decided to go back home. On our way back home, another roadside bomb has exploded also at a close distance behind us. I saw the other car flying in the air. So in the end we got back home. And We missed our obsestrics exam. And that's a very ordinary day of our ordinary daily Baghdadi life.
Blogs are a good way to try to get a sense of life in Iraq. McClatchy Newspaper bureau chief Leila Fadel's Baghdad Observer is an excellent one. Last Thursday she wrote:
One of our Shiite Iraqi staffers asked if Maliki would go to Adil, a restive Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad where Sunni insurgents still operate and Shiites know they are not welcome. Maybe he can check out Hurriyah where Sunni residents have not returned. They were run out of the neighborhood in 2006 and some men were burned alive.
Maybe he can ask the more than 88,000 mostly Sunni contractors that work with the U.S. to fight Al Qaida how they feel about the reconciliation effort. Many of them are former insurgents, very few have been absorbed into the government. People complain now that many act as warlords, in each neighborhood the law is in their hands.
The blog, Healing Iraq, makes up for its inconsistent updating with an amazing number of comments for each.
Welcome Bach
Posted at 2:00 PM on March 3, 2008
by Bob Collins
 |  |
Forensics experts couldn't leave well enough alone. In Berlin today, a model of what Bach really looked like was unveiled. Scottish anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson worked from a copper replica of Bach's skull made for a previous reconstruction in 1894 by physician Wilhelm His and sculptor Carl Ludwig Seffner, according to the Associated Press.
The image on the left is the traditional image of Bach; the image we have of ourselves, perhaps, when we listen to classical music. The newer version, on the right, is more like what we think of ourselves if we imagine having taken over dad's butcher shop.
The Chicago difference
Posted at 2:55 PM on March 3, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
Chicago, apparently, doesn't have the problem with the Photo Cop device that Minneapolis has. A camera catches people running red lights. It was struck down here, however, because it couldn't be proven that the driver of the car was the owner (wink).
Chicago has the Redflex system (the same one as used in Minneapolis) installed at 69 intersections and has just authorized $59 million to wire up 222 more.
And why not? The city is expected to reap $50 million a year in fines. Minnesotans claimed that the cameras were little more than an electronic shakedown here. But in Chicago, the system survived a legal challenge when a court ruled it legal to hold an owner responsible for the actions of his/her vehicle.
Still, red light running is said to have dropped 58 percent at the photographed Chicago intersections.
The highway's biggest threat
Posted at 3:00 PM on March 3, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
The risk of death for kids riding with drivers aged 16 to 19 was at least double that of those riding with drivers aged 25 and older, according to a study released today by researcher, Flaura Koplin Winston of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. There were about two deaths per 1,000 crashes for young passengers with 25-plus drivers, versus more than four deaths in the younger group. Most of the accidents occurred on high-speed roads and most the drivers weren't wearing seat belts.
Last year in Minnesota, the Legislature considered further restrictions on young drivers, limiting the number of young passengers who could be in the car. Opponents said the bill said those decisions should be left to parents. It passed the Senate but died in the House.
Today's study probably isn't going to surprise anyone in the Minnesota Department of Public Safety's Office of Traffic Safety (A call to their communications department has not yet been returned). Last year, traffic deaths topped 500 in Minnesota. It found young males are the most likely to engage in "unsafe driving behaviors."
The carnage may not be lost on the kids, though. The New York Times reported last week that the proportion of teens holding drivers licenses is dropping.
An end to luxury?
Posted at 7:50 AM on March 4, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
There's nothing really new under the sun where baseball stadiums are concerned; just trends that filter from ballpark to ballpark.
Here's one: getting rid of luxury boxes. The Red Sox have unveiled changes to fabled Fenway Park, that removes a group of luxury boxes in favor of more seats. In this case, the seats go for $75 a pop.
The "trend" -- if it really is that -- comes at a time when corporations (which, let's face it, helped fuel the luxury box trend) are falling on hard times, and are merging and moving headquarters to other cities. Might this usher in an entire new concept: Seats out in the open?
The Twins are not heading in this direction. All 55 luxury suites at the new ballpark are sold.
RNC protest routes
Posted at 8:42 AM on March 4, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Let the record show that the biggest protest at the Republican National Convention in New York City in 2004 occurred on a day when the convention hadn't even started yet. Organizers had no problems getting media attention for the march, or for the months of debate over the march's route.
In Boston a few weeks earlier, the protesters were limited to an old subway stop, where no delegates could see them. Let the record show they had no trouble getting publicity.
Even if the intensity of the protest was overblown:
In New York, once the convention started, protests were limited to the Herald Square area. The media had no problem finding it.
Yesterday, organizers of the protests in St. Paul this September, when the Republican National Convention comes to town, held a news conference to lament the restrictions on the parade route.
Everything appears to be going according to the plan.
Favre backlash
Posted at 9:26 AM on March 4, 2008
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
Brett Favre is retiring as quarterback of the Green Bay Packers. Minnesota Vikings fans: it's now OK to say something nice.
The announcement comes as no great surprise. Last week the Packers put the announcement on their Web site for a couple of minutes before pulling it down.
Say what you will, though, about Green Bay fans. According to one commenter on a sports site, no matter how much Favre gave the Pack, there is always the demand for more.
I'm disappointed in Favre. His team was one play away from the Super Bowl, and he decides to hang it up. He should have given us one more year - I really think the Pack could have won it all this year with Favre at the helm.
On the blog, Not Your Typical Sports Fan, a more touching send-off:
But it's the unquantifiable aspects of Favre's play that will be missed more than anything. The spirit, the boyish energy, the love of the game that commentators could never resist mentioning (even at the risk of sounding decidedly...well, let's say "unmanly," to keep it vaguely P.C.). Young opponents who grew up watching him play were in awe in his presence, and many would get autographs. Even Randy Moss was star-struck: When he was a Viking, he was caught on tape in a game against the Packers, pacing up and down the sidelines stammering, "It's Brett Favre. Brett Favre! I gotta watch this."
PackerChatters.com appears to be the place for online mourning:
It would be impossible for us fans to return all the joy you gave us. But I hope you read some of what the fans will be writing in the days ahead. And I hope it helps you to realize all the incredible joy you brought to so many of us. Go hunting, ride your tractor, play with your kids, and enjoy everything that life gives you.
Heard on a local sports call-in show this morning from a Packers fan: "How ungrateful! The Packers fans made Brett Favre. He's an average quarterback. I'm not saying he's not a great quarterback..."
Favre gets no flowers at "My Official Green Bay Packers blog," either.
"I wanted to write about all the records he holds, but it feels like a bunch of crap. I’m having a hard time stomaching this."
Clearly it's a "logic optional" day in Packer country.
Additional memories and analysis can be found on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's site. But good luck getting it to load. There isn't a lot of work being done in Wisconsin today.
Campaign coverage
Posted at 12:07 PM on March 4, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
Did you ever have one of those days when you wonder what the issues are in the campaign for president?
(By the way, notice anything odd about the Philadelphia Daily News cover story on African American voters?)
The final act
Posted at 12:47 PM on March 4, 2008
by Bob Collins
(11 Comments)
The king of the role-playing games is dead at age 69.
Gary Gygax, who created Dungeons and Dragons, lived in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
Game Spy Magazine's interview with him in 2004 ended by asking Gygax how he wanted to be remembered:
I was gonna say, "Better here than Philadelphia," but I think somebody already did that. [Laughs] I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.
Well, OK, but he's also the guy who spawned the debate about role playing games. So depending on your point of view, Gary Gygax is either the guy who pushed Western civilization to a new depth of depravity, or the guy who pushed a new generation toward literature, database management, critical thinking, reasoning, and resource management skills.
Your choice.
Photo: Wikimedia
(h/t Julia Schrenkler)
Status check
Posted at 2:39 PM on March 4, 2008
by Bob Collins
(16 Comments)
Should local cops be at the center of enforcing immigration laws? That question is once again surfacing in Minnesota.
House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, brought it up during a debate on the tax bill when he tried to amend it to prevent cities, such as St. Paul and Minneapolis, from receiving local government aid as long as long as they refuse to have police officers ask about immigration status. The amendment was part of Gov. Pawlenty's plan, announced in January, to crack down on illegal immigration. Sen. Norm Coleman has said he'll push legislation in Congress to accomplish the same thing.
In 2006, the then-Republican-controlled Minnesota House approved a bill stripping the sanctuary city ordinances, 94-to-37, but it died in the DFL-control Senate. Owing to the changing politics in the House, Monday night's vote on Seifert's amendment was closer, with it failing 67-to-66.
So what's the problem here? Some officials, including Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, say if the local cops become immigration agents, then immigrants who are here illegally will be less likely to report crime or work with police.
Ground zero for the debate at the moment is in Roswell, New Mexico where a high school student is being sent back to Mexico after being ticketed for blocking a fire lane.
According to the Los Angeles. Times, the schools suffered a sudden drop in attendance as students whose parents were in the country illegally kept them home. But a 1982 Supreme Court ruling said illegal immigrants have a right to attend school, and educators could not ask students if they were here illegally. The traffic cop who was hired by the district, has been sent back to the city.
California was well on its way to testing the ruling, when voters approved Proposition 187, which denied public services -- social services, health care, and public education primarily -- to illegal immigrants. One judge issued a temporary restraining order. Then incoming Gov. Gray Davis killed the measure by dropping the appeals process.
In Virginia, a local sheriff signed onto a program that allows his deputies to check immigration status and detain suspects on immigration charges, mostly because, he said, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. officials were too slow to respond.
Not all police officials buy the idea, however. In Milwaukee, for example, police last year adopted a policy more in line with that of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
The two hands of the tanker deal
Posted at 6:04 PM on March 4, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
The decision by the U.S. Air Force to award a $35 billion air tanker contract to -- primarily -- a European consortium raises many conflicting sentiments around the country. Boeing has provided the tankers to the Air Force for over 50 years.
On the one hand, people want the Pentagon to spent spend its money a bit more wisely, and a competitive bidding process assures that.
On the other hand, what's the point of designing a big stimulus package to jump start the economy, and then doing what you can to depress it... at least in Seattle?
That was Sen. Patty Murray's view on the Senate floor today when she said, "Instead of securing the American economy and military at a time while we are at war, we are creating a European economic stimulus package at the expense of U.S. workers."
On the one hand: the government should be giving contracts to American firms.
On the other hand: Don't the Americans in the military deserve the best the nation can provide?
And that, analysts say, is what the Pentagon did. The tanker from Airbus was -- simply stated -- better.
While it may be a red, white, & blue issue, it's not necessarily black and white.
Photo: PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images
Security screening outside the box
Posted at 1:33 AM on March 5, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
Question: Have you been through an airport screening system lately? How much of a hassle was it, really?
I don't fly often enough to have a good sense of the amount of delay. And when I do fly, I usually try to fly off-peak hours (and at Minneapolis St. Paul, I use the security gate alllllll the way down at the north end of the terminal where nobody seems to go.).
I ask because Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told the Senate Appropriations Committee that he's told the head of the Transportation Security Administration "to think outside the box" and figure out a new way to do it.
What would that look like. Unless you're in a wheelchair, or have a baby stroller, or a laptop, it's pretty much (a) wait in line for a bit (b) take off your shoes and (c) walk through the thing that dings and (d) ignore the look on the guy's face because you're the 900th person in the last half hour to forget to take the keys out of their pocket.
One possibility, says Government Security News, is a new laptop case that allows the feds to scan it without taking it out of the bag.
Morning decisions
Posted at 8:44 AM on March 5, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
Let's see: Garrison Keillor selling one mansion to buy another or the first sighting of the Hexopus?
Keillor. Hexopus. Keillor. Hexopus. (coin flip)
Other stories ranking higher than the current reading on the Keillor-O-Meter:
*Feds move against NCAA pools in government offices.
*Hogs battle beetles in apple orchard
*Moses was high, researcher claims
When all life ends, will we see it coming?
Posted at 11:15 AM on March 5, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
Next to trying to understand the pivotal scene in Trading Places, few things inspire more headaches than conversations about space and time. And yet, we try because we are, by nature, explorers, they tell us.
MPR's Midmorning today invited us to explore such things in a fascinating interview with Heidi Hammel, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute. She is helping to build the James Webb Space Telescope scheduled to launch in 2013. Its purpose, like the Hubble, is to look at distant galaxies, which, because it takes so long for light to reach us, is looking back in time.
Among her more interesting observations was that the universe is expanding so fast, that we will soon -- and for purposes of these sorts of high falutin' discussions "soon" can mean within a billion years, give or take -- lose the ability to look back at the beginning of it all -- the time at which time started.
A caller asked "why" we do these things. What do we get out of it? There wasn't much of an answer; something about looking at something at the far end of the universe helping us to learn what questions we should ask about our own planet.
But perhaps there was an obvious answer: so we can see the end coming. By way of City Pages, we are now fretting over WR 104, a binary star 8,000 light years away, with a couple of nearby stars that are "about" (see explanation of "soon" above) to explode, taking out WR 104 with it, which may occur as a gamma-ray burst, and I don't have to tell you what that means. (Hint: It has something to do with the end of all life as we know it.)
So what if Heidi and her gang are merrily looking at a pretty star somewhere, only to move the telescope slightly and learn a giant cosmic pie is heading for our collective face? Does she tell someone that the invention that was to help determine the beginning of life had actually discovered the end of it? What if she accidentally let it slip today on Midmorning? Would it change the way you look at the world?
Sorry about the headache.
The best places to walk
Posted at 3:16 PM on March 5, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
The economy is tanking, people are losing their homes, and it takes a small inheritance to fill up the family cruiser. Times are tough in Minnesota but the unkindest cut of all may be delivered by Prevention Magazine which dares to say when it comes to places to go for a walk, Minneapolis doesn't cut it. Minneapolis is #71. At the same time, however, St. Paul is #13.
Granted this is another candidate in the "crackpot surveys" category, but assuming it has a shred of believability, how does Minneapolis lose out to, say, Anchorage (#8)? Tons of bikepaths and jogging paths, a long riverwalk, even the highest per-capita number of golfers in America suggests a higher ranking. Plus we have those moving walkways at the airport. We even have blogs dedicated to life with the view from the sidewalks.
So what is the criteria? APMA President Dr. Harold Glickman says, "The Best Walking Cities competition recognizes those cities that don't just 'talk the talk' but literally 'walk the walk.'"
Whatever that means.
"Other criteria included various walking-friendly attributes such as low crime rates, mild year-round temperatures, the number of cultural attractions, participation in recreational sports, and pet ownership."
We can't compete with the mild year-round temperatures, but we do have these skyway things. And we have more cultural attractions than Anchorage.
The survey collides with one issued a few months ago, which found Minneapolis #17 among "metro areas" in walkability. It was hard to argue with some of the cities ahead of us -- Washington DC, Boston, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Miam. (See pdf )
(h/t: Nikki Tundel)
The state of the state of the city
Posted at 3:38 PM on March 5, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
This is the time of the year when we find out the nation's city's are in better shape than we've been led to believe. "Strong" is the operative word, in fact. Today, Mayor R.T. Rybak, acknowledging the many challenges facing Minneapolis, summed up the city's economy as "strong" in his State of the City address.
Mayors tend to struggle for just the right adjectives for these speeches.
"The state of the city is strong." -- Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.
"I am here to report that the State of our City is strong and Cincinnati is on the move," Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory.
"I am pleased to join you today, because the state of our city is strong," Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry.
St. Paul? Put it down: strong. "I'm here to tell you that the state of our Capital City is strong," then Mayor Randy Kelly said in 2003. "I’m proud to report that Saint Paul is a strong city," current Mayor Chris Coleman said in 2007.
What would your State of the City address say? Remember, you have to stay generally positive. "My city sucks pond water" won't get you re-elected. But remember: the adjective you use will become the headline. How about "the state of the city is pretty good"?
A parental dilemma
Posted at 7:13 AM on March 6, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
Boy, here's a dilemma most parents will never have to face. A son lives a life dressed as a woman. So how should he be dressed upon his death?
Mental health parity bill advances
Posted at 8:02 AM on March 6, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
The Wellstone-Ramstad effort, aka "the mental health parity bill" passed the House yesterday, 268-to-148 (See roll call vote), and, yes, that is Rep. Jim Ramstad standing next to Nancy Pelosi in today's New York Times article. Forty-seven Republicans joined 221 Democrats in voting for the bill, which requires insurance companies to consider a mental illness in the same manner they consider a physical illness.
President Bush endorsed the notion in 2002, but on Wednesday he opposed it.
But far from creating an entire new class of coverage, the bill actually closes a loophole. Under a 1996 law, health plans are forbidden to set annual or lifetime dollar limits on mental health care that are lower than the limits for other services. But insurance companies got around the law by setting different limits on visits and co-payments.
Pharmaceutical companies aren't all that thrilled with the bill because of the way it will be paid for. The Medicaid rebate, in which the companies discount revenues from sales to Medicaid patients, will be increased by about 5 percent. Eli Lilly, for example, says that'll increase costs for other patients.
Minnesota's state law requires parity already. Does it make a difference in costs to business or consumers? Medica officials are quoted in an Ohio research report as estimating the cost at 26 cents a month for subscribers -- $3 a year.
The debate isn't over. The House bill has to be reconciled with the Senate version, which has the insurance companies' blessing, and covers a narrower range of illnesses.
Might this be an issue in the presidential campaign? Maybe. None of them had anything to say about the issue on Wednesday. But the National Alliance on Mental Illness has candidate questionnaires available for Clinton and Obama. John McCain submitted a statement instead, which offered little in the way of a clear position on the issue.
The 3 a.m. phone call
Posted at 11:12 AM on March 6, 2008
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
Much has been made of the TV ad from Hillary Clinton about those 3 a.m. phone calls at the White House, signaling the start of something big. So how important is 3 a.m. in the annals of American history?
Feel free to submit your own but here are a few of the major U.S. news stories of the last several decades and the time a phone call might've been made to the presidential bedroom:
6/5/67 - The six-day war begins - 7:15 p.m.
4/11/70 - "Houston, we have a problem." - 2:13 p.m.
8/27/78 - The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan - 9:15 a.m.
11/4/79 - Iran militants takeover the U.S. embassy in Tehran. - 12 a.m.
4/18/82 - U.S. Marine compound in Beirut bombed. - 10:20 p.m.
12/20/89 - U.S. invades Panama - 1 a.m.
4/19/95 - Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City bombed - 10:01 a.m.
8/7/98 - U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombed. - 3:45 a.m.
10/12/2000 -- Attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen - 2:22 a.m.
9/11/2001 - Attack on World Trade Center - 8:46 a.m.
3/20/03 - War in Iraq begins. - 9:45 p.m.
8/29/2005 - Hurricane Katrina makes landfall. - 5:10 a.m.
Special education
Posted at 1:13 PM on March 6, 2008
by Bob Collins
(6 Comments)
By way of Charlie Quimby at Across the Great Divide, we learn of a conversation regarding a survey of Minnesota school superintendents. Somehow, Quimby tells us, that spawned a debate on the Pioneer Press Web site regarding special education.
Said one commenter:
Minnesota needs to break free of Federal mandates that force us to spend 2.6 billion on special education and ESL (Supposedly reimbursed by the Federal Government but has never been so) and use this money to invest in the gifted and talented and “average” student body. We need to stop wasting 19% of our yearly State Education budget on future Wal-Mart greeters and spend it on our future engineers, scientists, and leaders!
When did "special education" become another word for "stupid"? What exactly is special education?
Here are a few examples.
It could be services -- perhaps, transportation -- for the blind student in Minnesota. Rep. Torrey Westrom might've been a beneficiary. He lost his sight in a farm accident in 1987, and went on to get a degree from Bemidji State, and is the first blind person elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives.
It could be education services for the deaf, which is not a reflection of intellectual ability. Just ask Sean Virnig of Faribault, who was stricken when he was 16. He's now a school administrator and just started a new business -- his own bicycle company.
It could be individualized instruction for students with a learning disability -- reading, writing, nonverbal etc. This might include dyslexia. Minnesota explorer Ann Bancroft has dyslexia. So does McKenzie Erickson, last year's student body president at Southwest High School in Minneapolis,. She had been a special education student since third grade.
It could mean services for the Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder student. In some cases, the ADHD student and the "gifted" student mentioned by the commenter above, are the same student.
And, of course, it certainly means English As A Second Language (ESL) student. And we're not reallyat the point where we think there's a relationship between IQ and the language one speaks, are we?
Clearly there is a debate to be had on special education funding; the federal government has not come close to living up to its promises. But maybe more education about what special education is should be required, before we tell students they can be nothing more than WalMart greeters.
'It's a great country!'
Posted at 3:24 PM on March 6, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Today was going to be a pretty big day for Minnesota National Guard Specialist James Agada Idoko. When he returned to the USA after a one- ear year deployment with the 247th Finance Detachment, Idoko, 29, was going to take the oath to become a citizen of the United States.
Then the bureaucracy got in the way.
Idoko's wife and family are still in Nigeria and like the other members of his unit, which returned to Roseville today, one of the first things he wanted to do was see his family. He plans to fly to Nigeria tonight. If he were a U.S. citizen, however, he'd need a passport to get back into the United States and he doesn't have a passport because he's not a U.S. citizen.
