News Cut: June 25, 2008 Archive

The end of the suburb?

Posted at 6:55 AM on June 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (20 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

Housing value statistics released yesterday showed that for the first time, the value of homes dropped in every one of the U.S. metropolitan districts surveyed. According to the Case Schiller Index (Play with numbers here), home sales prices dropped another 2.2% in April.

The silver lining is that's the lowest rate of decline since last December. The gray cloud is that's 17 months of decline out of the last 18, and a 20% decline in that time. The sale prices are now what they were in April 2003.

You can probably guess what the absolute worst housing market in the country is right now (hint: It rhymes with Detroit).

Everything is somehow connected in the economy and what the mortgage crisis started, perhaps the energy -- is it too early to call it a crisis? -- "thing" puts asunder.

The New York Times today has an interesting story about life on the distant suburbs.

Across the nation, the realization is taking hold that rising energy prices are less a momentary blip than a change with lasting consequences. The shift to costlier fuel is threatening to slow the decades-old migration away from cities, while exacerbating the housing downturn by diminishing the appeal of larger homes set far from urban jobs.

In Atlanta, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Minneapolis, homes beyond the urban core have been falling in value faster than those within, according to an analysis by Moody's Economy.com.

This is the part where my city slicker friends begin snickering. The average gasoline bill on the outer fringes of metropolitan areas is close to $4,000.

Is this the end of urban sprawl? What if it is? How would it affect city (or at least closer-in) metro area living?

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Where's Heller?

Posted at 9:43 AM on June 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

The excitement is building in Washington, where the Supreme Court is clearing things out.

So far today, the Court has ruled that Louisiana can't execute people convicted of a raping a child. It's cruel and unusual punishment, the court says. (Read decision here)

In an earlier ruling today, the Supreme Court cut the $2.5 billion punitive damages award in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster to $500 million. Justice David Souter wrote the decision. (Read it here)

But where's the big one? The District of Columbia v. Heller? The case considers whether DC's firearms ban violates the 2nd Amendment. A lot of court watchers thought it would be out Monday, then yesterday, and today. Yesterday, the court said all remaining cases for the term would be released by 9 a.m. Central Time. Now, it appears it'll be Thursday.

ScotusBlog (a GREAT blog!) is live blogging things here. 92% of the people polled on ScotusBlog believe the ban will be struck down.

Somehow, the expert court watchers have determined -- I guess based on who wrote today's decisions -- that Justice Scalia is writing the Heller decision, which suggests the ban is toast.

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A reprieve for St. Paul?

Posted at 11:07 AM on June 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

The Detroit News is reporting that Ford is considering extending the life of the Ford Ranger pick-up truck by another two years.

That's the vehicle Ford makes at its St. Paul assembly plant, which was -- and still is -- scheduled to close next year.

If the report is true, that's quite a feather in the hat of Sen. Norm Coleman, who met with Ford officials in Detroit earlier this month.

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A patient's view of bipolar

Posted at 11:34 AM on June 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)
Filed under: Health

A passage of her book that Marya Hornbacher read on MPR's Midmorning this morning, described pretty well why I tend to think people who battle depression and bipolar disorder are some of the most courageous people among us.

Here's the hell of it: Madness doesn't announce itself. There isn't time to prepare for its coming. It shows up without calling and sits in your kitchen, ashing in your plant. You ask how long it plans to stay, it shrugs its shoulders, gets up, and starts digging through the fridge. But even that implies some sort of lag time between the arrival of madness and the actual experience of it.

In the early years, it's like a switch flips on and though only a moment before you were totally sane, suddenly you've gone mad. But as you learn to manage madness, you begin to notice sooner that it's on its way. I lick my finger and hold it up to detect the direction of the wind. Madness is in the air. I can smell it like I can smell snow. It's in the vicinity though I don't know where or long it will be until it comes.

The trick is to shut the gate, throw sheets over the roses, go inside, lock all of the windows and doors and go to the basement and sit on a chair and wait. Sometimes these preparations are enough. The locks on the windows and doors are tight, you've taken the medication faithfully, you've exercised to induce a sense of Dopamine calm, you've put every lamp in the house in your office and flipped on the light box (it mimics sunlight for people who get depressed in winter.),and the room is lit up as if by floodlights and you're so hot you're working in your bra.

You've stayed off the coffee, you've taken the supplements, you've worked starting at the same time for the same length everyday. You've interacted with human beings at least a few times this week. You've gotten yourself to the point where you can sleep in the normal timeframe from night until morning, and your mornings are not a horrible struggle to stay out of bed, and you make the bed so you aren't tempted to get back in it. You check off the entires on the list that runs your life.

But sometimes the system fails. Maybe it's a chemical shift in the brain that the medications don't block. Maybe it's a stressor in your life that you didn't expect. Maybe there is no reason and you're just going mad for the hell of it, but you try not to think about that because that would imply that no matter what you do, no matter how tightly you batten the hatches, madness can get in.

You wake up one morning and there it is, sitting in an old plaid bathrobe in your kitchen, unpleasant and unshaved. You look at it, heart sinking. Madness is a rotten guest. You can tell it to leave 'til you're blue in the face, you follow it around the house, explaining that it's come at a bad time and could it come another day?

Eventually you give up and go back to bed, shutting the door. But, of course, it barges in and demands to be entertained. Before you know it, it has strewn its stuff all over the house, and there are sticky plates in its bed and it has refused to change its sheets. Madness lounges all day in front of the TV, watching Oprah, and munching on a bag of chips, and drinking milk from the carton and getting crumbs between the cushions of the couch.

