News Cut: November 10, 2009 Archive

Five at 8 - 11/10/09: Stinkin' drunk

Posted at 7:38 AM on November 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)

1) It happened in Boston after a Celtics game last Friday night.

Police did not name the woman.

Meanwhile, authorities in St. Paul are trying to figure out how it is a 15-year-old kid -- 15 years old! -- drinks himself to death.

A Brown County detox center worker is retiring after 20 years, the New Ulm Journal reports. More people are seeking help, she says.

2) You hunters will have to guide me through the brewing "controversy." If you shoot at a buck and you think you have wounded it, do you have a responsibility to track it and --presumably -- put it out of its misery? Even if you have a speaking engagement in Iowa you've got to run off to? In fairness to the governor, members of his hunting party searched on.

Deer are one thing, but don't mess with polar bears. A kid shot one in Canada, then tried to get as far away as possible. He was stranded on an ice floe for three days.

3) New data on a long-term study says kids today are about as active as they were a couple of decades ago. So why are they so comparatively fat? Diet. They're not lazy slugs; they just eat what we give them to eat. And here's one element that isn't going to make the rest of us all that happy, either:

Rankin points out that even small changes in a person's energy balance can have a significant effect on weight. Studies have shown that eating just 10 to 20 extra calories per day -- that's one peanut M&M or one tortilla chip -- that don't get burned through activity can result in a 2-lb. gain on average over the course of a year. "But none of the methods we have now are accurate enough to pick that up," says Rankin.

4) Why does the government insist on giving the home buyer's tax credit to everyone, even people who already own a home? Harvard's Edward Glaeser rips it and the conventional wisdom of the benefits of encouraging home ownership.

It subsidizes existing owners to trade up or down, which implicitly encourages people to pull up roots and sever their connections with their existing community. If you ever thought that encouraging civic engagement through housing policy was a good thing, then the current policy will push in exactly the opposite direction.

Locally, real estate guru Teresa Boardman analyzes St. Paul real estate sales in November. Bottom line: The number of homes for sale keeps going down. And two St. Paul neighborhoods had higher bid prices than asking prices.

5) Cameras in the courtroom and live broadcasts from court have been a battle between the media and judges for decades. But now the issue is Twitter. Why can't a journalist "tweet" from a courtroom? Because it's like a broadcast, judges says. But if I write 140 characters on a piece of paper, then step outside the courtroom and "tweet" it, it's not?

TODAY'S QUESTION

A new study has ranked Minneapolis-St. Paul as first in the nation in pedestrian safety. As a pedestrian, do you feel safe in the Twin Cities?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Job seekers now face the extra challenge of competing with 10 percent of the nation who, according to the Labor Department, are also looking for work. Midmorning discusses how to get the edge in landing a job using the latest that the Internet has to offer.

Second hour: Ethics dilemmas from the everyday to the somewhat exotic. Guest: Ethics columnist Randy Cohen.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1p.m.) - In the latest National Public Radio Intelligence Squared program, six experts debate the future of media. The debaters, all top players in the media world, include Phil Bronstein, former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle; John Hockenberry, co-host of Public Radio Program "The Takeaway"; and David Carr, who writes about media for the New York Times.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - Coverage of the Fort Hood memorial service.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - The health managers behind the nation's response to H1N1 are in Minnesota today, conducting an exercise on how to respond to next pandemic. MPR's Lorna Benson will have the story.

Nick Miroff reports on shrinking socialism in Cuba. David Welna looks at the increasing public profile of John Kerry. And you'll hear an interview a Muslim chaplain in the Navy who says there was nothing in his dealings with Nidal Hasan that foretold last week's tragedy at Fort Hood.

This is the developing mystery, too. Why are so many people saying there were no clues and so many other people saying there were?

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