It takes weeks to get a passport so the National Guard canceled the ceremony today. Idoko will go visit his family, get back into the country as a Nigerian, and then become a citizen.
Idoko has been a corrections officer for Minnesota since 2005. He applied for citizenship in March 2006.
"It's a great country," he said Thursday.
Songs to torture by
Posted at 4:56 AM on March 7, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
If you were to be subjected to torture, what would be the last straw before you broke?
How about the Meow Mix commercial jingle? According to writer Justine Sharrock in Mother Jones magazine, that -- along with songs like the Barney theme song, some Bee Gees, and Neil Diamond -- are some of the most popular songs to torture by.
More here (language warning!)
(h/t: Brandt Williams)
Behind the scenes at NPR
Posted at 8:29 AM on March 7, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
The head of National Public Radio is taking a hike after a series of running battles with its Board of Directors. Juicy details -- at least for Public Radio junkies -- are in several locations.
Ken Stern's primary crime, according to the Washington Post, is the expansion of NPR's new media initiatives, which "riled station managers." Allow me to translate: "We're radio. What do we get out of this?" Do they have a point? There was a time when npr.org's purpose was to be an archive site for its radio offerings, which wouldn't be put on the site until the last broadcast had cleared the Pacific Time Zone. Most local stations don't get anything significant from npr.org. Compounding the problem may be a measure of "independence" NPR got by virtue of inheriting a fortune from former St. Paulite Joan Kroc.
Now, the organization has a fully functioning real-time site, and that helps local radio stations, how?
Rafat Ali at PaidContent.org says the tension between NPR and its affiliates was also evident a week or so ago at the Integrated Media Association conference, a gathering of mostly Web people from Public Radio stations.
The other issue which I learned about was the tension in the relationships between the top organizations like NPR and PBS, and the local affiliates, very much on the lines of what’s happening in the network TV industry (only in the former case, “revenues” get replaced by “funding"). These tensions are of course related to digital media, and who will lead the efforts, and how should they be presented. From what I heard, organizations like NPR and PBS are arguing that there should be a centralized aggregation effort, a bit like a destination site...while the affiliates resist these moves and want to make their own local sites as the destination sites.
That's the problem Stern had, even as he doubled NPR's audience. It's also the problem his successor will face. Dennis L. Haarsager, NPR's chairman, is that successor and he suggested to the New York Times that the squabble may not be over. He said he supported Stern's emphasis on digital conversion, but “I don’t think everybody in the system would agree with him on that.” Haarsager's memo to NPR staff is here. Haarsager says Stern's leaving wasn't over the digital issue, though, calling it "multidimensional," without explaining what that means.
Haarsager, who's a tech blogger and a native of Minnesota and South Dakota, has got quite a problem on his hands. Like newspapers, the radio industry is often torn between those who believe what's worked in the past is what will work in the future, and those who believe there's a media landscape that has to be acknowledged.
(Photo: Wikimedia)
Road rage story was made up
Posted at 12:28 PM on March 7, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
As an old boss once said -- sarcastically, of course -- sometimes the facts can ruin a good story.
Remember the story of the woman who was caught up in a road rage incident and was thrown by a driver into the middle of the road?
Never mind. Apparently it didn't really happen.
The Swanson affair
Posted at 12:39 PM on March 7, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
The spotlight is certainly on Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson today. MPR's Tim Pugmire has the story of problems in the AG's office, ostensibly over efforts to unionize. But, says staff attorney Amy Lawler, it's deeper than that.
There are a lot of things that are really wrong with the office right now that are a real disservice to the public," Lawler said. "And as a result, we're losing the best talent, the brightest minds. People don't feel like there's anything they can do to improve the office, so they just leave, or get fired. "
But it was this quote from Lawler in Tim's story that is the eye rubber. Lawler describes the head of the office's "social committee" taking her out for coffee, to deliver an anti-union message:
"He started talking to me about why we didn't need a union," Lawler said, "how people only need unions if they are lazy and don't want to do work, and if they're not very good at their jobs and they need protection."
Pardon me while I check again what the "L" stands for in DFL.
Swanson refused interview requests from MPR, an unfortunate -- and certainly ill-advised -- stance for a public official to take when there are such serious allegations coming from inside her office. Her last appearance on MPR's Midmorning was in August, when she said the union issue is "not an issue for the boss or the employer to interfere with, and I have not done that."
The near mutiny is reminiscent, of course, of one that occurred within the office of then U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose. But the media's pursuit of Swanson, writes Mark Cohen, blogger and editor at Minnesota Lawyer, has been nowhere near as intense as that of Paulose.
Paulose was essentially driven from office by a barrage of negative media because people didn't like her management style. Meanwhile, the Strib as near as I can figure hasn't reported since May 2007 on the tribulations at the office of a DFL AG, despite allegations of harsh management practices and union-busting. It's hard not to view that as a double standard.
Last month, Minnesota Lawyer carried details of a survey of the staff in Swanson's office, and found that 52 of the 82 staffers did not agree with the three assistant attorneys general -- including Lawler -- who penned their dissatisfaction in a letter to her.
But that caused its own level of controversy, as shown by several anonymous comments on Cohen's blog, purporting to be from current attorneys in Swanson's office.
MPR's Gary Eichten asked the leaders of the Legislature today about the controversy during his Midday broadcast today. "I don't know what all the options are in this situation," said House Speaker Margaret Kelliher, who said she heard the story on the radio this morning. For the record, though, this has not been a secret up until today. "The governor doesn't like it when we get into his direct business."
Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller also acknowledged hearing the story on the radio. "She is a separate elected official in the executive branch and I think the Legislature probably will be a little hesitant getting into the business of those executive agencies on a matter like this," he said.
Given Swanson's refusal to answer any questions and the Legislature's apparent disinterest in getting involved, it's certainly unclear who will clean up the mess.
Is Pawlenty breaking a promise?
Posted at 3:13 PM on March 7, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
If there's one thing in the current budget deficit that had Minnesota doctors -- and subscribers to the MinnesotaCare plan -- worried, it's that Gov. Tim Pawlenty would raid the state's health care access fund. The fund -- which is money consisting of a tax paid by health care professionals, premiums by subscribers, and federal money earmarked for health care -- was raided by the administration a few years ago to close a gap in the state budget. Thousands of Minnesotans, who paid premiums to MinnesotaCare, lost their health care.
So on January 6, when Pawlenty held a campaign fundraiser and was asked about the fund, the Minnesota Medical Association took notice of the answer, posting it on the organization's Web site.
“We were pleased to hear him commit to not using the surplus to balance the budget,” said Dave Renner, MMA director of state and federal legislation, who attended the fund raiser as a representative of MEDPAC, the MMA’s political arm.
Today, however, Pawlenty said tapping the health care fund is part of his solution to the state's budget deficit.
In December, the MMA President Dr. James J. Dehen sent Pawlenty a letter (see pdf) outlining why this would be a bad idea:
"As you know, physicians in this state have never believed that the “sick tax” was a fair or appropriate way to fund the HCAF. We believe that it is a selective tax that is regressive and falls more heavily on the sicker of our citizens. Yet, in recent years we have not actively worked to repeal this tax as long as it remained dedicated to addressing health care access. Transferring money from the HCAF to pay the General Fund’s shortfall is inappropriate."
Pawlenty says using the health care fund will be used for other health care "for the disadvantaged, and says nobody will be removed from government health programs. But, he conceded, an expansion of MinnesotaCare will be canceled. At the same time, the governor proposed a reduction in the state sales tax.
Pawlenty, who had flipped his position on health care after his narrow victory for re-election in 2006, signaled his a return to his earlier attempts to cut health care in a speech before a Burnsville business group three weeks after allegedly making his January "hands-off the health care access fund" promise.
Dave Renner, the MMA lobbyist, told me this afternoon the fund has become the "health care slush fund." He said he fears "a disproportionate amount of cuts (will) come out of health and human services area. At a time we're trying to reform health care and expand coverage to the uninsured, this may result in cutting those programs."
Thuy Leach's journey
Posted at 4:14 PM on March 8, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
The Marshall Independent newspaper carries the fascinating story of Thuy Leach, who came to America from Vietnam in 2006, learned to speak English thanks to adult basic education in Marshall, and runs a business exporting popcorn that has grown 150%. She was a licensed teacher and nurse in Vietnam.
"I love Marshall. I'm totally in love with Marshall," Leach said. "I don't like Minneapolis, it's so crowded. So many traffic jams, so many cars, it's too busy for me. Marshall is quiet. The schools are great to my children..."
It's a good read.
Roadside memorials
Posted at 3:42 PM on March 9, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
I'm drawn to roadside memorials -- hastily assembled tributes to people who have died in a traffic accident nearby. This one is particularly tragic. Two friends, celebrating a birthday, end up driving the wrong way on I-494 near the botched Wakota Bridge project. It's not known whether alcohol was involved, though that isn't stopping anyone from guessing, and , in some cases, injecting a "serves 'em right" mentality, which adds a dose of obscenity to the tragedy .
Someone named "Tim" assembled the memorial at a stop sign at the bottom of Hardman Ave., one possible spot the girls -- Charitie Foss and Brittany Stowman -- might've taken the wrong turn.
Perhaps, Brittany goes by Sarah, judging by comments from a friend on the Pioneer Press Web site (Above link, but you really don't want to read the comments. Trust me on this.)
A TCF bank gift card and an apparent prom picture adorn the cross. But the picture is torn.
"We all love you," Tim scrawled.
What's in your water?
Posted at 5:05 AM on March 10, 2008
by Bob Collins
(12 Comments)
It's quite simple, really. People urinate. It goes to a plant (hopefully) where it is treated, dumped into a river where -- downstream -- it is pumped out for drinking water, treated (hopefully) and then sent to someone's tap. What could go wrong?
Where to begin? First of all, not everything gets pulled out of ye olde water before it becomes drinking water, which is creepy enough. But now, the Associated Press finds in a nationwide investigation, a lot of the pharmaceuticals end up in your drinking water. Bodies absorb some of the medication being taken, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet.
Granted, it's relatively small amounts that end up drinking water, but it's not really known what the long-term health effect is. In Philadelphia, 56 different drugs were found.
None of this is going to surprise the experts. The problem was first identified in Germany years ago and similar studies, most notably by a Tulane professor, have shown similar results.
In addition to the obvious, what has some researchers concerned is that a large number of excreted antibiotics in the water will result in more powerful disease-inducing bacteria that will be immune to treatment.
The U.S. Geological Survey has been studying this issue for quite some time and has set up a fascinating Web site that includes research on the subject.
New sins
Posted at 11:23 AM on March 10, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
A Vatican official has updated the list of sinful behavior. Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti said that sins increasingly manifest themselves as behavior that damages society as a whole, according to CNN.
Drugs, pollution and genetic manipulations as well as social and economic injustices are new areas of mortal sins.
The Times Online reported Girotti saying, "You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos."
Morally debatable scientific experiments? OK, that's easy. Allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA? I understand.
But what constitutes "ruining the environment?" What does it mean to be a polluter? If one drives a car, one is clearly polluting. What if one throws the credit card offer in the trash, instead of the recycling bin?
$4 a gallon for gas is coming
Posted at 12:53 PM on March 10, 2008
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
Tomorrow should be a big day, according to AAA. With the price of oil hitting another new record today (up another 2%), the record average U.S. gas price should be set on Tuesday.
"I would anticipate we'd hit a new record price tomorrow," said Geoff Sundstrom, AAA fuel price analyst. The current record is $3.227, set when oil was around $65 a barrel, something that now seems like a bargain. In Minnesota, the highest price for gasoline currently is in the Roseau-Warroad area ($3.20)
As the chart below (from minnesotagasprices.com) shows, it's surprising the price of gas isn't higher. The red line is gas, the blue line is the price of a barrel of oil.
The experts are saying $4 a gallon by summer seems like a sure bet. When it crossed $3 a gallon, the same experts figured that would be the point when consumers would change their driving habits. Now, they're saying that, perhaps, the $4 mark will make a difference.
It was less than two weeks ago when President Bush said he hadn't heard anything about $4 a gallon gasoline.
On the Web site Op-Ed News, Patricia Johnson has just posted "The Crude Facts About Crude Oil," which does a nice job explaining how events -- as well as the falling value of the dollar -- have conspired to drive up the cost of oil. She also reminds us that the biggest single supplier of oil to the U.S. is Canada.
But regardless of the reason, the price of gasoline is what it is, and summer looks to be pretty pricey.
So, now the question: Will it change your plans for the summer? Will it change the way you use energy?
Lost causes
Posted at 2:58 PM on March 10, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
Apparently so many teenage boys are spraying themselves with body sprays like Axe that it's making people in Minnesota schools sick. One out of eight Minnesota students has asthma. But the kids have gotten it into their heads that dousing themselves will make them "babe magnets."
Now where would they get a stupid idea like that?
Rep. Karen Clark, today reintroduced a bill that originally banned fragrances in Minneapolis schools, but now calls for an "awareness campaign" instead.
What might such a campaign look like? Kids, take it from previous generations. Old Spice didn't work. Hai Karate didn't work. British Sterling didn't work. Brut didn't work. This stuff doesn't work. You got the same chance as if you just wear the sweater that smells like mothballs.
But how are you going to compete with this "education campaign"?
The great cougar hoax
Posted at 4:49 PM on March 10, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
With some frequency there have been sightings of cougars in the upper Midwest, but the last mountain lion taken in Minnesota, according to the DNR, was in Becker County in 1897, although it acknowledges reports of sightings north of Duluth.
Today, however, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources issued a release saying recent reports of cougar sightings in the Badger State are a hoax.
The above picture was taken last year in Franklin (near Milwaukee), but it turned out to be a Photoshopped joke that a company sent out to customers.
The story behind this next picture, however, reveals the extent that game officials will go to in investigating something like this:
Said the Wisconsin DNR:
These are probably unretouched photos, but evidence suggests they may be contrived, and most certainly weren't taken in Wisconsin. The deer in the top picture is a mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) which is only found in the western United States. The shrubs are clearly western vegetation and the trees are most likely lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) another western species. In addition, several other things about the photos make them suspicious. The chances of getting both a deer and cougar in the same trail camera frame at the same time is extremely remote. Also the deer seems totally unaware of the cougar immediate behind it. This suggests a staged photo.
At the scene of the crime
Posted at 6:03 PM on March 10, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
This is the money shot from today's press conference at which Elliot Spitzer acknowledged he failed to live up to his own standards, what with being linked to a prostitution ring and all.
The photo, taken by Timothy Clark of AFP/Getty Images, is one to look at for an extended period of time and it practically forces you to want to ask the guy, "was it worth it?"
Don't look at his expression; look at hers. Him? That's a well-rehearsed expression, as the following photos appear to show.
There'll be a fair amount of chortling and some talk about the damage to a rising political star.
But this is the damage that one (or more, who knows?) act of stupidity for any married man can do:
Water quality follow-up
Posted at 6:01 PM on March 10, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
The AP report on caffeine and drugs in water supplies has been water cooler (sorry) talk today. For a follow-up, I sent an e-mail over to John Blackstone, who heads St. Paul Regional Water Services, to get his take on things. He was kind enough to send the following information:
I am familiar with the story you referred to. Saint Paul Regional Water Services tests for compliance with Safe Drinking Water Standards. Which you can view at http://www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/depts/water/WaterQuality.htm The AP Story reflects the common sense that Too Slim from Riders in the Sky has been recommending for years, "Don't drink downstream of the herd."Testing capabilities are becoming more sophisticated. What couldn't be measured several years ago in parts per million can be measured now in parts per billion or trillion. Both ground water and surface water sources are being infiltrated by undesirable compounds. Saint Paul Regional Water Services recently upgraded to granulated activated carbon filters. This is similar to the filters found in devices like BRITA. The granulated activated carbon removes organic compounds such as pharmaceuticals.
The quality of treated water is directly related to the quality of source water and not everything can be removed. SPRWS has been actively working since the early 1980s to improve source water quality. We have worked with the Vadnais Area Water Management Organization to reduce the inflow of phosphorous to Vadnais Lake so that the phosphorous levels in Lake Vadnais are less than 25 parts per million.
This is important work because phosphorous and other undesirable compounds are transported by suspended solids. Reducing phosphorous levels tends to reduce other contaminants of concern. The Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Cloud and the Board of Water Commissioners of the City of Saint Paul formed the Upper Mississippi River Source Water Protection Project. The Cities and the Board have developed source water protection plans. One component of the source water protection plan is contaminants of concern. We have been working with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to move forward with Total Maximum Daily Loads for impaired waters in the Upper Mississippi River Basin.
Again the removal of phosphorous and suspended solids to improve water quality is the goal. The purpose of Total Maximum Daily Loads is to meet Federal Clean Water Standards of swimmable and fishable. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has Mississippi River basin plans which identify water quality and goals for improving water quality. Bottom line is the better the water quality the better the finished water. Improved surface water quality benefits everyone.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has rated much of the nation's infrastructure substandard or failing. The collapse of the I35W bridge in Minneapolis is but one example. The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently reported on the storm water systems in Saint Paul and Minneapolis. It is not a pretty situation. Infrastructure for providing potable drinking water is aging. The McCarrons water treatment plant was initially constructed in 1922. It has been upgraded many times the latest being the addition of granulated activated carbon filters.The cities of Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Saint Cloud are serviced by water that is treated. The rest of the metropolitan area is served by untreated ground water. Fluoride is added to most and chlorine might be added to some but that is not treating.Of note here is that many communities probably a population of 1.5 million of the metro area 2.5 million prefer ground water which may be more susceptible and generally is not treated to treated surface water. Saint Paul and Minneapolis serve approximately 1.5 million with treated surface water. The proposed clean water legacy would go a long way towards improving surface water quality in Minnesota if it is approved by voters.
Minnesota citizens are under the illusion that we have more than enough water. But if you look at the impaired water bodies identified by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency it tells a different story. We have been hesitant to invest in water quality and in parts of the state the water quality and supply is at risk.
Another shoe drops in AG's office
Posted at 8:20 AM on March 11, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
The assistant attorney general who talked to MPR's Tim Pugmire last week about problems in the office of Attorney General Lori Swanson has been placed on administrative leave.
According to Eric Black at MinnPost, to whom Ann Lawler also spoke, the letter of discipline called Lawler out by demanding proof of ethical lapses by Swanson, as she charges.
Lawler was one of three assistant attorneys general trying to organize into a union. Lawler said she and her colleagues believe a union would protect them if they speak out about workplace problems.
The final frontier
Posted at 10:05 AM on March 11, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
The U.S. is back in space after the shuttle Endeavour lifted off this morning. We children of the '60s have become pretty comfortable with the notion that the U.S. has always been the leader in space, but the reality appears to be that we're about to play second-fiddle to Europe, or so the Europeans tell us.
The space shuttle program, ends in 2010 and NASA has already told contractors that thousands of jobs will end around then.
The U.S. has invested about $100 billion in the International Space Station and in a few years will have no way for our own astronauts to get there other than asking for a ride from the Russians or Europeans.
Space officials have tried over the years to explain the benefits of the space program with dwindling amounts of success, especially as the economy sours. And even the "gee whiz" factor of staring back in time is losing its luster. Today, for example, the BBC carries details of a NASA effort to map the leftover light from the Big Bang.
While it has a high "cool" factor, the answer to the generational question of "how does this make any difference in the here and now?" is less clear.
(Note: I'm taking the day off today so posts will be more sporadic than usual.)
Sex and the American teen
Posted at 4:42 PM on March 11, 2008
by Bob Collins
A new study finds one of every 4 teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. And nearly half of all African American teen girls has an STD.
The most common is the virus that causes cervical cancer.
Dr. John Douglas of the CDC said the study, based on data from 2003-04, probably is indicative of current rates of infection. And the CDC's Dr. Kevin Fenton said "screening, vaccination and other prevention strategies for sexually active women are among our highest public health priorities."
That's not likely to happen in Minnesota, where last year a bill to mandate vaccinations against HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer, was criticized so roundly that by the end of the session, even its sponsor was walking away from it. Opponents said vaccinating girls sends a message that it's OK to have sex. And the state's Health Department recommended against the vaccination mandate last month, although it said it would revisit the issue in three years.
There's one other element to today's survey. If 25% of America's teen girls have a STD, at least that many have had sex. Yet, a 2006 ABC survey -- highly publicized at the time -- said only 19 percent of all teens surveyed say they've had intercourse. And that number includes both boys and girls, of course. Adding to the confusion is the fact various teens have different definitions of what constitutes "having sex," and it's possible with some STDs to spread them without intercourse.
Still, though the data used in each survey is from different years, it's close enough to wonder if one of them is significantly wrong and, if so, which one?
A dog's life
Posted at 10:03 AM on March 12, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
I admit it. I get tired of hookers and pig politicians, political theater, and all the hypocrisy that surrounds all of it. So today I set out to unearth some sort of uplifting story of decency.
What does it say when the closest I could find today is stories about dogs?
His name is ... was ... Alex and for 13 years he was the loyal firedog at the Alexandria Fire Department, according to the Alexandria Echo Press. Alex died in his sleep last week.