Soon, your life revolves around it. You do everything you can to keep it comfortable because you don't want to upset it. You tiptoe around the house and wait for it to leave. In most cases you wake up one morning and it's gone. There's minimal damage. You pick up its mess and get on with your day. But sometimes it settles in to stay. Immediately it is all demands: it starts bossing you around, interrupting your conversations, refusing to let you out of the house. The phone stops ringing. Soon it's just you and madness. You circle each other like boxers, throwing punches to the jaw, but sometimes it takes round after round and you lie on the living room floor, unable to get up.

It refuses to let you sleep. You run out of food. It draws all the blinds and stands peering through the slats. It convinces you you're in danger. It says that people are coming and they will hurt you if you let them in.

Soon, madness has worn you down. It's easier to do what it says than to argue. In this way it takes over your mind. You no longer know where it ends and you begin. You believe anything it says. You do what it tells you no matter how extreme or absurd. If it says "you're worthless," you agree. You plead for it to stop, you promise to behave. You are on your knees before it, and it laughs.

A rather frightening account.

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Leonid Hurwicz, 1917-2008

Posted at 1:20 PM on June 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

Nobel Prize winner Leonid Hurwicz, the University of Minnesota professor who won the economics prize last year has died. Former MPR report Art Hughes did a wonderful profile of him last year. He's another example of a generation of immigrants to this country, who took the long route to America, and changed the world.

Hurwicz was born in Moscow to Polish refugees of World War I. His family moved back to Poland shortly after the revolution that gave rise to Joseph Stalin.

At the urging of his father, Hurwicz earned a law degree from the University of Warsaw, but he had since found the subject of his lifelong academic pursuit in a second-year economics class. He entered the London School of Economics.

When Hitler invaded Poland, Hurwicz became a refugee, eventually landing in the United States where he continued his studies at Harvard and the University of Chicago.

That's a life and half if it had ended there. It didn't.

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On top of the world

Posted at 2:16 PM on June 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)

Two American Cities have been named to Monocle magazine's (I've never heard of it, either. Does that matter?) list of the 20 most livable cities in the world. Honolulu is one. And a city that is decidedly not Honolulu is the other. Minneapolis.

Columnist Tyler Brule gives us enough ammunition to feel smug that should take us well past next winter:

What is still something of a shock is how many cities still get it so very, very wrong. London doesn't make the grade for the simple reason that it has somehow managed to grant planning permission to a most uninspired shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush, an area that is rapidly becoming a part of central London

But here's the thing: The article that justifies Minneapolis' lofty reputation is for subscribers only. But on a cover page it says, "A rustbelt revival is attracting young art, new money - and old problems."

Rustbelt?

Minneapolis, meanwhile, is on the ball, issuing a press release that said...

In giving Minneapolis a top-20 ranking, the magazine notes the city's thriving arts and cultural institutions, festivals, and rising culinary reputation. Monocle also gives Minneapolis high marks for environmentalism, with more than 80 green rooftops and 90 percent of households that recycle. Minneapolis is also one of the sunniest cities on its list. Of the top twenty cities, only four average more hours of sunshine each year.

It also recognizes Minneapolis residents' high participation in block clubs and other neighborhood groups, and notes that Minneapolis is more diverse than most outsiders believe. Monocle also highlights the city's nearly complete wireless broadband network, which will help the City provide better services and create unique opportunities for businesses, residents, and visitors.

It's pretty bad timing to be cited for thriving arts and cultural institutions in the same week that one them announced it's closing, and the curator of another announced he's blowing town for a gig in New York.

The press release didn't indicate what "old problems" the city faces.

Cubicle neighbor Stephanie Curtis, who has heard of Monocle says Brule is from Winnipeg and that may account for a bias toward Minneapolis.

Keep in mind, of course, there are other surveys of livable cities that doesn't mention Minneapolis.

For example:

Fargo's O.J. connection

Posted at 4:49 PM on June 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

Fargo seems like a relatively tame place. It doesn't seem like the place where you need a bodyguard. But then again, you're not O.J. Simpson.

Fargo was all atwitter last night when O.J. Simpson came to town. His girlfriend, it's said, lives there.

The Fargo Forum newspaper is all over the story like a cheap suit:

The south Fargo bar, which will lose its ability to allow smoking next Tuesday (Bob notes: What a very odd way to identify a particular eatery) , was abuzz as word spread throughout town that the celebrity and one-time murder suspect was among them. Many took cell phone photos with Simpson. Others who couldn't get as close simply snapped photos from afar.

Simpson was seated behind a table in the rear corner of the room. Typically he was surrounded by at least 15 people, just soaking in the moment. A massive bodyguard created with chairs a perimeter around the area and stood guard to allow people in or out.

The local TV station, KFYR, quoted Simpson, saying "I`m who I am. I talk to everybody, be nice to everybody. My mother told me after my big trial, she say that I had lost who I was. You cant let people get you further from your Lord, so I`m me."

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'Buy me no peanuts and Cracker Jack'

Posted at 5:05 PM on June 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Sports

A serious affliction is a marketing opportunity for the Minnesota Twins.

According to a release today, the Twins are making the Skybox "peanut-free and available exclusively for individuals with peanut allergies and their families for selected games during the 2008 season."

The first Peanut-free Skybox event is Monday against Detroit.

The danger of a peanut allergy is the unintentional consumption of food containing peanuts or peanut oil. It's also the possibility of coming in contact with peanuts, even through the skin.

According to a Star Tribune article last year:

it is relatively uncommon for children to be so allergic to peanuts that simply sitting next to someone eating a peanut could trigger a serious reaction. But it can occur that the dust from peanuts is inhaled and someone suffers from anaphylaxis, which is a complete and sometimes fatal allergic reaction.

At $30 a pop, the Peanut-free Skybox is a fairly pricey seat. Two of the three dates selected for the promotion are so-called "premium games," when the Twins increase the ticket prices because the team they're playing is good.

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