News Cut: March 5, 2008 Archive

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.

Let's see: Garrison Keillor selling one mansion to buy another or the first sighting of the Hexopus?

Keillor. Hexopus. Keillor. Hexopus. (coin flip)

Hexopus!

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

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 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)

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"?