No one seems to know for sure how Alex ended up at the fire department; only that one day years ago, he was left on the back step of the department, "tucked in a kennel with blankets to keep him warm and toys to keep him occupied," and a letter signed with a paw print.
There are no great stories of heroics by Alex, he was just good at what dogs are good at. He welcomed kids to the fire house and all that.
There are other stories about dogs worth paying attention to, today:
In West Virginia, a man's boat capsized, sending him and his dog, Lacy, into the water. He got the dog onto the top of the boat while he stayed in the water. When rescuers arrived, he begged them to get the dog first. Why? He and his wife lost both of their children in a car accident 15 years ago and he said the animal has helped take a small amount of that hurt away, giving them an object to pour their love into.
Jennifer Frekking, a Minnesotan in the Iditarod race in Alaska, lost one of her dogs -- Lorne -- when it was hit by a snowmobile earlier this week. The race ended today when Alaskan Lance Mackey won his second straight title.
Life's mysteries
Posted at 10:58 AM on March 12, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
While you're pondering the mystery of how a politician with a reputation for high ethics gets himself hooked up with a prostitution ring, here's another mystery of the mind to consider. How does a priest get around to masterminding the mass murder of 1,500 people who sought refuge in his church?
Give us our debts
Posted at 11:27 AM on March 12, 2008
by Bob Collins
(7 Comments)
(This post was updated at 1:35 p.m.)
A lot of attention has been paid to the problem of student loans -- and deservedly so. Kids today are coming out of school with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, and declining job prospects. And, as we learned today, this is particularly true in Minnesota where the cost of higher education is well above the national average.
But a study out today from St. Paul-based Securian Financial Group says the same problem is being faced on the other side of the working-years spectrum. More people are going into retirement in debt.
"If you start retirement in debt, the chance of you running out of money is higher," said Mathew Greenwald, who conducted the survey.
The survey, released this afternoon, says 26 percent of Baby Boomers and 33 percent of the Silent Generation expect to carry non-mortgage debt into retirement. Slightly more than half of current retirees reported they retired with such debts.
In many cases, according to the survey, consumers don't even realize they are in debt. Nearly half -- 46 percent -- failed to classify "at least one common financial obligation such as outstanding balances on credit cards, home equity lines of credit or even overdue utility bills as debt. And 11 percent of people with debt don't consider themselves being in debt.
Budget-cutting season in state's schools
Posted at 12:01 PM on March 12, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
Cuts in school finances have been going on for years, but now it really has their attention in Brainerd. Why? Now, they're going after athletics -- the sacred cow of school finances.
According to the Brainerd Dispatch newspaper (reg. required), the district is considering how best to implement $5.5 million in cuts, with about $860,000 to come from athletics. Last night, 300 people heard about the two plans being considered. One retains adapted floor hockey, baseball, boys' and girls' basketball, dance, football, softball, boys' and girls' swimming, boys' and girls' track and volleyball. Participation fees would jump from about $80 to near $300 per sport. A second plan retains more sports but calls for more money from booster clubs.
Brainerd is not alone in the budget cutting.
In Duluth, a similar situation is facing school officials. They need to cut almost $6 million from the budget. On Monday night, they outlined a plan to cut administrative positions -- including athletic directors -- as well as shutter a school, reduce technology and textbooks. A list of cuts on the district's Web site today lists increasing fees for "co-curricular" activities, but does not include outright cutting of any athletic programs, and says a proposal to charge students the full cost of participating in athletics is not being considered now.
In Savage, the school district is considering not opening a new school that's just been built, and is also considering increasing the cost of participation in athletics. Other programs facing cuts at the middle school level include peer mediation, the district spelling bee, student newspapers, chess teams, speech, drama club, math masters, technology club, and traveling basketball, football, volleyball and soccer.
The situation is inspiring a new round of an old debate: should high schools, in particular, still be in the sports team business?
Chasing the red tail
Posted at 1:50 PM on March 12, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
"Is there a place for you in the global economy?" asks a promotional video trailer for a documentary that apparently is not a warm and tender reminiscence of Northwest Airlines.
According to a press release today, the film followed airline mechanics "from the picket line to the bread line as they lost their jobs to outsourcing."
The producers of the film, though, don't have the money to finish it. They're holding a benefit later this month to raise the cash to visit China to interview mechanics who service Northwest planes.
Iowa considers smoking ban
Posted at 2:54 PM on March 12, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
The Iowa House of Representatives today narrowly approved a smoking ban which exempts bars and restaurants. The bill now needs to be resolved with a tougher Senate bill that didn't even exempt casinos. Most workplaces already ban smoking in Iowa.
Rep. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, said the vote reflects intense lobbying by the restaurants and bar owners who said it will hurt business. Presumably they didn't argue Iowans would go over the border to Minnesota to smoke, however.
No sex offenders allowed
Posted at 4:30 PM on March 12, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Minnesota lawmakers are considering legislation this session that would bar sex offenders from accessing social networking sites like MySpace, the online community where young people are way too casual about sharing their personal information.
The bill is similar to one in the New York State Assembly that would would force sexual predators to register their instant messaging screen names and enable sites like MySpace and Facebook to block their access.
But how can this sort of legislation be enforced? Sexual offenders might change usernames or e-mail addresses to cover their tracks.
According to Rep. Karla Bigham, DFL-Cottage Grove, who authored the House bill, someone would have to report the sex offender being on MySpace first. Alternately, probation officers -- and others -- would have authority under the bill to enter a sex offender's home without a warrant, confiscate the computer, and have it checked to see if they've been on MySpace or other social networking site.
There are an estimated 15,000 sex offenders in Minnesota. Various "reports" have said MySpace has between 29,000 and 32,000 registered sex offenders as users. Attorneys general from 49 states -- including Minnesota -- forced an agreement from MySpace earlier this year to heighten security. It pledged to default user profiles of 16- and 17-year-olds to a private category, and purge sex offenders from its service.
But that moves comes a year after a similar promise by MySpace to clean its membership of sexual predators.
There is, as Nate Anderson of Ars Technica pointed out back then, a huge flaw in the approach.
Without federal legislation requiring sex offenders to register e-mail addresses, the entire scheme falls apart. How else will MySpace match user accounts against their new database? Using names? If we assume that there is not a complete overlap between the "total moron" population and the "sex offender" population, it immediately becomes obvious that sex offenders are not going to sign up to a site like MySpace using their real names.
Then again, maybe the Spitzer case will be in the game, now that the New York Times has discovered who Client 9's hooker was.
Toilet seats and apparitions
Posted at 4:01 PM on March 12, 2008
by Bob Collins
(6 Comments)
Two reasons why the Spitzer story won't be the most e-mailed story on the Internet today.
From the BBC: Hundreds of Indian Catholics reportedly stared at the sun last month following rumours that a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary could be seen in the sky. Soon afterwards, local eye hospitals started receiving patients with burn damage to their retinas.
Meanwhile, in Ness City, Kansas, a woman has been checked out at the hospital after being stuck on her boyfriend's toilet seat for two years. According to the Associated Press, the woman's legs had begun to grow around the seat. Police said they were surprised they weren't called in sooner. (Please note: The smart money in ye olde newsroom is on this being a hoax but we cannot yet collect our reward.)
On the other hand, there's a chance the Spitzer story will rise to the top, now that the NY Times has the details on his hooker. The head-shaker factoid: She's not sure how she's going to pay her rent now that her boyfriend moved out after she found he'd fathered two children. That must've been an interesting conversation.
"Why didn't you tell me you were a father?"
"Why didn't you tell me you were a hooker?"
What's your news IQ?
Posted at 9:10 PM on March 12, 2008
by Bob Collins
(26 Comments)
Quick! How many American soldiers have died in the war in Iraq? If you're like 72 percent of the American adult population, you don't know, according to a new Pew Research Center Survey.
That's the lowest awareness total since the war began and it also mirrors the declining amount of war coverage in the American media. Maybe it's the media's fault, but other elements of the survey are just as troubling and don't necessarily track with media coverage.
For example:
* Only 70% know which party is in control of the U.S. House of Representatives
* Only 56 percent know which state John McCain represents in the Senate.
* Only 31 percent knew the Dow was at 12,000 points (at the time of the survey)
Even worse, the questions were multiple choice, and only 52% of those surveyed got at least 6 of the 10 questions right.
I have confidence that News Cut readers can beat these numbers. So take the survey here. Then post your results.
Here's a freebie: As of tonight 3,966 soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
The freedom to dry
Posted at 9:26 AM on March 13, 2008
by Bob Collins
(12 Comments)
Pity the younger people; they have no idea what it's like at night to put their heads on a pillowcase that spent the day on a clothesline. In fact, they probably have no idea what a clothesline is, rendered obsolete as they were by the luxury of dryers.
In many communities (mostly in the 'burbs) clotheslines are banned, presumably because neighbors didn't want to see the underwear of the people next door.
But as energy prices spike, the clothesline is making a comeback and the great silent clothesline lobby is making itself heard.
In New England, in fact, two states are considering "right to dry" legislation that would overturn bans on outdoor clotheslines. A third state, New Hampshire, killed the bill in committee. Go figure, the state whose motto is "Live Free or Die" draws the line at, umm, clotheslines.
There is significant opposition, according to the Boston Globe:
"If you imagine driving into a community where the yards have clothes hanging all over the place, I think the aesthetics, the curb appeal, and probably the home values would be affected by that, because you can't let one homeowner do it and say no to the next," said Frank Rathbun, a spokesman for the Community Associations Institute, a national group based in Virginia that represents thousands of homeowner and condominium associations, many of which restrict clotheslines.
In Hawaii, the issue is so hot that the Honolulu Star Bulletin posted an editorial supporting legislation there last Saturday.
The agency estimates that if just 20,000 households reduced tumble-drying by half, spending for oil at $90 a barrel would shrink by $1.7 million a year. Individual homeowners on Oahu could see annual savings of about $250 on their power bills, while neighbor island residents who pay more for electricity could see bigger savings.
$90 a barrel oil? Boy, those were the days.
Should more juveniles be charged as adults?
Posted at 11:55 AM on March 13, 2008
by Bob Collins
(39 Comments)
A Minnesota House committee approved "Emily's Law" this afternoon (HF699). Filed by Rep. Bud Nornes and Rep. Torrey Westrom, it's nicknamed after 2-year-old Emily Johnson of Fergus Falls, who died a day after she was sexually assaulted and then thrown against a wall by the 13-year-old son of the daycare provider.
Currently in Minnesota, persons as young as 14 can be charged as adults.
"Why is our daughter laying in the ground and this person is in a group home?" asked Lynn Johnson at the House Public Safety and Civil Justice Committee hearing this afternoon, shortly before the committee approved the bill on a 12-to-6 vote. She said the young man charged with manslaughter in the case, was just 19 days from his 14th birthday.
"In Kansas and Vermont, it's 10. In Missouri and Colorado, it's 12," said her husband, Travis, who rattled off a list of states with ages for being tried as an adult younger than Minnesota's requirement.
He disputed opponents of the bill, who said 13 year olds may not know the difference between right and wrong. "Why must the brain be fully developed before one is held accountable for his actions?" Travis Johnson said.
Doug Johnson, the Washington County Attorney, testified against the bill, saying if children were tried as adults, they could be released sooner than if they entered the juvenile justice system. He said the boy who assaulted the Johnson's toddler, "would be out of the system before he was 18" had he been tried as an adult.
"If you send a kid to prison as an adult, you're going to get nothing when he comes out other than a future criminal," he said.
Another opponent said juveniles in prison as adults are eight times more likely to be sexually assaulted as adults and are more likely to commit suicide.
A psychologist, Sue Foss, testified that until age 15, adolescents are "not able to pick up cues" that adults are, saying an adolescent is more likely to consider a crying child to be deliberately trying to annoy. "Thirteen year olds don't have the capacity of adults or modify their behavior to avoid future negative consequences," she said, adding that that doesn't mean they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions.
According to state public defender John Stuart, there are no 14 or 15 year olds currently in state prison.
Rep. Debra Hilstrom,DFL-Brooklyn Center, who served on a sexual offender task force, said "the goal for me at the end of the incarceration period is to make sure there isn't one more victim. Less than 25 percent of the people who are incarcerated as an adult get sex offender treatment even if they're ordered to by the court."
Hilstrom said she didn't get the information she needed to make sure that "these parents get what they're asking for."
The end of war?
Posted at 3:00 PM on March 13, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
The apes. It always comes back to the apes. Discover Magazine has a story today, based on research involving primates, John Horgan explores this notion that we are somehow hardwired to engage in warfare.
He takes a look, oddly enough, at a group of baboons who fought their version of war from scraps at a garbage dump, until several of them died from tuberculosis.The remaining critters were far more sedate.
Conclusion? Once the cost of war reaches a certain level, it will no longer be waged. Conflict among monkeys eases, it says here, when they are assured of food and when they become interdependent.
Is this a concept that baboons get and humans don't?
"Morning-after" bill signed in Wisconsin
Posted at 4:40 PM on March 13, 2008
by Bob Collins
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed a bill into law today requiring hospitals to inform rape victims about the availability of and effectiveness of the "morning-after" pill.
According to the Journal-Sentinel, a couple of Republican legislators -- Terry Musser of Black River Falls and Jeff Wood of Chippewa Falls -- bucked party leaders by voting for the measure.
It's much like the situation in Minnesota with Republicans who voted for the gas tax. In Wisconsin a few years ago, Republicans advanced a bill to outlaw the "morning-after" pill, and Democrats have tried to get this bill passed since 2001.
During a round of applause for his buck-the-leadership position today, Musser quipped, "Don't remind my caucus," according to the Capital Times.
At last check, both Republicans still had their committee leadership positions.
The News Cut Week-in-Review Quiz
Posted at 6:16 PM on March 14, 2008
by Bob Collins
(21 Comments)
You've waited all week for this. We so enjoyed the Pew Center survey post and quiz earlier this week that I've decided to make a weekly quiz. Now, clearly, regular readers of News Cut have an advantage, but don't let that stop you from taking the quiz below.
If you select the correct answer, it will light up green and move to the next question. If you're wrong -- and what are the odds of that? -- you'll see a red "X" and the correct answer will show itself in green. Hint: Study the images above.
We haven't built a quiz yet to keep track of how everyone is doing so you can compare yourself to others, but we're working on it. In the meantime, we'll just have to depend on your honesty to reveal your results in the "comments" section.
Ready? Begin!
Escapism
Posted at 8:43 AM on March 14, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
While on my way to write a post about a father who forced his daughter to kill the family cat, I realized, "do we really need more of that? No. No, we don't.
Here's what we need today: We need to dream about cool things in far-off lands. And so, I'll be searching for neat travelogues today.
For example, here's one from the Guardian site. In the forests north of Angkor Wat in Camobia, a series of mysterious rock carvings line the banks and peer out from under the Kbal Spean river.
Something a little closer to home? The New York Times has a slideshow about spending 36 hours in Pasadena.
If Pasadena isn't your thing, how about Prague? (Just added today)
And they're coming out of hibernation on Cape Cod.
Put your headphones on in your cubicles and escape. Don't worry; the news will still be here when you get back.
If you've got a slideshow of a recent trip, put the URL in the comments section, and we'll review it and add it. If you're looking for tips on how to make a good travel slideshow, go here.
Where's the optimism?
Posted at 11:03 AM on March 14, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
There was an unsettling factoid in the news this week. Zimbabwe's dollar tumbled to a record low. Want an American dollar? It'll cost you 25 million Zimbabwe bucks.The inflation rate there is 100,500%.
It's one of the few places left, judging by the news stories today, where the American dollar still feels like it has some "oomph." Beyond that, we old-timers are waking up with bad dreams of needing a wheelbarrow to take our dollars to Starbuck's just to get a cup of cheap joe.
We're all getting a lesson these days about the value of our currency in relation to other countries. It's one of the main reasons why the price of oil has skyrocketed; it's paid for in dollars.
There are, we're also told, some good things from a falling dollar, as NPR reported last night in profiling a company that makes fire suppression equipment and is finding it easier to compete overseas.
"I think a weaker dollar, if it doesn't spiral out of control, is part of the solution here," Barry Eichengreen, an economic historian told the Wall Street Journal today (reg. required). He says the weaker dollar may help cut the enormous trade deficit in the U.S.
This is the type of thing that gives headaches to mere mortals. Our economy stinks, partly because of the decline of the dollar, and yet the stinking economy's dollar may be the cure for the stinking economy.
Is it any wonder that a consumer sentiment survey, released today, showed continuing despair?
"There was nearly unanimous agreement among consumers that the economy was now in recession," said Richard Curtin, director of the University of Michigan surveys of consumers.
President Bush tried to boost sentiment today with a speech in New York. "In the long run. I'm confident our economy will continue to grow because the foundation is solid,'' he said. But how are we to take comfort anymore from someone who a week ago said he hadn't heard anything about the possibility of $4 a gallon gasoline? A week later, $4 gasoline hit California.
A couple of economic experts are on MPR's Midday today, trying to sort this out and maybe find some optimism in the steady drumbeat of falling indicators.
"It has all the earmarks of a bubble," MPR's economic expert Chris Farrell said of the price of oil.
"The days of $50 a barrel oil have gone the way of a 10-cent loaf of bread," said Dan Laufenberg, chief economist for Ameriprise Financial.
Clear?
(Photo: Patrick Hertzog/AFP/Getty Images
Waiting for Mr. Good Enough
Posted at 1:15 PM on March 14, 2008
by Bob Collins
(10 Comments)
Every now and again, a subject comes along that we know is going to cause a debate. Today's Midmorning broadcast with author Lori Gottlieb is one such subject. She advocates women in their early 40s to stop waiting for Mr. Perfect, and accept Mr. Good Enough, if they want to get married and have families.
Gentlemen, I know what you're thinking: "Thank goodness my spouse didn't settle for 'good enough,'" to which I have only one response. "Are you sure?"
Here's Gottlieb's treatise, which was published in The Atlantic:
To the outside world, of course, we still call ourselves feminists and insist--vehemently, even--that we're independent and self-sufficient and don't believe in any of that damsel-in-distress stuff, but in reality, we aren't fish who can do without a bicycle, we're women who want a traditional family. And despite growing up in an era when the centuries-old mantra to get married young was finally (and, it seemed, refreshingly) replaced by encouragement to postpone that milestone in pursuit of high ideals (education! career! but also true love!), every woman I know--no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure--feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.
This widespread characterization, of course,is met with a single word of advice: "settle," as in "settle for less."
In another article she wrote for MSNBC, Gottlieb says:
Of course, we'd be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won't tell you it's a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she'll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).
Is this true?
Not according to a writer -- a woman -- on Helium who says she's tried the "settle for less" thing and what she longs for in life isn't what Gottlieb says she longs for:
Today I find myself struggling with a decision. Settle for this misery, or be free? Am I being selfish, as my husband constantly reminds me, to go after my goals of finishing school, of writing that book, of having a life outside of my husband and children? Am I trading the happiness of my children for my own? Is it better to be alone than to live your life wishing you were alone?
This discussion isn't exactly new. It's been going on for generations (usually inspired by an impatient mother, I hear.) And last year, on the NPR segment This, I believe, it was given voice by Corinne Colbert, an Ohio woman who settled:
So, yes, I'm settling. Sure, I wish my husband would kiss me more often, tell me he loves me every day, and get as excited about my accomplishments as I do. Emptying the dishwasher without being asked and giving me unsolicited foot massages wouldn't hurt, either.
All that would be nice, but it's not necessary. I'm happy with my husband who, despite his flaws, is a caring father, capable of acts of stunning generosity and fiercely protective of his family. Thinking about him may not set me on fire as it used to, but after 17 years and two kids, our love is still warm. And I believe that's good enough.
This is one of those areas of discussion that my colleague, Mary Lucia, usually turns into a question for which every answer is lacking. Since she's down in Austin at South by Southwest, I'll have to fill in. So here's the question that you might want to think about before going home tonight and discussing this with your insignificant other: If your spouse settled for you, do you really want to know?
Snarled in Minnesota?
Posted at 4:55 PM on March 14, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
MPR's Toni Randolph has details today of a study from the Minnesota Department of Transportation that seems to have a high "huh?" factor, especially given the rhetoric surrounding the gas tax debate of the last few years in which we seemed to be portrayed as drivers stuck in transportation quicksand.
The study showed that there were 305 miles of congested freeway in the Twin Cities last year, compared to 267 miles in 2006. MnDOT defines congestion as traffic moving slower than 45 miles per hour.
I'll leave it to you, the good drivers of Minnesota, to supply your anecdotal evidence about whether you think traffic has gotten worse only since the collapse of the I-35W bridge.
The full report is here (pdf).
Theoretically, if congestion hasn't gotten any worse until the last year, it stands to reason we wouldn't hear an increasing number of complaints about traffic. And yet, we do.
Many of the complaints of recent years, though, had quite a bit to do with construction projects designed to ease it. For much of this decade, I-494/694 has been under construction, causing plenty of tie-ups. That work mostly finished in 2007. In the East Metro, the widening of I-94 took a few years and plenty of headaches to get rid of a headache; that was completed a few years ago. Those completed projects caused a welcomed respite from congestion, apparently, until now.
