News Cut: May 29, 2008 Archive

Regarding Lafayette

Posted at 9:30 AM on May 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

MnDOT had an open house this morning for people who wanted to stop in and ask questions about the plans to replace the Highway 52 Lafayette Bridge in St. Paul. (I wrote about it here last week) Two of us did.

A couple of factoids courtesy of Chris Roy, the North Metro Area Manager for MnDOT:

Back to the 'big woods'

Posted at 10:28 AM on May 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

News today that Melissa Gilbert is coming to the Twin Cities to play in the Guthrie's production of "Little House on the Prairie," got some of the newsroom tongues wagging this morning.

Gilbert, who played "Half Pint" Laura on the TV version, is 44 now, so she'll play the part of "Ma."

Her career is the stuff pop culture trivia fans drool over.

Why, just consider her post-Little House career when she ran for -- and won -- the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild, which appears to be the province of actors who couldn't escape their biggest hit.

She won in a bruising battle with Rhoda (Valerie Harper) in 2001. She won re-election in 2003, beating Kent McCord (big points to you if you immediately recognized him as one-half of the Adam-12 patrol team. Bigger points if you could name Martin Milner as his partner).

After playing in the fine TV production, The Miracle Worker, Gilbert competed for News Cut's Valerie Bertinelli Award via a run of mostly forgettable TV movies and series. In 2006, for example, In 2006, she appeared as Shari Noble, a patient looking to reconstruct her nipples after committing zoophilia with her dog in an episode of Nip/Tuck.

You can't make this stuff up.

She became the darling of The Lifetime Network, the network with such movie titles as:

Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal ; Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy; and Nice Guys Sleep Alone .

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A pause in Hugo

Posted at 11:37 AM on May 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Weather

MPR's Tom Weber has paused in his coverage of the tornado in Hugo to tell you what it's like to cover a tornado.

Meanwhile, MPR's Paul Huttner passes along that the National Weather Service has now determined that the damage survey show a fourth tornado touched down near Marine on St. Croix and crossed into Wisconsin Sunday. It is rated EF0 and caused primarily tree damage.

Details are here.

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Disposing of the flag

Posted at 1:12 PM on May 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)

The Star Tribune had an interesting story today about the theft of flowers from cemeteries; often, it seems, the family of one deceased rips off the flowers to put them on the grave of another deceased. Sweet.

But what caught my attention was the caption that the Star Tribune wrote for the front-page photo:

Stolen flowers is one problem at cemeteries. Another is excessive clutter. On Wednesday, manager Dan Kantar of Mound Cemetery in Brooklyn Center made the rounds, picking up leftover garbage.

Let's take a closer look at that garbage ...

The U.S. flag code might disagree with the caption writer, not to mention the method of disposal. The flag is never considered garbage.

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Wars and memorials

Posted at 2:49 PM on May 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

News item: The Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board is seeking designers for a memorial to honor forces who aided the U.S. military in Laos during the Vietnam War, a key step toward the first state-recognized memorial dealing with the so-called Secret War. (Pioneer Press 5/20)

Question: When does a war rise to war memorial status? (Tim Nelson, MPR) Take the first Iraq war? Should it have a memorial?

Answer: (From Nancy Stark, executive secretary Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board) "At this point in time no group has come forward with a request for a memorial to honor Minnesotans who have lost their lives in the Iraq war. Sometimes groups work with the legislature for sponsorship. The CAAPB does not initiate memorials, but the Board considers a request and staff and advisors work with each group to understand the process involved with design, construction, and future maintenance of the memorial.

"We do know there is a client group out fundraising for a plaque to honor Minnesotans from the first Iraq war, Desert Storm, to be placed in the Court of Honor."

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Where do the arts fit in?

Posted at 4:32 PM on May 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

News Cut doesn't have a Best News Cut Award (that is, a sound bite on the radio) yet, but if we did, this would be it:

"It's easy to make a kneejerk argument against the arts; all you have to do is mention Robert Mapplethorpe or Karen Finley. You know, the outdoors don't get naked and smear themselves with chocolate."

Arts critic Dominic Papatola talked to MPR's Cathy Wurzer about why the effort to get a sales tax increase passed to support outdoors initiatives, seems to be targeted to and mentioning only the outdoors portion, while ignoring the fact that 20 percent of the money raised will go to the arts.

"The arts got the 'crazy aunt in the attic treatment,'" Papatola said. In other words, the marketing effort is trying to keep the arts component quiet.

The arts community and the hunting/fishing/outdoors community is an unlikely alliance to begin with. Their marriage was at the end of a political shotgun. The outdoors people have been trying to get funding with a sales tax increase passed for about a decade. The arts component was included because it's the only way DFLers would support the referendum question. Why? Some DFLers fear a ballot question for sportsmen only is more likely to draw Republicans to the polls.

According to a story from MPR's Chris Roberts, both sides have since pooh-pooh'd the tensions:

"When you talk to the owner of the Blue Heron -- that's a wonderful restaurant in Cold Spring -- and you ask him 'What do the arts mean to your business?' He said, 'When an arts event is going on in Cold Spring, my restaurant is packed.' It is an economic driver," said Leslie Schumacher of the Central Minnesota Arts Board in Foley.

Are the arts folks working a little too hard to find reasons to feel ignored?

On his radio interview Papatola described a button he saw at the Orpheum the other night showing a fisherman, and the Split Rock Lighthouse, and -- he says -- "there's a guy way at the bottom with a paint brush looking like he's painting Split Rock."

But MPR's Euan Kerr found this button...

... which appears to leave hunters and fishermen out of the picture.

Here's Papatola's very interesting -- and entertaining -- interview. (Listen - MP3)

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Gasoline price trivia

Posted at 7:42 PM on May 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)

While passing a gas station convenience store in Inver Grove Heights this week, we realized that something is about to happen that hasn't happened in years: the price of a gallon of gasoline is soon going to be higher than the price of a pack of cigarettes.

Significant research Lazy browsing on the Internet failed to turn up a source of the historical prices of cigarettes, to match against existing documentation on the price of gasoline. So we'll have to rely on your memory.

Anyone?

Update Fri 8:06 a.m. That sign is so yesterday. Today the price of gas at the same spot is $3.92.

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And a robot shall lead them

Posted at 9:31 PM on May 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

Some things are cool, just because...

I can see the next generation of Guitar Hero: Conductor Hero.

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