And, of course, not all highways are created equal. While congestion overall may be up slightly, it actually increased significantly in 2006 in some locations -- I-35W, I-94 and I-394/TH12 -- all highways that have more "congested miles" in the morning in 2006 than in 2007, according to the report.
Drivers on I-494, I-694 and I-35E all experienced an increase in congestion, although it's important to point out that one of the largest current highway construction projects in the state happens to be at the I-694 and I-35E weave.
For the most part, congestion on those major highways -- I-35W, I-694, I-94 -- has been increasing for most of the decade, but few match the congestion of late 2000, according to the report.
Kids today
Posted at 9:03 AM on March 16, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
If you get enough old geezers in one place, sooner or later the topic of conversation will be "kids today," which is another way of saying "kids today are stupid."
Don't tell them about Neil Turner of Ashby, Minn. (reg. required), who started attending college at age 12.
It'll ruin their day.
The most interesting person you know
Posted at 6:00 PM on March 16, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Every once in awhile, I hear from a News Cut reader regarding someone they know of doing something interesting. That's how we met Captain Bibeau weeks ago. I know there are more stories to tell about people you know.
Tell me about them by e-mailing me here.
Song for a Monday
Posted at 7:26 AM on March 17, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
Happy St. Patrick's Day. Sorry about the weather. 'tis a special day for me because on March 17, 1991, I set foot on Minnesota sod for the first time.
Last night, Bruce Springsteen played at the Xcel Energy Center(Star Tribune review | Pioneer Press review) and ended the concert with a nod to St. Patrick's Day with American Land, which he recorded as part of the Seeger Sessions.
Grab your office mates, turn up your speakers, and good luck getting it out of your head.
What is this land of America, so many travel there I'm going now while I'm still young, my darling meet me there Wish me luck my lovely, I'll send for you when I can And we'll make our home in the American landOver there all the woman wear silk and satin to their knees*
And children dear, the sweets, I hear, are growing on the trees*
Gold comes rushing out the river straight into your hands*
If you make your home in the American land*There's diamonds in the sidewalks, there's gutters lined in song
Dear I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night long
There's treasure for the taking, for any hard working man
Who will make his home in the American landI docked at Ellis Island in a city of light and spire
I wandered to the valley of red-hot steel and fire****
We made the steel that built the cities with the sweat of our two hands
And I made my home in the American landThere's diamonds in the sidewalk, there's gutters lined in song
Dear I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night long
There's treasure for the taking, for any hard working man
Who will make his home in the American landThe McNicholas, the Posalski's, the Smiths, Zerillis too**
The Blacks, the Irish, the Italians, the Germans and the Jews
The Puerto Ricans, illegals, the Asians, Arabs miles from home***-*****
Come across the water with a fire down below******They died building the railroads, worked to bones and skin
They died in the fields and factories, names scattered in the wind
They died to get here a hundred years ago, they're dyin' now
The hands that built the country we're all trying to keep down(Bob notes: this was changed "keep out" last night)
There's diamonds in the sidewalk, there's gutters lined in song
Dear I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night long
There's treasure for the taking, for any hard working man
Who will make his home in the American land
Who will make his home in the American land
Who will make his home in the American land
Posting will be sporadic today. As I am old and unable to stay out late for concerts anymore, I took the day off.
Magnuson to the Supreme Court
Posted at 11:14 AM on March 17, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
We're awaiting the reviews from the legal community now that Gov. Tim Pawlenty has appointed a new chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. (Update: Minn. Lawyer blog calls it a "John Roberts type 'difficult-to-assail' appointment")But this much we know: it helps to be close to Tim Pawlenty if you want a gig on the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Pawlenty today appointed Eric Magnuson of Inver Grove Heights to replace outgoing justice Russell Anderson. Magnuson was a partner in the same firm -- Rider Bennett -- that employed both Pawlenty and his wife, Mary. He was also in charge of screening judicial candidates for Pawlenty. Minnesota Lawyer says the move was "anticipated."
Prior to Magnuson's appointment, Pawlenty's most recent pick for the Minnesota Supreme Court was Christopher Dietzen in November. Dietzen was Pawlenty's campaign lawyer.
For his part, Magnuson steps onto the court that might still be considering an important case in June, one in which he just argued a position before the court. According to Minnesota Lawyer, Magnuson argued a sexual harassment case before the court this month in which his client, Carlson Marketing Group, is being sued by a woman who says she was physically and sexually assaulted.
The case, heard earlier this month, will determine the extent to which the Minnesota Human Rights Act holds an employer liable for the actions of an employee in matters of sex harassment.
You can watch the March 4 hearing before the high court here. Magnuson's presentation begins at 25:28 (download the video to your computer to be able to fast forward).
The state of the American news media
Posted at 1:19 PM on March 17, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
The Pew Center is out today with its annual report on the state of the American news media. I know what you're thinking, but let's break it down the Pew way, anyway.
Last year, the "democratization" of the media was a big topic. It still is, of course. This notion that you don't have to be a big media outlet to be in the "news business" is one, according to Pew, that has turned out to be a bit more complicated.
Looking closely, a clear case for democratization is harder to make. Even with so many new sources, more people now consume what old media newsrooms produce, particularly from print, than before. Online, for instance, the top 10 news Web sites, drawing mostly from old brands, are more of an oligarchy, commanding a larger share of audience, than in the legacy media. The verdict on citizen media for now suggests limitations. And research shows blogs and public affairs Web sites attract a smaller audience than expected and are produced by people with even more elite backgrounds than journalists.
Blogs attract a smaller audience than expected? Shoot.
Here's the whole report.
The $11.2 billion taxi
Posted at 6:52 PM on March 17, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
What do you suppose could be done with $11.2 billion? That's the cost of the mushrooming VH-71 project, the next generation of presidential helicopters. After 9/11, the White House decided it needed twenty-eight helicopters with more bells and whistles.
The chief mission of the helicopter -- it's Marine One when the president is aboard -- is to take him to the airport. The new helicopter -- at $400 million -- will cost more than the current Air Force One did. Harvard prof and occasional aviation writer Philip Greenspun notes that a handful of cheap (comparatively) everyday helicopters could accomplish the same task as safely.
Because the cost has nearly doubled, the Washington Post says, the program may bescrapped.
Red-light cameras: What's the point?
Posted at 8:18 PM on March 17, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
There's new data to consider on the question of whether those red-light cameras -- struck down by Minnesota courts after they were installed in Minneapolis -- actually help safety. Unfortunately, the data comes down squarely on both sides of the issue.
First, a study by the University of South Florida College of Public Health said they don't work.
Thus, even if red light cameras could be effective in the long run, which is debatable, they are associated with an added cost, consisting of fines, crashes and injuries that could have been avoided by using engineering solutions, which are effective in both the short term and the long run.
Meanwhile, Dallas has found they work and work, perhaps, too well. It turns out people are changing their behavior and not running red lights, which is resulting in fewer traffic fines for running red lights.
And that, of course,has sparked a renewed debate over whether government's interest is in public safety, or making money.
A bill making it way through the Minnesota House of Representatives would put the red-light cameras back in action in Minnesota.
Since you put it that way
Posted at 7:43 AM on March 18, 2008
by Bob Collins
(6 Comments)
It's all in the question that's asked.
Do you like taxes? Seriously, who's going to say "yes" based only on that question?
So it's a bit odd that KSTP-TV let the phrasing of a question on its poll recently about the "gas tax" stand.
The question asked was:
Last month the Minnesota legislature passed a transportation funding bill that will raise the state gas tax, raise license registration fees and allow counties in the metro area to raise the sales tax in order to pay for highway and transit projects. Do you support or oppose that legislation?
Well, that depends on what the legislation does, doesn't it? If I were to ask you, would you favor or oppose spending $1,200 out of your savings account this week, aren't you going to ask me another question before you answered, so that you can find out whether it was being spent on muffins or, say, a new family room?
Compare the wording of the question with one MPR used last spring:
There is a proposal before the Minnesota State Legislature to raise the gasoline tax by 10 cents per gallon to pay for improvements to roads and bridges.
In that poll, 59 percent (not that much different from the KSTP results) were opposed to the dime increase, but it was a fairly even split on the idea of a nickel increase.
The Star Tribune Minnesota Poll in October asked:
Would you be willing to pay more in gasoline taxes in order to pay more for increased inspection and repair of bridges?
And got a different answer: A -- statistically speaking -- even split. But notice that no mention was made of how much of a tax would be involved -- another sin of omission.
And that's the real question underlying the tax debate: not that there are taxes, but that people do or don't feel they're getting value for their taxes.
If you asked the people in the Worthington area, for example, "do you want Minnesota 60 expanded?" the results would probably be "yes."
Now, there might be a second part of the question, "do you want the gas tax raised to pay for that?" And the results of that end of the question might be entirely different. But we don't know, since people weren't given that type of question.
There are a lot of questions about this poll, mostly because questions weren't asked, and that's a shame because it would be good information.
When mistakes happen
Posted at 10:50 AM on March 18, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Perhaps it's a good sign that we're still surprised -- shocked, even -- by stories like the one today about doctors at Methodist Hospital removing the wrong kidney of a patient whose other kidney was full of cancer. It suggests we have a confidence in the medical system.
Still a study released in Minnesota two years ago found 12 deaths in the state from medical errors between October 2004 and October 2005, and 106 total medical errors in that time. A year earlier, 20 deaths were reported as a result of medical mistakes in Minnesota over a 16-month period. The most recent report found 125 errors between October 2006 and October 2007. The consequences of the mistakes are indicated in the chart .
Not all medical mistakes are "reportable" under Minnesota law. Here are the 28 that qualify. And here is the annual report of hospitals in Minnesota and their mistake reports.
Much of the attention on the issue of medical errors came as a result of a 1999 Institute of Medicine report. "To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System" (pdf executive summary) set as its goal, a 50-percent reduction in medical errors by 2004.
But last October, two doctors, Tom Delbanco and Sigall K. Bell, wrote a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine, saying that hospitals need to change the way they react to the new needs of patients after a mistake is made.
Clinicians who feel guilty after a medical error may have parallel feelings of fear -- fear for their reputation, their job, their license, and their own future as well as that of their patient. Although full disclosure of medical errors is increasingly recognized as an ethical imperative, health care providers often shy away from taking personal responsibility for an error and believe they must "choose words carefully" or present a positive "spin."2 Hospitals, insurers, and attorneys frequently advise physicians against using trigger words, such as "error," "harm," "negligence," "fault," or "mistake." The result can be an impersonal demeanor that leads patients to view physicians as uncaring. To date, approximately 30 U.S. states have adopted "I'm sorry" laws, which to varying degrees render comments that physicians make to patients after an error inadmissible as evidence for proving liability.3,4 However, until such statutes become universal and are accepted by health care institutions, frightened clinicians are left to struggle with conflicting personal moral principles, professional ethics, and institutional policies.
Black liberation theology and the candidate
Posted at 11:58 AM on March 18, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
This post was updated at 3:07 p.m.
The Washington Post carries a story today that looks a little closer at the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at least closer than the short clips on TV and large-point headlines have allowed. The article also examines what's known as "black liberation theology."
Flooded with a tide of criticism, Trinity declines to condemn Wright's remarks, instead casting them as consistent with the traditions of the black church. He practices a "black liberation theology" that encourages a preacher to speak forcefully against the institutions of oppression, and occasional hyperbole is an occupational hazard, ministers said. "There's so much passion in what we do that it can overflow," said the Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III, senior pastor at Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas.
Black liberation theology is based on a book (Black Theology of Liberation) by James H. Cone, a professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
"For me, the burning theological question was, how can I reconcile Christianity and Black Power, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s idea of nonviolence, and Malcolm X's 'by any means necessary philosophy?'" he wrote.
Today, Sen. Barack Obama, in perhaps the most important speech of his political career, did not shy from acknowledging the anger that exists where race is concerned in America (Read transcript). "But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races," he said.
Nor did he reject his long association with Rev. Wright. "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."
Now for the reviews. This from James Fallows of The Atlantic, watching from China:
This was as good a job as anyone could have done in these circumstances, and as impressive and intelligent a speech as I have heard in a very long time. People thought that Mitt Romney's speech would be the counterpart to John Kennedy's famous speech about his faith to the Houston ministers in 1960. No. This was.
Jeff Jarvis has a slightly different take:
I believe he is trying too hard to dodge making a decision about Jeremiah Wright and his divisive and racist speech. After having thrown Wright to the wolves in prior videos, he now backs up. He tries to explain Wright. He explains him more as a product of racism than a racist himself. He says he cannot leave Wright and his flock behind or we will not come together to solve our problems.
Meanwhile, a new poll from CBS says 30 percent have a less favorable view of Obama because of his pastor's remarks.
Beware of snow in March
Posted at 11:38 AM on March 18, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
... or the cold for that matter.
The obituary writers at the Washington Post have calculated that this is a big time of the year for dying.
The Capitol Zoo
Posted at 2:41 PM on March 18, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
It's always a day of some sort at the Minnesota Capitol. Groups lobby for legislation, and for the most part only the most sympathetic legislators pay much attention. That changes for Minnesota Zoo Day at the Capitol, however. Nobody lobbies like a snake, or a frog, or an eagle.
The problem with the Timberwolves
Posted at 3:44 PM on March 18, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Now we know. The problem with the Timberwolves wasn't Kevin McHale drafting Ndudi Ebi. Or owner Glenn Taylor signing Joe Smith illegally and giving away years of first-round draft picks.
According to Glen Taylor, the problem was Kevin Garnett "tanking it."
"Good thing they traded that deadbeat!" opined one fan on the Boston Globe's Celtics blog today.
The effect of a rate cut
Posted at 4:08 PM on March 18, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Today the Fed cut another .75% from the Federal Fund Rate and the Discount Rate. You don't have to be a student of the machinations of the economic system to ask, "what's in it for me?"
Twin Cities mortgage banker Alex J. Stenback, who writes a fascinating blog called Behind the Mortgage, documents recent rate cuts that correspond to an immediate rise in mortgage rates -- at least in the short term.
Of course, as he notes, the biggest factor for a lot of would-be mortgage applicants is the availability of the money as well as demands for higher downpayments.
The issue that won't go away
Posted at 6:01 PM on March 18, 2008
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
These are the salient allegations from one of the attorneys general in DFLer Lori Swanson's office at the Capitol that Tim Pugmire detailed in his story today.
Of course anybody who's ever read Dilbert isn't going to do much more than shrug about the "loyalty" thing, or the blog post thing or the bringing consumers in under false pretense thing. But there are certainly questions about inserting false information into affidavits that get more uncomfortable the longer they go unchallenged.
Attorney General Swanson's spokesperson issued a written statement, saying it is impossible for an employer to respond to anonymous attacks from former employees or those who may be disgruntled.
Is it impossible? The answer can be either "yes, we do add false information to affidavits" or it can be "no, we don't and never have added false information to affidavits."
Meanwhile, the DFL-controlled Legislature is not embracing the idea of a hearing into the allegations, even though having Lori Swanson deny the accusations might actually be a good thing, if only to stop the appearance that any politician has when refusing to answer allegations: there's something to hide.
A couple of weeks ago on MPR's Midday program, the two legislative leaders punted when asked about the issue, saying they don't like to get involved in the affairs of the executive branch. This was just a week or so after the Legislature removed Carol Molnau as the transportation commissioner and just a week or so before a Senate committee approved a bill on Monday requiring the commissioner of transportation to appoint a deputy commissioner/chief engineer who is licensed as a professional engineer.
Lose-lose
Posted at 7:33 AM on March 19, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Two real estate factoids to chew on this morning:
Teresa Boardman, Realtor and writer of the St. Paul Real Estate blog reports she's seeing huge drops in asking prices.
I am not making this up. I am seeing homes listed in the MLS that have been reduced in price by $100,000 dollars. in one case the home was listed for slightly more than $200,000, when it went on the market a year ago and is now listed for 108K. I am watching it now to see how many days it remains on the market. It is bank owned and some of the banks have figured out if they make the price low enough they can get multiple offers and get more than they ask for it.
Meanwhile, according to Dakota County, even if your house isn't worth a small fortune anymore, it'll still be taxed as if it is.
According to the Star Tribune:
Because so many protections are built into the system, the housing slump won't truly work its way into the household budget until next year. And it won't kick in big-time until the year after that, county assessor Bill Peterson told the county board in a briefing.
In their own words: Serving
Posted at 11:37 AM on March 19, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
MPR's Public Insight Network has been asking people to contribute their stories about their personal connection to the war in Iraq, which as you may have overheard, started five years ago today.
Thomas P. Dunne of St. Paul did us one better; he sent a poignant recollection of his years in the military and, in particular, his role in sending others off to war.
I have served on and off since 1966 when I joined the Marine Corps. I did two tours in Vietnam as an infantryman. I was a staff sergeant when I got discharged in 1972. After a 12-year break in service I re-entered the military as a Minnesota National Guardsman, drilling once a month and going away for two weeks every summer. When Desert Storm began I was recalled to active duty, and served in the U.S. until it was over. I then transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve and was involved in Somalia (91-92), Haiti with the UN for 6 month in 1995 (90 miles from the U.S. with a benign, but ineptly corrupt leadership we couldn't fix in two years, or 42 years if you count the gunboat days in the '20s and 30s. What made us think six years later, we could repair a thoroughly corrupt, well-armed nation thousands of miles away among our enemies?), the Kurdish evacuation from Northern Iraq in 1996-97. My final active duty assignment (2006) was in the Horn of Africa.
In 2002, I became the command sergeant major of a Wisconsin Army Reserve battalion that sent most of its troops of to war after 9/11. It was difficult for me as a Vietnam vet to do this as I was very much aware what they were heading into; it would have been much easier to go than stay .
(More after the jump)
Continue reading "In their own words: Serving"
The 'tone thing'
Posted at 12:00 PM on March 19, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
The Associated Press is carrying a story today that says Sen. Norm Coleman has "previewed" his message that he'll use against presumptive DFL nominee Al Franken.
"The reality is I'll run against somebody whose temperament has
been such, whose style has been such of being incredibly divisive
and incredibly angry," Coleman told reporters Wednesday. "How do
you expect to work with somebody when you have called every
Republican the most vile and negative thing that one can imagine?
Values, experience and temperament are issues."
In five minutes, Coleman used the word experience nine times and
temperament seven.
Here's the audio, which sounds very much like the "tone" theme Coleman used in his 2002 victory. When Coleman debated DFL candidate Walter Mondale on the eve of the election, he stressed "tone" over issues.
It worked. The "money quote" (the quote that made the TV news) was this exchange, as reported on Minnesota Public Radio at the time.
What you're doing is sticking with the right wing and pretending to change the tone. It's not the fluff of what kind of words, and, Norm, we know you we've seen you; we've seen you shift around. We know about all of this and now you're in this location and you have to take responsibility for the position you're taking," Mondale said.
"Again this is the tone that you don't want to see in Washington," Coleman replied. "This is the tone that's resulted in where we're at today. Where we don't have an energy bill, we don't even have a budget. We don't have a prescription drug bill. We don't have disaster assistance for northwest Minnesota because it's this tone."
Coleman's strategy in his first statewide campaign -- his 1998 run for governor -- emphasized a similar theme... that the nuts and bolts of issues were often secondary to feelings and optimism. Take his defense of the Xcel arena project.
The return of the NHL! That was about hope! It was about hockey, but it's also about a new arena that'll bring as many as 1.4 million people to the core downtown. And, by the way, without any St. Paul property-tax dollars and the help from the state in an interest-free loan. We're getting a business that's coming in and generating between $3 and $8 million a year in taxes. But it's not just about that, it's about hope!
America to financial experts: 'What are you talking about?'
Posted at 4:33 PM on March 19, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
In the last few months, many of the nation's wisest financial experts have created the impression that they have no clue what they're doing. Bear Stearns has crashed and burned in a hurry, led there by people who actually went to school to learn how financial markets work. The Fed tries a little of this and a little of that and in the end, it all appears to be a crapshoot.
And yet, we listen to what they have to say and watch their interviews on the CNBCs of the world (here's a sample of expertise on YouTube you don't want to miss.), figuring that they simply must know something we don't and until we learn it, we're doomed to wallow in the financial mess that they helped create in the first place.
Logic is often the first victim of an economic downturn.
Marktplace's Kai Ryssdal tried his best on Tuesday when speaking to Daniel Scotto of Whitehall Investment Advisors. Scotto made it clear that the Federal Reserve Board is trying to stabilize the markets, he thinks stock prices are still too high, and he thinks it's a seller's market. Got it. Easy. Stay out of the markets and head to the casino.
Then, speaking of market prices, he said, "risk is really being repriced in here," and, when Ryssdal asked what he meant, we got this:
Essentially it's the price of the premium over treasury yields that investors are demanding to place their money in stocks. Not to be too technical but in the reciprocal of the price earnings multiple. Essentially the sensitivity of the price earnings multiple and what that's showing is the price earnings multiple needs more E than P right now
Oh.
Perhaps consumer confidence has something to do with whether we can understand what the heck the experts are talking about.
The New York Times' David Leonhardt had a good idea this week:
I spent a good part of the last few days calling people on Wall Street and in the government to ask one question, "Can you try to explain this to me?" When they finished, I often had a highly sophisticated follow-up question: "Can you try again?"
That said, Leonhardt does a decent job of explaining what's going on and why.
Presidential aging
Posted at 6:41 PM on March 19, 2008
by Bob Collins
(7 Comments)
Usually near the end of a presidential term, some news organization somewhere puts a collage together showing the difference in presidential appearance between the first days in office and the last. The difference is usually quite stark. I'm not sure that's the case with President Bush.
Above are 8 pictures, all taken in the first three months of each year between 2001 and 2008. Try to put them in the correct order. You can put your guesses in the comments section.
At some point on Thursday, I'll reveal the correct order in another collage.
Update: Here is the correct order. Left to right.
So the correct order is:
C-A-B-D-F-H-G-E
Dying death rates
Posted at 8:14 AM on March 20, 2008
by Bob Collins
(9 Comments)
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the suburbs are so 2001. Several counties in Minnesota, mostly in the metro area, used to be among the fastest growing in the country. Not anymore. Figures released today show suburban counties are still growing faster than the rest of the state, but not at the breakneck speed of yesteryear.
Meanwhile, in a study that got less attention this week, it turns out that Minnesotans aren't dying at the rate they did earlier this decade, either.
The city slicker will conclude that this means that moving to the suburbs can kill you, but the two studies aren't related.
According to the State Demographic Center, the Minnesota death rate has dropped 11 percent from 2001, with the largest rate declining coming in people 65 and over.
Naming suspects in the media: The Internet made me do it
Posted at 10:05 AM on March 20, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
Media analyst David Brauer has a fascinating article at MinnPost about media policies in printing or broadcasting the name of suspects who have not been officially charged with a crime. The issue is too important for you to settle for my paraphrasing, so please be sure to read the post. Essentially, in the really-short-shelf-life news era of the Internet, competitive rationale is responsible for an apparent increase in naming the names of suspects in cases where the suspect has not yet been charged.
Brauer cites the policies of WCCO as an example. And he includes the policies outlined by the MPR news director, Bill Wareham.
Overall, stations and newspapers say they are reluctant to name suspects until they are charged out of a sense of "fairness." The theory is once they're charged, their names become fair game. It's an argument, though, that has some logical flaws. Does being charged make it more likely the suspect "did it?" Does not having enough legal evidence against a suspect mean he (or she) didn't?
Perhaps Brauer is right that competitive juices whipped into a frenzy by the Internet are at work here. But there's another, less interesting, factor.
Here's Scott Libin's response to me in an article on the subject that I wrote in 1999, after some media -- including MPR -- refused to run Donald Blom's name, the then-suspect in the Katie Poirier case.
"What other elements do you omit?" he asks."Do you not explain that he had a home in the area? If you do explain it, but you don't identify him, then don't you cast negative light potentially on everybody on that approximate description who has a home in the area? I don't think it's always the moral high ground to withhold information."
And here's Libin's comments to Brauer in his current article:
"We now start from the premise that reporting truths is our primary obligation, and that we withhold such information only for a good reason."
There's really no detectable shift in position by Libin. The only difference is that Libin worked at Channel 5 when he made his comments to me, and now he's running the WCCO newsroom.
But even back in 1999, the then-news director at WCCO, Ted Canova, made it clear that naming suspects or not naming suspects was not an inviolate policy at his station.
"The big dilemma is if he's not charged. In one way we would look very credible that here's a man that everybody else has named and identified, but the cops didn't have enough to charge him. And we were the only ones to protect his privacy and his reputation. On the other hand, knowing what we know about what he's suspected of doing, the dilemma is: he could be a public threat. If he's a public threat, then we have a dilemma over whether to name him."
Brauer says WCCO staffers, citing longtime cop beat reporter Carolyn Lowe, are a little upset concerned about the "new" policy. Do they not remember their performance in the Brad Dunlap story? He was never charged in the 1995 disappearance and murder of his wife. But that didn't stop the media, including Lowe, from naming his as a suspect. There's fairness. And then there's juicy news. (Disclaimer: MPR named Dunlap, too.)
And that's the reality in most newsrooms I've found. While there may be a policy, it's a flexible one.
Is it about fairness? Not really. Mostly it's about the media covering its behind in case they do have the wrong guy. If it were about fairness, then everyone would abide by Minnesota News Council boss Gary Gilson who told me in that original article that news organizations shouldn't release a name until the person is found guilty.
And all that idea will get you in a newsroom is a funny look.
Medical mistakes in the news again
Posted at 9:37 AM on March 20, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Following up on the post a few days ago about medical mistakes in Minnesota.
It could be worse, it could be Germany where doctors in Bavaria made a very serious error.
Mailbag: What it feels like to have a stroke
Posted at 12:00 PM on March 20, 2008
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
An anonymous (OK, actually they had a clever username, but that doesn't always help me establish the identity) contributor has forwarded a video from neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor via the Web site, TED -- ideas worth spreading.
She woke up one morning and felt all of her functions slipping away one by one. She realized, she says, that when we talk about ourselves as "me," we perhaps should say "we."
If you'd like to read the transcript, find it here.
Keep in mind, it's just one person's experience.
The loyalty factor
Posted at 12:55 PM on March 20, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
If ever we needed a lesson on how competition can benefit consumers, Air Tran and Northwest Airlines flights to Chicago provide a terrific example.
AirTran, the cheap-fare airline, competed with Northwest on flights between Minneapolis St. Paul and Chicago's Midway airport.
Northwest, which has littered the ground with airlines that tried to compete with it in Minnesota, matched the fares AirTran offered.
Consider, for example, a flight booked today for April 1 between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Midway. Northwest is currently charging $114 round trip.
AirTran does not fly to O'Hare airport in Chicago. A flight on the same day as the one above to O'Hare will cost you $384 roundtrip.
O'Hare is 14 miles from Midway.
Today, reports MPR's Marty Moylan, AirTran has announced it will end its Chicago run, owing to high fuel costs and the fact the route isn't performing "as expected."
"That's too bad because I'll tell you what, they are the only guys that are keeping Chicago reasonably priced," said Hobbit Travel Agency owner George Wozniak said. "Once you turn it over all to the legacies, then fares go way up."
Given a choice, Minnesota travelers will choose Northwest Airlines most of the time, despite occasional calls around here for more competition.
Consider, however, a poll question we asked in 1998, when the Northwest pilots went on strike for 15 days:
In the past, smaller airlines from time to time have offered service on some Twin Cities routes that competed with Northwest but then were forced to drop that service when Northwest reduced its fares on the same routes. Do you think it would be a good idea or a bad idea for the federal government to intervene and protect the smaller airlines, allowing them to continue offering service that competes with Northwest?
Sixty percent of the respondents said it was a good idea to have the federal government intervene to provide competition. Yet in the same poll, 79 percent said they were not likely to fly Northwest any less after the strike.
What they were asking the federal government to do, they could have -- more easily and cheaply -- done themselves. That's the funny thing about choice.
Kids being kids
Posted at 2:23 PM on March 20, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
It must be tough being a teacher. Over on Gather.com, "Samantha M," a teacher in southern Minnesota, says it is:
Well, it happened again tonight. Today was the last day of school before spring break. At 11:30 pm, my boyfriend and I were both asleep, planning on leaving early tomorrow morning. We heard the huge bang again and went running.
There was a bag full of flaming dog crap on our front step, centimeters away from a rubber mat. Quick thinking, Chris went and grabbed a cup of water to put the flames out. The kid went running and a car took off in the other direction, and I'm sure they met up around the block.
As you'll read in her article, Samantha told her principal about it who says he'll consider it a school matter "if they're arrested."
I've already decided that I will not be teaching here next year. I am moving. And if I happen to find a job teaching somewhere else, fine. But I will be living in an apartment building and I am going to get a car alarm. Nobody should have to put up with this. I have the right to feel safe in my own home.
Kids being kids?
I hope to be talking with Samantha soon and will post it here if/when.
MnDOT steps up
Posted at 5:57 PM on March 20, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
MnDOT has closed the Highway 23-Division Street bridge after three gusset plates were found bulging.
The bridge is designed along the same vein as the ill-fated I-35W bridge. Shortly after the I-35W bridge collapsed, Gov. Pawlenty ordered bridges in the state inspected. A day later, inspectors looked at the bridge (photo above).
They looked at the cracks on the surface:
And the rust:
And determined that the bridge could stay open.
At a previous inspection in 2005, it was given a sufficiency rating of of 56.3 out of 100. Anything lower than 50 and a bridge is considered to be in need of replacement. After the inspection last August, the bridge rating was pegged at 57.3. The bridge was opened in 1959, eight years before the I-35W bridge.
But in January, the National Transportation Safety Board said the design of the bridges, or more specifically the gusset plates, was inadequate.
On Thursday, Jim Povich, an assistant district engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, told the St. Cloud Times that the gusset plates were found distorted during a recent inspection.
"We decided to err on the side of safety," Povich said.
In the wake of the I-35W bridge collapse, that seems to be exactly what Minnesotans want to hear, and the best way to restore confidence in the embattled agency.
N.D. trial underway
Posted at 8:06 AM on March 21, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
It's certainly not the trial of the century, but it is one that makes you shake your head and wash your hands. And it's happening (reg. req.) in the relative anonymity of Devils Lake, N.D.
Aron Nichols, of Fargo, and his fiancée are accused of shooting Donald and Alice Willey in their country home last year, then setting their house ablaze.
Why?
The Willey's were the parents of the man with whom the fiancee had a daughter -- now 8 -- and she allegedly didn't want them to have visitation rights.
The Olson debate resurfaces
Posted at 8:41 AM on March 21, 2008
by Bob Collins
(14 Comments)
You can check Sara Jane Olson off the "whatever happened to...?" list. The former St. Paul soccer mom who was, in reality, Symbionese Liberation Army bomber Kathleen Soliah, has just been released from prison for plotting to kill LAPD officers by blowing up their cars.
"She's out of prison too soon by far," John Opsal told the Sacramento Bee today. His mother was killed in an SLA holdup that Olson participated in. "It's another in a series of slaps in the face of victims by the justice system. ... That's a good four years before when I thought she would be released."
She served her time in a prison in California, but the case still reverberates through Minnesota... particularly Minnesota politics. Many DFL leaders came to her side after her 1999 arrest. One, DFLer Sandy Pappas, a former candidate for mayor of St. Paul, tested the political hot water when she said the charges didn't amount to "real crimes." She backtracked but by then, it was too late. The case became not only a debate over whether the sins of a criminal past should be forgiven, but the underpinning of a political debate (mostly on talk shows) over whether Democrats "go easy" on crime, and have their roots in a criminal brand of radicalism.
The case even ended up as part of the 2006 campaign for the 5th Congressional District after Republicans pulled this quote made after Olson's arrest by now Rep. Keith Ellison: "I think it's dangerous to prosecute people for their political views and their political associations. I think you prosecute people for what they do, for their acts," he said.
Olson eventually pleaded guilty to the charges, then walked out of the courthouse to declare that she had just pleaded guilty to something she didn't do.
Olson could've gotten life in prison. She was sentenced to 20 years to life, served six, and is now on probation. She's been ordered to stay in California although she's asking to be allowed to move, presumably back to Minnesota where her husband and children live.
"I'm so glad that they've got their mother back. My only hope is that she gets to come back to Minnesota because I miss her, too," said longtime friend Andy Dawkins, a former state representative from St. Paul.
Are vaccination exemptions a threat?
Posted at 12:01 PM on March 21, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
(This posting was updated with Minnesota data at 2:51 p.m.)
The New York Times reported today on the increasing disinterest of some parents in having their children vaccinated, in the belief that mercury and other ingredients in vaccines increase the risk of autism and other illnesses.
Says the Times:
The exemptions have been growing since the early 1990s at a rate that many epidemiologists, public health officials and physicians find disturbing.
Twenty-one states have exemptions to laws requiring children be immunized. Minnesota is one such state by virtue of this clause in the state's immunization law:
If a notarized statement signed by the minor child's parent or guardian or by the emancipated person is submitted to the administrator or other person having general control and supervision of the school or child care facility stating that the person has not been immunized as prescribed in subdivision 1 because of the conscientiously held beliefs of the parent or guardian of the minor child or of the emancipated person, the immunizations specified in the statement shall not be required. This statement must also be forwarded to the commissioner of the Department of Health.
The Times' story says a big jump in the number of parents invoking their exemption has health officials worried that more kids running around without being immunized, threaten to reinvigorate illnesses -- measles, for example -- that have been declining as health threats. In the states that allow exemptions, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the number of children whose parents invoked a personal-belief exemption rose from 1 to 2.54 percent between 1991 and 2004.
The situation in Minnesota is less clear, however. A spokesman for Johns Hopkins told MPR this afternoon that researcher Saad Omer, who provided the statistic to the Times, did not have a state-by-state break down. A spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Health says he is attempting to find out if there is such a record.
Minnesota Department of Health spokesman Buddy Ferguson says the percentage of parents claiming the exemption was .2 percent in 1992 and 1.27 percent in 2001. The methodology for the survey changed, making comparisons with earlier data difficult. The most recent data (2006) shows 1.23 percent for K and 7th grade combined and 1.32 percent for kindergarten only. The earlier numbers appear to be blow the natiional average mentioned in the Times story.
Even without the increase of personal-belief exemptions, the number of children without vaccinations is significant among certain groups in Minnesota.
The Minnesota Department of Health has identified several disparities. Children who live in low-income areas are under-immunized. Childhood immunization levels are as low as 45% in some low-income zip code areas of Minnesota; high-risk children are behind on hepatitis B vaccine; native American children are at increased risk of hepatitis A; and minority persons 65 years of age and older have low immunization rates, the department says.
Despite the article's implications, however, the exemptions don't seem to have local health officials especially worried. "We have not taken any active position on it (exemptions) and it would not be something the Mayo Clinic would do," Dr. Denis Cortese, the president and CEO of the Mayo Clinic, told the National Press Club luncheon today. "We have a situation here where education and more knowledge and bringing people along is really the key, I think, to make this work. There are some legitimate concerns that people have about vaccines and this is where science and research can help quell that... Who knows what the truth is; we should be looking at this pretty hard."
Had he just raised the possibility that vaccines do cause autism? Given the chance to explain his position again, Cortese said there's no evidence to suggest they do.
The Quiz returns
Posted at 4:32 PM on March 21, 2008
by Bob Collins
(14 Comments)
You asked for it! "Make it harder," you said. Fine, it's harder. Too hard? Not hard enough? You decide as you take this week's News Cut Quiz by going here. As always, feel free to review the week and post your results in the comments section.
St. Cloud bridge Web site
Posted at 3:08 PM on March 21, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
MPR's Tom Weber passes along that MnDOT has now set up a section on its Web site for the now-closed DeSoto bridge in St. Cloud. Of particular interest is a copy of the August 3, 2007 inspection of the bridge, ordered by Gov. Pawlenty after the I-35W bridge collapsed. The St. Cloud bridge employs the same design.
"No critical deficiencies were observed during this inspection. Also, no new deficiencies since the last annual inspection were found during this inspection," the report said. It was a 10-hour inspection.
But the inspection, apparently, did not include gusset plates, the pieces of steel that connect beams together. An inadequate design has been cited as a possible reason for the I-35W collapse.
Findings in a National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the I-35W bridge collapse have pointed to flawed gusset plates as a critical factor, leading to a greater sensitivity about their condition.
Today, however, Acting Commissiioner of Transportation Bob McFarlin said the plates apparently weren't studied in the August inspection. "They were not examined in the past by anybody, this is something new for all states across the country," McFarlin said.
The August inspection was primarily examining corrosion.
Where credit is due
Posted at 1:16 PM on March 22, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
We are told, fairly constantly, that there is a credit crunch and people are having a hard time getting credit. Although I have no direct evidence that this is not the case, the notion doesn't explain the pile of credit card offers that continue to arrive in satchels every week. To be accurate, of course, the drying up of credit began in one sector and has spread up the multi-tentacled tree where, in many cases, it hasn't reached the places where some banks can still charge 31-percent interest.
And why would it? Banks are making money off the cards because, according to Adam Levitin, who writes the blog Credit Slips, "teaser rates and frequent flier miles encourage card usage--it looks like a great deal. But at the same time back end fees have soared (160% and 115% for late and overlimit fees from 1990 to 2005). And billing tricks and traps have sprouted up like crabgrass."
Levitin, who specializes in bankruptcy law at Georgetown University, says you can't possibly use a credit card efficiently because the credit card companies -- banks -- have made it impossible for you to figure out all the various fees that can be piled upon the interest rates.
And it'll probably stay that way. The credit card companies have a lot of friends in Washington. A week or so ago, when Levitin was testifying before a subcommittee hearing a bill that would further regulate credit card practices, four "average" people who had stories to tell, decided they couldn't testify after Republicans and Democrats, he says, cut a deal that if they testified, the credit card companies could make the witnesses' entire financial data available to the public. Nice.
Steven Autrey was one of those who had something to say, but couldn't. So he made his "testimony" available online:
Last October, she experienced a medical emergency and had to leave work to spend hours at a medical facility to receive tests and treatment. Arriving home later that evening, she immediately logged on to the CapitalOne.com website to pay her bill online. It was approx. 9:00pm on the due date. Although she made the payment on the due date, it was 6 hours past the 3:00pm cutoff time. For being six hours late on her payment, she was hit with a $39.00 punitive fine labeled as a "late fee."That late fee, when added to her account, pushed her balance over the limit by $16.00. It was at this point that Capital One added a second $39.00 fine in the form of an "Over the limit fee" to her account.
In tears, my wife called Capital One and explained her situation and the emergency medical treatment. She was told the late fee was not going to be removed, she was late and that was that. They did tell her that as a "courtesy" they would remove the over limit fee on a one-time-only basis. Ironically, at the same time, my wife had a credit balance of over $300.00 for her overpayment on the total balance of her Capital One Auto loan.
Sound at all familiar? (Tell your story in the comments section below.)
Credit card companies can change their "contract" with consumers anytime they wish, and they've been doing it, partially to offset their losses in the subprime mortgage market.
Says Levitin:
Beyond addressing odious billing practices, the Cardholders' Bill of Rights also has some other important provisions. It requires issuers to define the due date, requires payments received by 5pm EST on the due date be treated as timely, and creates a presumption of timely payment for payments sent by common carrier at least 7 days before due. It also defines the terms "Fixed Rate" and "Prime Rate" that are often used in cardholder agreements so as to eliminate consumer confusion about what these terms mean.
At the moment, however, the legislation is going nowhere. It has three Minnesota co-sponsors in Reps. Tim Walz, Betty McCollum, and Keith Ellison.
Ellison and Rep. Michele Bachmann serve on the subcommittee that wouldn't let the consumers testify without allowing the companies to release all of their financial information.
According to the Web site, Open Secrets, Bachmann has received campaign contributions in this cycle from Capitol One ($1,000), American Express ($2,000), and American Financial Services ($1,000). Ellison has received a single contribution from HSBC ($1,000). Sen. Norm Coleman has accepted contributions from Capitol One ($3,500), American Express ($3,000), Mastercard ($1,000) and American Financial Services ($2,000). Sen. Amy Klobuchar has accepted a contribution from Capitol One ($1,000).
Olson released a year too early
Posted at 7:06 PM on March 22, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
Nothing is ever as it seems with Kathleen Soliah -- aka Sara Jane Olson. She was on her way back to Minnesota following an early release from prison for her part in attempting to kill police officers and her part in a bank robbery in which a woman was killed, when authorities apparently redid the math of how much time she served
According to the Los Angeles Times, Shawn Chapman Holley, her attorney, says she was told by an official of the Corrections Department and was told that there might have been "a computation error." The AP quotes Chief Deputy Secretary Scott Kernan as saying Olson was released a year too early.
Whoops.
"We're launching an investigation to prevent this from happening again," California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Oscar Hidalgo told the Sacramento Bee. (Suggestion: Start with the stupid ones.)
This is an extremely unusual situation," the department's General Counsel Alberto Roldan said.
Her attorney thinks it has more to do with protests by the police union in Los Angeles.
In any event, it was an interesting 36 hours for people on both sides of the issue, revisiting the debate surrounding her arrest and plea with no less fervor than at the start of this decade.
Even some of her critics, though, are shaking their heads over the turn of events. Says the blog Hot Air:
It's hard to know how to feel about this. Soliah deserves a hell of a lot more time behind bars than the six she's served, and she should have to serve every day of her too-short twelve year sentence. At the same time, it's hard not to sympathize with Soliah's children, who must be crushed at this unexpected turn of events.
Essentially, California still doesn't have its act together. Prosecutors gave her too light of a sentence, and a state pardons and parole board had to extend it to the twelve years she got in the end. Now the prison can't do math or apparently have someone double-check their work, and so let someone out a full year too early. It sounds like the same geniuses who calculate state budgets and wound up with an $18-billion miscalculation last year moonlight for the parole boards.
I wonder what Patty Hearst is doing tonight.
Are you ready to haggle?
Posted at 12:09 PM on March 23, 2008
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
Put this in the "I'll believe it when I see it" file. The New York Times carries a story today that as the economy tanks, retailers are more interested in haggling. That is, you can offer less than the price and negotiate your way to riches.
And we're not talking Mom and Pop stores, here, according to the Times; we're talking the megastores. You know, where the kid you're haggling with would give it to you free if it were up to him.
Savvy consumers, empowered by the Internet and encouraged by a slowing economy, are finding that they can dicker on prices, not just on clearance items or big-ticket products like televisions but also on lower-cost goods like cameras, audio speakers, couches, rugs and even clothing.
The change is not particularly overt, and most store policies on bargaining are informal. Some major retailers, however, are quietly telling their salespeople that negotiating is acceptable.
Home Depot and Best Buy are mentioned as likely hagglers. Of course, first you have to find someone to wait on you.
And how long do you think it'll be before someone starts a Web site cataloging the lowest price that, say, a Best Buy let Model XYZ HDTV walk out the door for?
So here's your challenge. Try to haggle this week at one of these stores, then report back.
Here are some general guidelines, courtesy of the Wisebread article, "How Haggling Taught Me About Life."
1. It never hurts to ask.
2. Shop around and learn the market
3. Know your price.
4. Stay calm.
5. Have fun.
6. Don't be afraid to walk away.
And a Reader's Digest article a few years ago featured 5 lines you should learn before you go a hagglin',
Oh, and just for fun, see if they'll take a couple of goats in exchange for something.
Rate my cop
Posted at 7:31 AM on March 24, 2008
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
A fairly new Web site has got some people in the law enforcement community a tad upset. RateMyCop.com lists police officers and allows registered users to leave comments about them. The person who built the Web site says all of the information, which in some cases includes badge numbers and personal information, comes from public data.
Many departments in Minnesota -- I checked Woodbury, St. Paul, and Ada among others -- do not have any officers listed. Minneapolis has most listed but doesn't have many reviews and no personal data is listed.
The reviews can be entertaining. A sample:
This "officer" and her "partner" nearly killed me w/their brand new taser gun on 3/5/05. They state in their report that I was kicked out of Pizza Luce in downtown Mpls and that they had to restrain me after I was forced out. My boyfriend was a bouncer at Pizza Luce and was there when this happened. I look forward to seeing them both in court.
An all around good cop, very friendly to the GLBT community, a respected black man in a very white department.
Jim came to our block party and dished out punch. he is very nice and sweet and tender and i hear he has a masters degree.
He treated me like dirt.
This "officer" nearly killed me on 3/5/05 w/his brand new taser gun and I was doped up and restrained thanks to the EMTs of HCMC who allowed me to choke on my vomit before adopting any sense of urgency. He never filed a report but once the MPD received a letter from my lawyer a report conveniently fell from the sky. ALL LIES/I WILL FIGHT THIS.
It's not entirely clear what value the the Web site has other than entertainment. Aside from crooks, chances are its biggest group of visitors will be cops. But what is anyone supposed to do with the information. Unlike teachers or lawyers, you don't get to shop around for a cop.
Higher ed earmarks explored
Posted at 9:38 AM on March 24, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
The Chronicle of Higher Education is out with a report today that says spending via earmarks -- some call it "pork" -- for higher education institutions has increased by 25 percent.
The report says the earmarks are given out as grants, often for research, even though the projects haven't been reviewed by "knowledgeable scientists."
Says the report:
The dirty little secret about earmarks for science is that while college officials occasionally fret about them in public, they chase them in private. At meetings of the Association of American Universities, a group of 62 research institutions, some presidents regularly complain that earmarks are squeezing out peer-reviewed awards -- "and then they go home and call up their congressman to ask for an earmark," said one president, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to be free to discuss the meetings.
Minnesota, however, is not a heavy hitter when it comes to "academic pork." That distinction -- at least regionally -- belongs to North Dakota, which ranks ninth in the country in the amount of grants. Wisconsin ranks 32nd, and Minnesota 44th.
.
North Dakota State University ranks sixth in the nation in receipts, and the University of North Dakota is eighth.
The Minnesota projects in the report:
| Institution | Agency | Amount | What for? |
| Bemidji State University | Health & Human Services | $238,755 | A baccalaureate nurse-training program. |
| Bemidji State University | Education | $335,043 | Equipment for an applied-research center for manufacturing. |
| College of St. Scholastica | HHS | $242,685 | Rural-health technology demonstration project. |
| Metropolitan State University | Education | $478,492 | Workforce Diversity Needs in Urban Nursing program. |
Minnesota State University at Mankato Minnesota West Community and Technical College | Energy | $492,000 | Cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel research at Minnesota Center for Renewable Energy. |
| Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System Office | Education | $1,099,451 | Rapid employment services for veterans. |
| University of Minnesota at Crookston | Agriculture | $372,375 | Support of agricultural diversity in the Red River corridor. |
| University of Minnesota Duluth | Agriculture | $4,840,875 for 10 universities | Research new uses for forest resources through the Wood Utilization Research program. |
| University of Minnesota - Twin Cities | Energy | $787,200 | Ecologically friendly design elements for the Bell Museum of Natural History |
| University of Minnesota - Twin Cities | Agriculture | $219,453 | Uniform Farm Management Program at the Center for Farm Financial Management. |
| University of Minnesota - Twin Cities | HHS | $283,951 | Helath-care-related construction, renovation, and equipment. |
| University of Minnesota - Twin Cities | Defense | $2,400,000 | Develop technologies for advanced hypersonic research. |
| University of Minnesota - Twin Cities | Transportation | $3,234,000 | Transportation-research center |
| University of Minnesota - Twin Cities | Transportation | $808,500 | Support for the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety. |
| University of Minnesota - Twin Cities | HHS | $406,767 | Facilities and equipment for the Hormel's Institute's cancer research. |
| Winona State University | Justice | $775,500 | Training, technical assistance and publication at the National Child Protection Training Center. |
| Winona State University | Transportation | $87,521 | Replace three at-grade highway railroad crossings adjacent to the campus. |
| Winona State University | Transportation | $554,400 | Replace three at-grade highway railroad crossings adjacent to the campus. |
| Winona State University | Justice | $446,500 | Teach investigators and prosecutors the science of interviewing children victimized by abuse. |
Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Norm Coleman both have 13 projects, Rep. Tim Walz has seven, Rep. Jim Oberstar and Rep. Betty McCollum have 3 and Rep. Collin Peterson has two.
The tone of the report from the Center, of course, is negative. Are these worthwhile projects? Many of the people I'm calling today don't care for the term "earmarks," because -- like pork -- it has a negative connotation. They say the programs are valuable. I'm calling many of the recipients to get more information about what the money is used for and you can decide. Be sure to check back!
The List:
Bemidji State. $238,755- According to Gwen Verchota, who runs the nursing program, they're setting up a four-year degree program for nursing. The money will go to curriculum development and also for renovations to Memorial Hall, to create a clinic. It's hoped the program will help ease a nursing shortage, especially in rural areas where nurses have to know a broad spectrum of things, unlike, she says, cities where specialty teams are used for specific functions (like inserting an IV, for example).
MN State U at Mankato/Minn West Community and Technical College -- Two new energy fields are requiring trained employees: wind and ethanol. The $492,000 the two institutions are sharing have created a "first in the nation" training program for ethanol technicians (people to work in the ethanol plans) and wind energy technicians, according to Melinda Voss, at MnSCU. The first class graduated a year ago.
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System $1.1 million. MnSCU is setting up a program to help veterans re-enter the workforce. According to a news release, the project "will provide specifically designed career and education services to military veterans, National Guard members and reservists, as well as enhancing veterans' employment success upon returning to their communities."
Winona State University - From the same release, the more than $1 million in several grants is being used "to create model undergraduate and graduate curricula and train front-line child protection professionals. The center also will teach investigators and prosecutors the science of interviewing children victimized by abuse. In its first year, the center has trained about 8,000 investigators and prosecutors in 18 states and provided technical assistance for more than 300 child protection cases around the country." A 2003 story on the effort is here, and a grant request synopsis is here.
Incidentally, the National Journal's CongressDaily reports (according to a reader) the House Oversight and Government Reform chairman, Henry Waxman, is investigating why the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention awarded grants in fiscal year 2007 to programs (like the $500,000 to the World Golf Foundation) that were ranked lower than other competing interests.
Says the article:
Waxman said the situation was brought to light by Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a freshman who complained that a worthy applicant in his district was unfairly shut out of the grant-making process in FY07. An aide to Walz said his interest was piqued when OJJDP ignored a request to direct money to the National Child Protection Training Center at Winona State University, even though it ranked fourth out of more than 100 applicants in the agency's review. The center trains social workers, teachers, nurses, police officers and others to detect and respond to signs of child abuse. The funding was dropped when the OJJDP administrator made the final decisions. Walz and other Minnesota lawmakers successfully restored about $1.2 million for the center in the FY08 omnibus appropriations bill, including $446,000 funded through OJJDP.
Specially, the investigation is looking at OJJDP Administrator Robert Flores, who Waxman said decided to award grants to certain favored organizations regardless of how competitive bids ranked.
Bell Museum (U of M) - $787,200. While technically separate, the money is part of a $36 million drive to build a new museum on the St. Paul campus. Director Scott Lanyon says it will help pay for a variety of research and development on using energy "in an efficient way," and meet Minnesota's sustainable building guidelines. The Legislature is being asked to appropriate $24 million. As far as earmarks go, Lanyon says, "it's not to say that the system can't be abused, but it's a way of getting funding when there doesn't appear to be a program available."
U of M - $2.4 million for advanced hypersonic research. The specific dedication of this money is not yet clear (it's the Defense Department, you know), but the center works on such issues as figuring out how to make a jet fly at Mach 15. The U of M helped develop an air inlet for the scramjet, an engine that operates at speeds like a rocket, but which collects air from the atmosphere to do so. Many of the calculations required in such projects need supercomputers to be able to process the information.
U of M - $219,453 from the Dept. of Ag for the Uniform Farm Management Program. Kevin Klair, who runs the program at the Center for Farm Financial Management, says until the U created a system for year-end financial analysis, individual states had entirely different methods of processing data. Now, he says, that's been standardized so farmers can compare costs and other items to those in other states at www.finbin.umn.edu. "A farmer can look at, for example, import costs and say 'I'm not doing too bad,' or look at veterinary costs and say, 'I wonder why I'm so high,' and begin to analyze." The U has recently expanded the program to provide more data on organic farming. "Now we have over 100 organic farmers participating and if farmers wants to consider organic farming, they can look at get hard data," says Klair.
U of M/Center for Excellence in Rural Safety -$808,500. Originally funded through a transportation bill in 2005, the money funds the work of the center, administered by the Humphrey Institute. The center does research and outreach education on rural safety, according to its director, Lee Munnich . Three-quarters of the public roadways are in rural areas, one-fifth of the population lives in rural areas, but about 60% of the fatal crashes occur on rural roads. The Center looks a variety of issues, including human behaviors. Why do drivers in rural Minnesota, for example, tend not to wear seat belts? The Center also focuses on public policy issues such as primary seat belts laws, graduated license laws and assesses what states are doing on problems such as speeding and drunken driving.
A moment of BLIS
Posted at 12:16 PM on March 24, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
I can't really find a connection between these items, so let's just call this, Bob's List of Interesting Stories -- or BLIS, if you want to sound like an insider.
Call for delay to biofuels policy -- Over on this side of the Atlantic, we're using our food now -- corn -- to make the fuel to run our cars. Proponents says it'll clear the air and make us less dependent on oil. Opponents say the price of food is going through the roof because of it and the environment is damaged. In the UK, some are suggesting a novel alternative to the Minnesota approach: Find out which is correct and then come up with a policy.
Finally! A Nearly Foolproof Circumcision -- At the risk of sounding like a late-night informercial : AccuCirc, as its called, in an answer to botched circumcisions, at a time, we're told, when demand for the procedure has surged among African men.
Changing the White Face of the Green Movement -- Saving the planet isn't just for white dudes anymore. Or is it?
4,000
Posted at 2:01 PM on March 24, 2008
by Bob Collins
(7 Comments)
With the exception of the gas pump, we like nice round numbers and create events around them. When the odometer hits 100,000, it's a big moment for that 100,000th mile, much to the dismay of number 99,999, perhaps.
When the media needs to gin up a story, we'll focus on a politician's first 100 days in office.
And then we have Americans killed in the war in Iraq. Today, numbers 3,997, 3,998, 3,999 and 4,000 are in the news, but only because we don't know which one was actually #4,000 and when we hit these even numbers, the media does a story about how there's still a war going on and people are still dying in it, just like they were yesterday and the day before.
Navy Lt. Patrick Evans, a military spokesman, expressed condolences to all the families of soldiers killed in Iraq, saying each death is "equally tragic."
Last week, ostensibly to mark the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq, a ceremony was held at the Minnesota Capitol to read the names of those who have died. The next day, Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman gave the Capitol folks the "what for" for not stopping to honor those who have been killed:
I would like to tell you the Capitol of Minnesota came to a hushed halt Wednesday to observe the anniversary of a misbegotten war that has cost far too many lives to ever be worth it, but the country is not in the mood for special observances.
Here's why. These ceremonies aren't just "special observances," they're anti-war protests. The Capitol event was organized by the Merriam Park Neighbors for Peace, an anti-war group, which -- just so we're clear -- has every right to an opinion opposed to the war. Some people agree with it. Others do not.
This afternoon, Women Against Military Madness, is hosting a protest/vigil at Sen. Norm Coleman's office to mark the occasion of the killing of #4,000.
But for those who would rather observe the passing of a life, and maybe even express appreciation for the sacrifice without making a political statement or engaging in a political rally, you're on your own today.
Men vs. women - The lawyer edition
Posted at 7:39 PM on March 24, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
The British Psychological Society has commissioned a study into what impact having kids has on a lawyer's productivity.
Specifically, the researchers studied how many hours lawyers in Alberta, Canada, had billed their clients in the past year. It found the most "productive" were female lawyers without kids.
Oddly, male lawyers with kids were more "productive" than male lawyers without kids.
The researchers suggest male lawyers are more likely to put in extra hours on the job.
The two researchers also found that family-friendly work practices had a negative effect on the productivity of men but not women.
Dan Slater, who writes the Wall Street Journal law blog, wonders whether women with kids are just used to getting more done with less time.
One for the kids
Posted at 5:43 PM on March 24, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
There are two ways to look at the developing story in Woodbury, where an assistant wrestling coach is being investigated for bringing some beer and a couple of high school girls to a hotel room in St. Paul where three wrestlers who qualified for the high school wrestling tournament were staying.
A.) You can just shake your head and say "gee, how stupid can people be?" But, after the last few weeks, isn't that getting old?
B) You can focus on the fact that the kids on his team were the ones who blew the whistle on the guy.
According to the Woodbury Bulletin:
According to school district officials who conducted their own investigation, the students reported the incident immediately to Woodbury head wrestling coach Josh McLay. The incident was then reported to Woodbury police, said Randy Zipf, assistant superintendent for secondary education in South Washington County Schools.
After a year of stories about binge drinking by underage kids, and high school kids getting suspended for posting images of themselves (apparently) drinking in Facebook, here we have the story of a group of kids who knew right from wrong.
Now that's news!
Whatever happened to: Mark Yudof ?
Posted at 9:13 PM on March 24, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Mark Yudof was one of the more intriguing personalities to roll through these parts. During his five years as president of the University of Minnesota, he started a massive building and renovation program on campus, got to know the students through pancake breakfasts, and butted heads with Jesse Ventura on a regular basis. He also gave sullied basketball coach Clem Haskins a ton of money just to go away, and then tried to get it back. Eventually he went back to Texas, declaring his love for the Lone Star State.
Now Yudof is saddling up and moving on to California. He's about to be officially named the president of the University of California system.
It's good news for the jewels of the UC system but some of the lesser lights might be troubled. According to Richard Blum, chairman of the selection committee and the UC Board of Regents, the only real negative they could find about Yudof is he focuses on the premier parts of his institutions.
"He has shown no interest in the UT Pan Americans or the UT Brownsvilles," said Tom Johnson, executive director of the Texas Faculty Association to the San Francisco Chronicle. "It is all about UT Austin because that is what the world knows about. It is about the high-profile programs."
That may sounds familiar to fans of the U's old General College, but it wasn't Yudof's fault. Yudof's predecessor, Nils Hasselmo, tried to close the college. Yudof championed the college, and his successor, Robert Bruininks , shuttered the school, which had been a gateway for under-prepared metro-area high school students, many of whom are immigrants and people of color. It was combined into the College of Education.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Yudof has his work cut out for him in California, a state with a bad budget picture, the threat of layoffs, and the probability of big increases for students.
Creationism vs. evolution
Posted at 7:30 AM on March 25, 2008
by Bob Collins
(40 Comments)
A News Cut reader forwards this video of an ABC News segment about a group that takes schoolchildren on a tour of a natural history museum to reinforce its teachings on creationism. Interesting enough, although I admit the part I found the most interesting is when the tour guides ask the kids to fill in the blanks of their questions. "And that's called.... ....... ........ right, circular reasoning." Also note the part where they ask the kids the question, the kids start shaking their heads in the affirmative and say "no."
The WiFi 'scare'
Posted at 7:45 AM on March 25, 2008
by Bob Collins
(6 Comments)
Remember when we thought cellphones would harm our brains? Remember when we thought cellphones would harm our brains? Remember when we thought cellphones would harm our brains?
Whoops, sorry. I had to take a call.
Out in northern California, a town is up in arms over the "danger" of WiFi, reports the Tech Dirt blog.
The selling of a tax increase
Posted at 1:47 PM on March 25, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
The pitch in Anoka County to approve a quarter-cent sales tax increase and a $20 motor vehicle excise tax increase as part of the transportation bill passed by the Legislature, came with an interesting twist this morning: it's property tax relief.
The Anoka County Board approved the tax increase on a 5-2 vote after refusing opponents' requests to listen to a dozen or so people who showed up to oppose the tax increases, and the county's joining with other like-minded counties to decide how the tax money will be spent.
The concept of tax relief only went so far, however. When one commissioner asked the board to agree to reduce the property tax levy to prove their sincerity, the board demurred.
Anoka County property taxpayers are on the hook for $4 million to fund operations of the Northstar commuter rail line. But with the tax increases passed today, that burden shifts to the sales tax.
"If we don't pass this, it's only going towards property owners, instead of asking renters and visitors to help pay for it," said board chair Dennis Berg.
His colleague, commissioner Rhonda Sivarajah sponsored the motion to commit the county to reducing the property tax levy by a like amount. "It is an odd concept," she told me after the meeting. "That's the way it was sold to the legislators, that's the way it that it has been promoted here within the county -- that it's property tax relief, that the sales tax you're collecting from people who don't necessarily live in the county. But if it was true property tax relief, there would be a willingness to actually commit to true property tax relief. " (Listen | Full interview)
"Unless we want to stick it to the property owners only, we need a sales tax," countered commissioner Scott LeDoux, who said people who visit the National Sports Center in Blaine or the 3M championship would be paying some of Anoka County's costs.
The debate over whether to impose the taxes is different in the smaller counties of the metro area now that the Counties Transit Improvement Board has been created (and which Anoka County voted to join today) to collaborate on spending the tax money on regional transportation. But with a weighted voting system, Hennepin and Ramsey County have a larger share of votes when it comes to deciding what projects to fund.
That had Sivarajah concerned. "They can run Anoka County right over and eat our lunch," she said. "There's no protection. I'm concerned about Anoka County taxpayers paying for what Minneapolis and St. Paul want."
But Mary Richardson, of the Metro Transitways Development Board, said any project to be funded with the sales tax money would need the support of a third county.
If the furor over the transportation bill that the Legislature passed and then overrode Gov. Pawlenty's veto of, has trickled down to the county levels, you couldn't tell by the attendance at today's meeting.
"It was a pretty bad turnout," said Andy Aplikowski, who tried to organize opponents. "I was surprised not to see a line of contractors' trucks and protesters and all that kind of stuff coming in because that's what I've heard they've been doing at some of the bigger counties. But I think people knew they weren't going to be able to say anything so they said, 'why bother?'" (Listen to full interview)
On Wednesday morning, MPR's Midmorning is going to look at the issue. Joining Kerri Miller will be Jim McDonough, Ramsey County commissioner, representing District 6, and Randy Maluchnik, Carver County commissioner, representing District 3.
Back to the future
Posted at 7:41 PM on March 25, 2008
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
The State Patrol is unveiling the "new look" for its squad cars on Wednesday morning.
According to a news release , "the new State Patrol squad design incorporates a maroon body with white doors -- reflecting a retro look of Patrol squads used during 1960-1991."
"The new design aims to strengthen the identity of the State Patrol, enabling motorists to better recognize troopers and how the agency supports safe travel on Minnesota roads."
OK, I sort of get the notion of strengthening the identity part, once you take it out of marketing-speak. But the other part, "enabling motorists to recognize.... how the agency supports safe travel on Minnesota roads..." With two white doors you can do that?
It's an interesting notion because driving home these days I see a lot of unmarked troopers pulling people over, because their cars look like everyone else's.
Thanks to the Minnesota State Patrol Troopers Association Web site, we already have a preview of the preview:
Actually, the retro look is pretty cool. It practically screams Broderick Crawford.
I can hear a return to yesteryear, when the trooper would sidle up to the car, lean in, push his hat up just a bit with his index finger and say, "where's the fire?"
And when you get home, your kids will be playing with action figures.
But then little Johnny -- yeah, we'll start calling our kids 'little Johnny' again -- will start whining about getting one of those cool new black and white TVs like the kid next door has.
At which point, you'll just head down to the lodge to be with the fellas.
Off the shelf
Posted at 5:57 PM on March 25, 2008
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
According to the British Antarctic Survey, this is a picture of an ice shelf in Antarctica that has been around for "hundreds, maybe 1,500 years." It apparently broke off or collapsed within the last few weeks. Some scientists say it's because of global warming.
Here's a higher resolution photo. And here's another. Unfortunately, it's awfully difficult to figure out what scale we're looking at here. I can't tell whether these were taken from a mile up or by someone standing on the ice. However, an intriguing video posted along with a press release (as of Tuesday evening the site had crashed) suggests the ice shelf was about the height (above the water) of a warehouse.
It's an event we don't get to see very often," Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. told the Los Angeles Times. "The cracks fill with water and slice off and topple... That gets to be a runaway situation."
As for what it all means, well, let the debate begin.
Last one in
Posted at 8:41 PM on March 25, 2008
by Bob Collins
(6 Comments)
For what it's worth, a person who says he's Mike Bortin writes to remind us he was released from prison two years ago. Who is Mike Bortin? He was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army and one of the people -- along with Kathleen Soliah (now Sara Jane Olson), Emily Harris, and James Kilgore -- whom Patty Hearst claimed committed the bank robbery in which Myrna Opsahl, a bank customer, was killed. He told part of his story to the Star Tribune last week, before Olson was rearrested.
Bortin, William Harris, and Emily Montague (formerly Emily Harris, the woman who admits she accidentally killed Opsahl), got prison terms ranging from six to eight years.
Olson was also sentenced to 6 years in the case in 2003, and had previously been given a 14 year sentence for planting car bombs.
Montague and Harris have also since been released from prison.
"Why is Sara being unmercifully attacked and vilified," the writer asks. "Selective witch hunting?"
Does he have a point?
Is marriage dying?
Posted at 8:26 AM on March 26, 2008
by Bob Collins
(18 Comments)
The Guardian reports today that the marriage rate in the UK has fallen to its lowest level since the mid-19th century.
The trend is familiar to the U.S., where marriage rates have been falling for some time. In Minnesota, for example, the latest statistics show six people per thousand married in 2004, compared to 7.7 in 1990.
So what?
In the Boston Globe today, columnist Stephen Bailey says increasing single-parenthood is creating a separate-but-equal society in America:
Andy Sum has spent years documenting rising inequality in America and has come to believe that what has happened to families is at the heart of it. What the numbers show, he says, is increasing single-parenthood, limited earnings among single moms, declining earnings and rate of marriage among men with no post-secondary schooling, and the tendency for college-educated young adults to marry one another, what the sociologists call "assortative mating." MBAs marry MBAs; nobody is interested in rescuing Cinderella any more.
Another battle for Baghdad
Posted at 8:08 AM on March 26, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
There has been a debate for months now about what begat what in Iraq. Was an era of comparative calm in Baghdad and Basra the result of the "surge," or was it the result of a cease fire called by Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr? And was the cease fire caused by the surge?
It appears we're about to find out. Over the last day or so fighting has intensified between Iraqi forces and the fighters for al-Sadr.
McClatchy Newspapers Baghdad bureau chief Leila Fadel has just posted an update to her excellent blog, Baghdad Observer, after returning from some time away. She suggests that people in Baghdad could feel something coming...
But before we left he looked at me and another foreign reporter and warned in Arabic that times had changed. It's good that we were wearing scarves and the long black Abaya, this is a good cover, he said. People had changed in the market. Their minds did not work the same way, he said. He offered us juice and asked us to come back for a meal at his home.
A bias against issues?
Posted at 11:02 AM on March 26, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Much has been made of an alleged bias in the media against particular presidential candidates. One week Hillary Clinton complains about media treatment, the next week Barack Obama similarly complains.
But few people seem to be noticing the most damaging bias: the bias against covering issues of the campaign.
Yesterday, it can be argued, the most important current issue to Americans -- the economy and the housing crisis -- revealed the most stark differences yet in the current presidential campaign. It happened when John McCain, speaking to a group of Hispanic business owners, said:
"It is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."
The issue, to its credit, was front-page news to the New York Times, especially since it came just a day after Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed government intervention in the crisis.
Similar credit goes to National Public Radio, which featured the -- here comes that word -- issue on its All Things Considered broadcast on Wednesday evening.
So how did it play in the morning papers and evening and morning TV news? Not so much. None of the TV broadcasts Wednesday evening considered the story, preferring instead to expand on the Clinton "misstatement" (some might call it a lie) on her trip to Bosnia -- not an insignificant story, but one that was entering its fourth news cycle. On the morning TV programs, the big story was split between Chelsea Clinton telling students the Monica Lewinsky fallout in her family was "none of your business," and the transgender man who says he's pregnant. CBS even carried a story that seemed to apologize for its transfixing on gaffes by pointing out it's a "slow news period." Hello?
As for the newspapers, none of the Minnesota papers I checked this morning carried the story. One, the Star Tribune, had only one presidential candidate story on the front page and that was about Obama being related to Brad Pitt. The Pioneer Press carried a story about McCain being tight with Joe Lieberman (an angle, for the record, News Cut explored almost two months ago.)
News bosses outside of Washington and New York, it would appear, have concluded that you won't read a story about the candidate differences on a major issue.
And the situation sounds similar to the assessment of the annual State of the News Media report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism on this disconnect.
Looking at stories that the public said they were most closely following, significant interest gaps emerged for several other news events -- revelations that the dangerous staph "superbug" called MRSA was more common than previously thought, recalls of pet food, the troubled U.S. economy in the week that investor guru Warren Buffett said taxes on the rich were too low, and President Bush's veto of the legislation intended to expand health insurance for children.
As was the case with many of the topic areas that got little coverage in the press, the common characteristic that defines these particular stories, including the spike at the gas pump, is that they speak to the nuts and bolts of daily existence, such as health and money.
The freedom to post
Posted at 1:45 PM on March 26, 2008
by Bob Collins
(11 Comments)
Now that the news has trickled into the metro that Michele Bachmann has filed legislation to protect our right to buy incandescent lightbulbs, it's becoming apparent how to get legislation noticed, if not necessarily enacted. Slap "freedom" in the title somewhere.
Bachmann's bill is The Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act.
Of course, the smoking ban in Minnesota was called the Freedom to Breathe Act.
What other "freedom" legislation is out there?
Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 - This federal law reinstated four criteria to determine whether religious freedom had been violated by the government.
The Academic Freedom Act - In Florida, the bill would allow teachers to teach theories critical of evolution.
Internet Freedom Act of 2008 - Rep. Ed Markey's legislation to order the FCC to assess competition in broadband.
Freedom from Automated Political Calls Act
Freedom to Bank Act - In the words of author Ron Paul, "To sunset Federal laws and regulations which treat the American people like children by denying them the opportunity to make their own decision regarding control of their bank accounts and what type of information they wish to receive from their banks, and for other purposes."
Freedom to Fly Act of 2007 - Allows commercial pilots over 60 to keep flying.
Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 - Apparently this is a problem somewhere.
Freedom to Be A Patriot Act - Would've prevented federal funds from going to any agency that barred the flying of the flag.
Broadcaster Freedom Act - Sen. Norm Coleman's bill to outlaw return of the Fairness Doctrine.
Business Checking Freedom Act - 2005 bill would've allowed banks to pay interest on business checking accounts.
A look at outrage
Posted at 1:10 PM on March 26, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Every now and again there are little dustups in political circles that are worth ignoring since the outrage is -- at least to a certain degree -- manufactured to fit the political gain that can be achieved.
Take, for example, a short article on John McCain's dental work that appeared on the Minnesota Monitor Web site this week.
If bloggers are saying one thing about John McCain this week it's that the 71-year-old has some serious grit. Of course, that grit comes in the form of McCain Mouth, a deformity that apparently causes teeth to look like a mess of yellowed and contorted Chiclets. Today, BuzzFeed.com has picked up on the mouth meme, turning McCain's piano-key chompers into an official phenomenon.
Not exactly a penetrating look at an issue, to be sure. It's best filed under "N" for "nonsense," the kind of stuff that gives bloggers a not-quite-deserved reputation.
Then local Republican blogger Michael Brodkorb picked up on it.
This is a really disgusting attack on Senator McCain and Minnesota Monitor should be embarrassed. I left a comment on Minnesota Monitor asking if the author of this post, Molly Priesmeyer, was aware that McCain's teeth were broken when he was a P.O.W.
Local blogger Charlie Quimby debates the extent to which McCain's teeth were broken, but nevertheless reminded me of something I saw at the Republican National Convention in 2004.
Here's a picture I took and a blurb I wrote while visiting with the Minnesota delegation :
Some guy from Virginia was handing out these Band Aids with a purple heart, an obvious attack on John Kerry's medals in Vietnam. The GOP asked people to stop wearing them because they didn't want to be questioning Kerry's service in Vietnam. This woman isn't listening to the party. A lot of delegates aren't.
The Minnesota delegation -- some delegates, anyway -- were wearing the Band Aids. And mocking Kerry's war injuries was de rigueur during the convention among Minnesota delegates, as indicated by another reference I made in a piece about Minnesota delegates helping out by repainting a neighborhood center.
By early in the afternoon, it seemed that the tendency to talk politics was in reverse proportion to the amount of time actually spent with the kids. Back at the day-care center, the walls in Brooklyn are pretty much the same as the ones in Minnesota. A delegate hurt his finger. "Is your finger OK?" one delegate asked. "Yeah, and I put in for a Purple Heart," he replied.
Kerry's suffering during the war was certainly nowhere near McCain's, of course. But that's not really the point. The point is that in politics, the outraged now are quite often the participants then.
What price freedom?
Posted at 3:12 PM on March 26, 2008
by Bob Collins
(6 Comments)
More investigation of what it costs to preserve my freedom to choose incandescent light bulbs.
A spreadsheet prepared by Productdose.com compares the costs of burning three different kinds of bulbs: the CFL, the incandescent, and the LED. You can download it here and plug in your own electric bills, kilowatt rate, and type of bulbs in your home.
Let's give it a try.
The average home is said to use 1,500 kwh per month. We'll cut it to 1,000 per month at about 11 cents per kilowatt hour, for a total of about $110 a month.
Here are the numbers, based on 20 light bulbs in the home and an estimated daily usage of an hour.
| Incandescent | CFL | LED | |
| Life span (hours) | 1,500 | 10,000 | 60,000 |
| Watts | 60 | 14 | 6 |
| KWh over 60k hours | 3,600 | 840 | 360 |
| Electricity cost | $396 | $92.40 | $39.60 |
| Bulbs needed for 60,000 hours | 40 | 6 | 1 |
| Equivalent 60k bulb expense | $53.80 | $17.88 | $54.95 |
| Total 60,000 lighting spending | $449.80 | $110.28 | $94.55 |
| ENERGY SAVINGS | |||
| Household cost | $8,996 | $2,205.60 | $1,891 |
| Savings over incandescent | 0 | $6,790.40 | $7,105 |
| MONTHLY HOUSEHOLD ENERGY SAVINGS | |||
| KWh used per month | 36 | 8 | 4 |
| Electricity cost (11 cents kwh) | $3.96 | $.92 | $.40 |
| Savings by switching | 0 | $3.04 | $3.56 |
| YEARLY HOUSEHOLD ENERGY SAVINGS | |||
| KWh per year | 438 | 102 | 44 |
| Electricity cost (11 cents kwh) | $48.18 | $11.24 | $4.82 |
| Savings by switching | $0 | $36.94 | $43.36 |
At $36.94 yearly savings, I could pay off the new gas tax on 738 gallons of gasoline. I fill up about every 8 days with 12 gallons of gas (Chevy Cavalier). So I use about 550 gallons of gasoline in a year. I could pay the tax on the gas and still have $9.40 left over to put toward the increased excise tax.
What I'm working on
Posted at 2:58 PM on March 26, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
The Mark Yudof post I wrote the other night jogged my memory enough that I want to follow up on life after the University of Minnesota's General College. There were a lot of predictions made a few years ago about the net effect of of folding it into the College of Education and I'm interested in finding out how reality matches the predictions.
I'll be talking with various officials over there this week but if you were a student at General College, or are currently at the College of Education in part of the curriculum that replaced the GC, I'd love to chat with you about your experience. Write to me at bcollins@mpr.org.
Medical kickbacks
Posted at 3:53 PM on March 26, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Scott Haig at Time Magazine reports the mood was more foul at the American Academy of Orthopaedics convention in San Francisco earlier this month, mostly because the Department of Justice has turned the spotlight on the cozy relationship (some people say "kickbacks") between doctors and the orthopedic device industry.
No more free dinners, or flashlights or pens. And this year there was a new rule that every research presentation had to be preceded with a full disclosure of all monetary deals the speaker had with any company.
That requirement, says Haig, didn't stop much:
Every single fully trained doctor I heard speak was getting paid by a company; many of the bigger-name doctors were getting paid by three or four. How much money was still the subject of gossip -- the exact amount is not required to be broadcast in these podium confessionals. The DOJ has, however, ordered companies to list the doctors in their employ, as well as the amounts paid them, on their websites. Judging by those figures, it adds up to plenty. And it got our attention at AAOS. Some doctors thought it immoral; others lamented the doubt it cast on the integrity of research. But I think most just wanted in.
One wonders today whether this culture has gotten so ingrained into the medical profession that it's no longer able to see what the problem with it might be.
The New York Times reported today that a 2006 study on lung cancer that suggested 80 percent of lung cancer could be prevented through widespread use of CT scans, was funded by the tobacco industry through a front group called the Foundation for Lung Cancer.
Dr. Jeffrey M. Drazen, editor in chief of the medical journal, said he was surprised. "In the seven years that I've been here, we have never knowingly published anything supported by" a cigarette maker, Dr. Drazen said.
The conclusion of the study was questioned almost immediately. Yet it took the Times going through the tax records from the group to ask what Drazen's editors should've asked the researcher two years ago: Who paid you?
In Minnesota, the issue came up this month during testimony on a bill that would ban the the sale of prescriber-specific prescription information for commercial purposes.
On the blog of the National Physicians Alliance, Chris McCoy, who testified, wrote that the hearing earlier this month quickly shifted.
At several intervals, several of the state Senators expressed their personal experiences. I never expected to have many of my arguments presented by a legislator, but one described working in a psychiatry office that has weekly lunches sponsored by drug companies.
McCoy criticized supporters of the practice who say they need "detailing" (as it's called) to keep up with the latest medical information. " There are plenty of unbiased, evidenced-based sources of information about new drugs," says McCoy.
Minnesota is one of the few states that has banned large gifts from drug companies to doctors.
Fill 'er up
Posted at 7:20 AM on March 27, 2008
by Bob Collins
(13 Comments)
Years ago, there was a TV ad -- I think it was for the AMC Javelin or Gremlin automobile -- in which a woman pulls into a gas station and the attendant (this really was many years ago), all oiled up from working on someone's car (many many years ago), asks how much gas she wants.
"A dollar," she says.
"A dollar?" he responds incredulously. "Are you sure you can use alllll thaaaat gas?"
She pauses for a moment and thinks and then says, "you're right. Better make it.... a gallon."
You don't get it? You're too young, then.
(I have searched in vain on YouTube for this commercial. If you find it, let me know, please.)
And now the news: The price of gasoline in the region jumped 20 cents in the last week, and it turns out that the country has less gasoline stockpiled than anyone thought.
The good news is the higher prices may be saving lives, according to a new study.
Minnesota, along with Missouri and New Jersey, still has the nation's lowest gas prices.
The world's youngest arms dealer?
Posted at 10:23 AM on March 27, 2008
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
In this he said-she said world of news, there's an actual story out there today getting almost no attention, which is odd since it was broken by the New York Times on its front page today.
The ammunition the United States is providing to its allies in Afghanistan is junk.
With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan's army and police forces.
Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.
The company is run by a 22-year-old kid.
You'll need a scratchpad and a well-sharpened pencil to add up all the possible violations of law.
Here's the money quote from, "a senior State Department official:"
"A lot of us are asking a question: How did this guy get all the business?"
It's a fabulous piece of reporting.
Fun with numbers
Posted at 10:49 AM on March 27, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
The U.S. Census Bureau is out with data today that confirms what most of us know, the South is where people want to live and eventually so many people will be living there that the earth will somehow become unbalanced and spin out of orbit. I hope it's all worth it, Texas.
In these parts, Sioux Falls is one of the fastest growing areas, but Minneapolis-St. Paul is no slouch. Its population grew 1.1 percent between July 2006 and July 2007.
By contrast, the fastest growing of the 100 metropolitan areas is Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina, which grew at the rate of 4.7 percent. Does this mean the Raleigh-Cary is better than the Twin Cities. No (although it may be).
Assuming that people vote with their feet, the "best" place among the 100 is the Dallas area, followed by Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston and Riverside, Calif.
Minneapolis-St. Paul, however, finishes 18th in the total number of people moving here (OK, it's not exactly people moving here, it could just as easily be that lots of people died in some areas where a few people moved, but work with me here!) We're just slightly ahead of Nashville and just slightly behind San Francisco.
And we actually have some work to do to catch up with Raleigh-Cary, which is 12th.
Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Detroit bring up the rear, as has become tradition for them.
In terms of the rate of growth, who are we most like?
Columbus, Ohio; Augusta, Ga.;Omaha;Tampa; Louisville, and Allentown, Pa.
What's left to say about CFLs? Plenty.
Posted at 3:24 PM on March 27, 2008
by Bob Collins
(8 Comments)
In the last couple of days, the entire pre-ordained world of politics has been turned upside down following word of Rep. Michele Bachmann's filing of a bill to delay the phase-out of the manufacture of incandescent bulbs.
Republicans and conservatives are arguing against the environmental impact of CFL, while traditional Democratic and liberal constituencies are saying, "it's not that bad." Down is up. Up is down.
To be sure, most of Bachmann's arguments against CFL light bulbs are moot. Most of what she's asking for in the way of research and studies was already readily available. But there are two areas where her points -- oh, geez, I can hear the blogs now -- have merit.
-1- There is an environmental concern with CFLs to at least consider.
-2- For some people, CFLs are a health risk.
Let's take the second one first, but only because I've already written about it here. In the U.K., there's a phase-out of incandescents. I wrote about it January, long before the millions of you discovered News Cut.
The bulbs are suspected to cause migraines and there's at least some research that suggests they could contribute to an epileptic attack. In the UK, the BBC reported way back when, some groups are asking that the government still allow incandescents to be sold because of this.
As for number one, yes, there is mercury in CFLs and, no, it can't be disregarded out of hand. According to the EPA, there are 5 milligrams of mercury in every CFL. According to a story last month by National Public Radio, General Electric says it could be a problem if the CFLs are used on a wide scale, even though manufacturers have reduced mercury content by 87 percent, according to one trade group.
For the record, mercury is also in your car's HID lamps, streetlights, and the computer monitor on which you're reading this.
Still, if the concern over the coming phase-out is really the mercury involved in light bulbs, then the CFL still wins out. Popular Mechanics got at this issue in an article last year, which tends to turn the mercury anti-CFL argument on its head.
About 50 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. is generated by coal-fired power plants. When coal burns to produce electricity, mercury naturally contained in the coal releases into the air. In 2006, coal-fired power plants produced 1,971 billion kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity, emitting 50.7 tons of mercury into the air--the equivalent amount of mercury contained in more than 9 billion CFLs (the bulbs emit zero mercury when in use or being handled).
Approximately 0.0234 mg of mercury--plus carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide--releases into the air per 1 kwh of electricity that a coal-fired power plant generates. Over the 7500-hour average range of one CFL, then, a plant will emit 13.16 mg of mercury to sustain a 75-watt incandescent bulb but only 3.51 mg of mercury to sustain a 20-watt CFL (the lightning equivalent of a 75-watt traditional bulb). Even if the mercury contained in a CFL was directly released into the atmosphere, an incandescent would still contribute 4.65 more milligrams of mercury into the environment over its lifetime.
CFLs should be disposed of at a county hazardous waste site. The problem is that they often don't make it there. They break while people are changing them or throwing them out. You can find cleanup suggestions here.
The brouhaha the story has caused is fascinating. Overall, the issue has been stretched a bit too tight to fit a political argument. It's not always a bad thing if government steps in to dictate a standard in the public interest. And, in the most honest moments, most people understand that. Otherwise, there'd be a bigger clamor for the right to buy toys painted with lead.
Speed Trap Web site
Posted at 6:14 PM on March 27, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
Just a few days after I wrote about the Rate My Cop Web site, comes word through the interoffice mail of another site aimed at the law enforcement community.
This one -- the Speed Trap Exchange -- is designed for people to identify locations of regular speeding crackdowns. It's actually been operating for a few years.
Checking ye olde homestead -- Woodbury -- finds three "speed traps" listed, which basically amount to I-94. But the word "speed trap" suggests a fairly consistent location and that doesn't really exist on that stretch. They get you when they feel like getting you.
As with Rate My Cop, its primary purpose ends up being the entertainment value of the people complaining about breaking the law. As one person wrote:
I was nailed yesterday (yes I was speeding, but technically it shouldn't have mattered because I was going with the speed of traffic). Going west towards Woodbury-- two miles or so before the Manning Avenue exit. There were 4 police cars in that general area. I later learned (when I was pulled over) from the officer that they were doing a "speed detail" in the area and that I would indeed be receiving a citation. Be careful! Stay out of the left lane!
It shouldn't have mattered? The law doesn't matter as long as everyone is breaking it?
A problem grows in the north metro
Posted at 11:05 PM on March 27, 2008
by Bob Collins
(29 Comments)
"Man, it felt so good to hear the customs agent say, 'Welcome home' when I'd get back from an overseas trip," Arafat Elbakri fairly gushed to me Thursday night. He was reminiscing. Since 9/11, says the Egyptian-born Coon Rapids man, he's usually pulled aside and interrogated instead.
"I used to be so proud when I'd go back to Egypt to say, 'I live in America.'"
Still reminiscing. He's frustrated now by what he sees as a talk-radio-fed hatred against Muslims.
"I don't believe we can change the world," he told a crowd of about 100 people who showed up at a forum in Anoka, "but we can try to make these people not feel comfortable and proud to hurt others under the name of patriotism."
These people include whoever firebombed Mohammad Ismail's convenience store on 109th Street in Blaine last January. It's a crime that has not been classified as a hate crime by police, but about which there is no doubt by the 100 who attended the forum, which was intended to explore ways to improve relations between the growing Muslim community in the region and the natives.
The FBI, the Anoka County attorney, the mayor of Blaine, and a representative of the Blaine Police Department tried to assure a decidedly mild-mannered audience they take the issue seriously, but not everyone buys it.
Chris Schumacher, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says five days before the January firebombing, someone in a truck threw a bottle at Ismail. "Maybe he was aiming for the garbage can," Schumacher says a Blaine cop told Ismail.
On Monday, someone shouted at a Muslim woman in a parking lot on 109th Street in Blaine, "Get out of here and get off 109th," she reported. That's the same street as the charred convenience store.
On Tuesday, according to one person in the audience, a Muslim woman -- his wife -- driving in Blaine was driven off the road by a man in a pickup truck.
Blaine has a problem. And Blaine knows it.
"I have complete embarrassment that someone who looks like me might have done something like this," said Joe Belcheck of Coon Rapids.
In a county that's growing twice as fast as Minnesota as a whole, the number of Muslims is also increasing. A survey by CAIR showed Minnesota is one of 12 states where American Muslim voters are concentrated.
Contributions to a reward fund for information about the firebombing has swelled it to $4,000. Some churches in the region have made contributions to help Ismail get his store rebuilt.
He did not attend the forum.
The kid from Cambodia
Posted at 1:05 PM on March 28, 2008
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
Over the years, I've gotten out of the habit of sitting around the family radio at night, so I don't often get to hear The Story, which airs on MPR weeknights at 9. Fortunately, I was on the road last evening and was reminded of a couple of things (1) Why radio is such a fabulous medium (2) How often in the humdrum of our daily lives, we really don't have an appreciation for what we've got, based largely on our ignorance of what others don't.
Last night, I heard an update of the story of Joe Cook, who helped create Cambodia's first baseball team. Cute stuff, with the story about having to play baseball with water buffalo and motorcycles running across the field.
But it's impossible to listen to his journey (delivered with an Alabama accented Cambodian accent) and not ask, "What would I have done in that situation?" Of course, most of us have no frame of reference because we don't come close to dealing with these situations.
Here's the Cliffs Notes version.
1. He was 5 when Pol Pot seized power and his father went to the battlefront, returning only briefly to tell his family "I will not be with you anymore." A few minutes later when his father left he heard "so many guns shooting, so many bombs exploding," and he found out a few days later his father was gone.
2. The Khmer Rouge sent him and his family to the "Killing Fields." He ate leaves, grass and tree bark to stay alive for two years.
3. He tried eight times to escape. He escaped on the ninth, as the Khmer Route shot at him and his family. Over the next few weeks, he found two brothers and his mother, but his sister never showed up. At age 7, they walked five months barefoot to the Thailand border and eventually made it to the U.S.
4. They settled in Alabama, and many years later, he found his sister was alive. He flew to Cambodia only to find out his sister had no money to get to the border, so she sold her 10-year-old son for $47. "She wanted to meet me at the border to show her brother how honored she was for him to come."
5. He bought her son -- his nephew -- back for $100. "That's Cambodia," he said. "Life is cheap." His niece and nephew proudly showed him where they lived. "I have to do something about this," he said. That's when he said, "I'm going to bring baseball back."
As a refugee, he wandered past a Little League game in Alabama when he was 12. Although unable to speak English, he was able to communicate to the coach that he wanted to play. So he did. He wasn't very good but he loved the sport. "Imagine playing baseball blindfolded, I had no idea where (the players) go or how they play."
6. In 2002, Joe, who is a chef, put together enough old pieces of equipment to bring baseball to Cambodia. "Baseball has always been in to me and I just wanted to do so much," he said.
Recently, Cambodia's national team was invited to play in an international tournament for southeast Asia. His team got smoked against Thailand, the #1 ranked team. They lost 16-0. "It was great," he told The Story. "I told them 'no matter win or lose, we're here.'"
The nephew he bought back was one of the players.
"Without baseball," he said, "we'd have no heroes."
Now Cambodia has one. And so should we all.
You can find his blog here, and after you visit it, trust me, you'll be having a much better day.
The Week-in-Review Quiz
Posted at 6:04 PM on March 28, 2008
by Bob Collins
(11 Comments)
Where does news end and trivia begin? At the point at which you can't answer a question in the even-tougher-than-you-remember News Cut quiz. There's a lot of trivia in this week's quiz.
Take the quiz, and then come on back to talk about your week. As usual, there are some hints in the image above.
This week, by the way, I met with ace MPR developer Ari Koinuma, to outline the specs for an embeddable quiz that will tally your score and compare it to the other trivia -- I mean news -- experts. It'll be a few weeks yet but the prospect of it will give us all a reason to live for another week.
The last roundup
Posted at 9:28 AM on March 30, 2008
by Bob Collins
(8 Comments)
The last of the stockyards in South St. Paul is closing, and it's OK now, I guess, to view them with some historical nostalgia. It's a bit odd, since while they existed, many people -- myself included -- tried to pretend they didn't exist.
Here's why:
Down in the yards, it was cold, dirty, dangerous work. The worst job, the oldtimers said, was the killing floor, where men swinging sledge hammers bashed cattle in the head and rivers of blood covered the floors.
That's from an article in the Star Tribune today. I know what you're thinking: here comes the vegetarian lecture, what with this being Public Radio and all. But, no, I like steak. Still, I have a hard time imagining a day of work that involves sledgehammering a cow. What do you say when you get home and the spouse says, "how was your day?"
Trent Loos, who runs a Web site called Faces of Agriculture, worries that the closing of the last stockyard in South St. Paul will further dampen the typical American's knowledge of where his/her food comes from.
I am a cattleman. The ideal day for me is spent horseback, working cattle alongside my family members. I truly love the idea of managing the cow and assisting her in the conversion of cellulose material into the essentials of human life. I enjoy providing proper animal care and identifying genetics that will consistently produce a higher quality beef product that the global consumer is willing to pay a premium for, because they need it and like it. But the sad fact is that, no matter how much I love the ranching aspect of the beef business, someone must always be involved in profitably taking the live animal and generating products that the consumer demands. History tells us that very few have been able to do that successfully for any length of time at all.
Loos says the country's meatpacking will soon be in the hands of foreign interests "if somebody doesn't successfully operate the packing part of the equation."
There are other stockyards -- in Zumbrota and Albany -- operated by the company that runs -- ran -- the South St. Paul operation. There'll be a celebration at the South St. Paul location on April 11th with guided tours.
Just don't show me the sledgehammer.
(If you or your family have any pictures of the stockyards, please consider submitting them for News Cut. I'm also interested in hearing from people who worked in the stockyards. Contact me at bcollins@mpr.org.)
Are we dumb?
Posted at 10:26 AM on March 31, 2008
by Bob Collins
(83 Comments)
Kerri Miller talked today to Susan Jacoby, author of "The Age of American Unreason." What follows is the live blog of the Midmorning. Here's the archived audio (sorry, it's RealPlayer).
According to her Web site:
America's endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism, feeding on and fed by a popular culture of video images and unremitting noise that leaves no room for contemplation or logic.
Back in the day, we would've said all that in two words: "you're stupid."
Jacoby insists that our culture carries with it a disdain for logic and she cites as evidence the focus on infotainment from TV and the Web.
OK, that's easy. On the other hand, I see access to information being at an all-time high; I see YouTube offering college lectures for free, and I see people being required to know more information now than at any time in history. Oh, and public radio's popularity is at an all-time high.
Jacoby says, "..a lazy and credulous public increasingly unwilling or unable to distinguish between fact and opinion." I'm wondering which she thinks that is.
The trick in all this is to avoid the anecdotal. We can always find reasons to conclude that the culture has been dumbed down, or even -- as I've indicated -- that's it's not. Clearly the future of the country requires an informed -- and intelligent -- citizenry.
10:07 - We're off and running with Kerri playing a sound byte of Robert Kennedy quoting a poem by Escalus (damn you, Shakespeare!) Aeschylus.
"In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
Kennedy was speaking following the death of Martin Luther King Jr.
Kerri quotes Jacoby as indicating the use of Aeschylus as him assuming the audience would have known who Aeschylus was. She also says nobody today would quote an Aeschylus. Jacoby says even our public leaders today would be afraid of being branded elitist. So much for the hope this isn't a political discussion; she criticizes Bush for saying Obama "talks too good."
Ronald Reagan quoted John Gillespie Magee when he delivered his famous eulogy at the space shuttle Challenger memorial service. Does that count?
10:11 -" We have just gotten lazier," Jacoby says. "Only about half of America read a book last year." Confession time: I didn't read a book last year, at least the kind Jacoby is talking about. I did read a manual on electrical wiring and its principles. Does that make me dumber than someone who bought and read a book on Amazon?
10:13 - "Folks." It's a bad word, according to Jacoby. "It was not a word that was considered suitable for presidential speeches."
10:22 - Following up on above. This is an interesting question, whether the evolution of the English language is an example of dumbing down.
Consider this:
Thus much, gentlemen, I have thought it incumbent on me to observe to you, to show upon what principles I opposed the irregular and hasty meeting which was proposed to have been held on Tuesday last - and not because I wanted a disposition to give you every opportunity consistent with your own honor, and the dignity of the army, to make known your grievances. If my conduct heretofore has not evinced to you that I have been a faithful friend to the army, my declaration of it at this time would be equally unavailing and improper
Is that really more intelligent merely because it uses an older form of the English language? It came from George Washington.
Several generations later, a -- arguably -- dumbed down form of English resulted in this:
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
That would be Dwight Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex.
10:26 - We're into the full Bush bashing over Iraq and I won't get into that debate. "The question is why is are we so willing to be lied to." Well, no, we're not willing to be lied to, nor is being lied to by a government a product of our current media age. Gulf of Tonkin anyone?
And does the lie of the treaties with Native Americans indicate a previous level of intelligence?
Secondly, I would submit the analysis of the run-up to the Iraq war may be the most researched, documented, and widely available investigation of an event ever made available.
10:30 - We're now into criticizing Wikipedia "and its online errors." This is an old argument (she's actually arguing encyclopedias in general are not a proper reference for term papers but that's beside the point). In 2005, a study was conducted of Encyclopedia Britannica (once considered the bible of encyclopedias), and it found Wikipedia was just as accurate.
10:33 - Jacoby touches on an interesting point -- one that I often gassed on about when I wrote Polinaut: the tendency to seek out the news (and assume as "truth") that which mirrors what a person already believes. I believe, obviously, she's write about this and this is clearly a side effect of the increase in choice that Americans (and others) have in information. But I also wonder whether people are equally quick to label as "dumb" or "uninformed," that with which they disagree. And does that poison the climate for intellectual discussion in this country that the two guests in today's first hour of Midmorning touched on?
10:37 - Question: How many of you have been in a school recently?
10:40 - I'm ignoring the political talk. Here's an interesting story from late last week in the U.K. about a report that is about to come out on the Internet generation.
Far from being dumbed down by the information age, we are smartening up. Jim Flynn, a New Zealand professor, has charted year-on-year rises in IQ scores across the world, and tests show that Britons' average IQ has risen 27 points since 1942. True, school leavers might know nothing of Clement Attlee or the nine-times table, but that's the fault of our education system. The cognitive labour demanded by games and assimilating detail is linked to better mental dexterity. Our brains have been reprogrammed.
10:41 - "It takes away the space that was reserved for more reflection and introspection," Jacoby said on the information that is now available today. An online commenter said "no wonder we're dumb" because we're bombarded with information. Here's my present problem: we're assuming we are dumb. Prove it.
10:44 - Kerri invokes the wisdom of Stevie Van Zandt. Excellent. He apparently laments that musicians today don't understand the history of their craft. Van Zandt, of course, played a part on the Sopranos, one of the cultural phenomenons of our time.
10:47 -- No one wants to work for their knowledge. Say again: prove it. "Boys and girls should have desk and they shouldn't be allowed to talk to each other," Jacoby said. The caller to whom she was responding said "kids today" (or "folks" if you prefer) are "passive" in their learning. Isn't that "I'll talk, you listen" method of education the definition of passive?
10:53 Says a commenter here:
Instead of picking at culture let's look at all that is happening. I get tired of the criticizing of the culture. Let's look at the powerful stuff that is happening. Kids are so technologically advanced that they leave adults in the dust. Kids are discovering reading through graphic novels and genres we older 'folk' don't get. And on and on and on.....
Smackdown, Jacoby replies to the idea that kids are smarter:
"No they're not. Any kid who can use a computer better than most people. It doesn't tell us anything. The computer is a tool. One of the things that's very wrong. What techies talk about is if the computer and digital universe and the Web is some kind of godlike new way of thinking. The idea that because kids can use a computer means they're smarter than us is ridiculous."
She then says that when we say kids are smarter, we're saying kids can use a computer better. Well, there's a lesson in intellectual dishonesty: change the assertion to a different one and then rebut that one.
In fact, kids are smarter (more knowledgeable) than previous generations. The difference is they're not knowledgeable about the same things. And the computer, by the way, while it is a tool, has also created the environment for creativity that has come from it. The computer is not an entertainment tool. It is a tool that can be used for multiple purposes.
One can use a pen and paper to write a poem or paragraph from Aeschylus, or one can write Mein Kampf.
10:58 -- All in all, the debate pretty much mirrored that of generations past. I'll match this anecdotal evidence with that anecdotal evidence. In a way, it's a shame we think so little of our kids and have so little hope in what they can -- and have -- accomplished.
Opening day
Posted at 6:40 AM on March 31, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Baseball has returned. Oh, if only it were 2010 and we could open up -- at night -- in 30 degree weather and 7 inches of snow as the baseball gods had intended.
Here. Pick your poison, sluggers.
Job market 2009
Posted at 12:31 PM on March 31, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
(h/t Philip Greenspun)
After Beer Pong
Posted at 12:43 PM on March 31, 2008
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
The University of Minnesota Daily has the story today of a "new" drinking game. It used to be called the "Drunken Spelling Bee," but now its title has been changed to the "Grown Up Spelling Bee" because of complaints that the old name glorified binge drinking.
You decide.
Sendall wound up making it to the fifth round. Her first word as contestant number 39 was "autoerotic," followed by "verbatim," "eugenics," and "viscous."
During the fifth round, she crinkled her face, trying to spell "manducatory."
"M-A-N," she said, pausing to find the next letter. "G?"
The judges beeped her out.
Sendall had an 8-ounce Pabst Blue Ribbon beer between each round, plus an extra drink during an intermission, for a final total of six drinks by the time she was eliminated.
One rule in the game: No puking.
The older worker
Posted at 1:50 PM on March 31, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
The Census Bureau is launching a series of state-by-state reports on the older worker, defined as 55 or older. Thirty-one states are participating. Minnesota's analysis hasn't been issued yet, but today Wisconsin's report was issued.
Some factoids worth considering:
* Statewide, no individual industry sector employed more than 20 percent of workers who were 55 and older.
* Of all workers in the state 55 and older, 22.7 percent were employed in manufacturing. As our manufacturing base declines, this would suggest (at least to me) that the older worker is particularly vulnerable.
* In non-metropolitan areas, the utility industry was the biggest employer of 55-somethings. It's also the highest paying, with an average $4,461 per month salary.
* The Wisconsin part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area breaks down this way in terms of the age and percentage of workers.
45-54 years old: 19.8 percent
55-64 years old: 9.7 percent
55-99 years old: 3 percent
65-99 years old: 12.7 percent
Our area -- St. Croix, Pierce, Polk, and Dunn counties -- has the smallest percentage of "older workers" in the workforce.
Whatever happened to: General College?
Posted at 5:32 PM on March 31, 2008
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
In putting together a "Whatever Happened To" segment on Mark Yudof last week, I was reminded of the concerns about the closing of the University of Minnesota's General College a few years ago.
General College, its supporters said, was necessary to achieving a racially diverse university. At the time, 48 percent of the General College consisted of students of color, while the university as a whole has only 13 percent students of color as undergrads.
That debate was raging three years ago today. Eventually, the university decided to eliminate the General College, considered a gateway to the university for students who didn't quite meet the academic requirements of the university, and fold it into the College of Education.
So, whatever happened to those students?
I talked to Darlyne Bailey, who was appointed the dean of the new new College of Education and Human Development less than two years ago.
News Cut:: There was concern with the old General College about the low number of students who graduated; I think it was about a 40-percent six-year graduation rate. What has been the experience since the General College was rolled into the College of Education with the students who were there at the time?
Bailey: I've been here about 17 months. We haven't had a whole lot of graduations to be able to talk about graduation rates, per se. But the old General College ... was basically downsized as you know. And it transformed into a department -- the Department of Post Secondary Teaching and Learning. It has been placed as the portal through which all of our first-year, new students will go.
Soon, they'll be moving literally from Applebee into Burton Hall, which is where my office is, so we can have them on the "mother ship." Students, when they first come into the college as first-year students, will go through and be touched by the PSTL faculty and staff in learning communities. We have a whole first-year student experience developed. So a lot of what the General College did in what, I think, was very fine teaching, has now been imported and customized into the new college.
News Cut: The Access to Success Program. How has that worked?
Bailey: Access to Success is the name that our college dubbed "the program" for students whose experiences and high school records showed that basically they would have strong potential. Their high school GPA, ACT, SAT test scores may not ... reach the bar of students who would have been admitted to the old College of Education or any other colleges at the university, but as opposed to having them come to what was then General College or now just be entered into PSTL, Access to Success is the university's way, courtesy of the college, of embracing these students -- students who have fire in the belly, but whose academic accomplishments may not have shown that they can cut the mustard in coming to the University of Minnesota. So Access to Success has its birthplace in the new college, has its roots in our new college, but also going to be at the agriculture school and also in the College of Liberal Arts.
News Cut: So the students who might have attended General College, is this their pathway now?
Bailey: That's one of them. We've also developed a new program I'm particularly excited about, bringing a little bit of New York here, I'm calling it UGo!. UGo! is a fully funded scholarship program that supports high potential students with financial needs, that typically come as first-generation college students, as I did, they come from underrepresented groups, as I am, and they receive financial, academic and basically socio-emotional support over four years, including any aid that closes gaps in tuition, funding, provides them with laptop computers and things like that. They're also given peer mentors and faculty partners to work with to provide them with any of the ancillary supports they may need to succeed in the program.
The difference between the UGo! student and the Access to Success student is largely the financial piece, because I'm fundraising around it and trying to get in enough money to provide these students with the full academic experience so they don't feel that they have to work. They don't have to separate their time between a job and going to class. They can have the luxury of being a full-time student.
News Cut: One of the concerns in closing the General College was that the General College was made up significantly of students of color and that diversity would be lost when the General College as a standalone college ended.
Bailey: I don't know the stats from General College, but I do know that the vast majority of students were students of color, and I can tell you that the profile of the students at the new college, are not 80 to 90 percent students of color. I know we're not half, but I know we're more than 10 percent.
What I can also promise you is people go where they feel comfortable and where they see "like." Like attracts like. I saw this when I was at Case Western Reserve University and I saw this at Teachers College. After awhile, our being here -- my being here -- making sure that everyone understands that one of the core values of this college is embracing multiculturalism, which I define as not only focusing on issues around difference or diversity, but also applauding the things that we share or have in common. Folks will understand and start to apply and feel safe enough to come into this college.
Our numbers have gone up, but I don't have those numbers at this time.
Photos from the acid spill
Posted at 3:41 PM on March 31, 2008
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Stewart Moyer in Northfield has uploaded to Flickr some of the photos he took of the train derailment there today that resulted in a leak of sulfuric acid.
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