News Cut Category Archive: Five by 8

The victims of the vaccination debate (5x8 - 2/10/12)

Posted at 7:11 AM on February 10, 2012 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE FREEDOM TO KILL SOMEONE ELSE'S KID

There are only a few issues more emotional than the idea of vaccinating kids. The case of Everlee Stevenson, documented by WCCO, however, shows why laws require vaccinations even though some parents insist they should have the right not to immunize their children against certain illnesses. More than 6 percent of Minnesota parents opt out of immunizations, a decision that apparently almost killed a four month old baby because her sister brought pertussis home from school.

Related: When illnesses strike, should schools close?

2) SAND MINING UP CLOSE

I've said it before but it bears repeating: Some of the best photographers in the business work for a radio station. Photographer Alex Kolyer does a marvelous job showing us what the frac sand mining operations proposed for southeast Minnesota look like.

It's part of Elizabeth Baier's story on the debate over land use in the area.

The mine is a complex series of tunnels, air vents and columns about 250 feet beneath the surface of the bluff. Miners use loaders to grab sand, wash it and haul it out of the mine. After workers load the sand onto railroad cars it heads south into northern Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas, where mining companies use it for "fracking" -- a process that pumps sand and water deep into mines to extract natural gas.

Rich Budinger, regional manager for Wisconsin Industrial Sand, said his company is working with local communities to address trucking, noise and air-quality concerns. He acknowledges some surface mines will turn bluffs into flat farm fields, but said it's a small part of the overall landscape.

"It's not like we're mining all the state of Wisconsin," said Budinger, who noted that only a few areas have concentrations of several mines. "And just as long as the counties are working with the companies on reclamation, the mines themselves are what we consider short-term uses of the land."

It's well worth reading and a good story on an important issue to Minnesota that isn't getting much attention because it doesn't involve a football team.

3) 1,000 WORDS

The World Press Photos of the Year were announced this morning. This wasn't the overall winner, but it won in the contemporary issues category and it's a topic that often wins photo awards -- child brides. Taken by Stephanie Sinclair, it focuses on Tahani (in pink), who married her husband Majed when she was 6 and he was 25. Half of all women in Yemen are married as children.

Find all the winners here, but be prepared to spend much of the day looking at them.

4) WHY DON'T PLAYERS CARE AS MUCH AS FANS DO?

What is the proper way for a professional athlete to act after his team loses the Super Bowl? This video of Rob Gronkowski and Matt Light of the New England Patriots is attracting attention because they're not still huddled in their locker hours after their team lost.

The Los Angeles Times' Bill Plaschke today writes that the sports fans are out of step with their heroes:

I've always felt the Happiest Place on Earth was not Disneyland, but the hallway outside NBA locker rooms after a playoff elimination game. The players on the winning team are happy to keep playing, and the players on the losing team are happy to be going on vacation. The losers loudly joke with the winners, exchange phone numbers with them, brag about their upcoming trip to Mexico, then put their children on their shoulders and skip into summer.
...

"Fans are very much identified with their teams, often more than athletes, and they take losses much harder," said Marc Shatz, a Beverly Hills clinical psychologist who deals with both. "Players have the security of their contracts, they have every narcissistic need met, they think this will last forever, so individual losses have much more meaning to fans."

Related: A guy roams the country, apparently, to do little more than jump on the back of high school and college athletes. He's been spotted in Fargo Moorhead.

5) DAYS ON THE ICE

Cold enough for you? Winter in Minnesota, when we get it, is multidimensional:

Tread from Joshua VP on Vimeo.

None of these is in Hennepin County, which has banned vehicles from lakes. We will now wait for the first driver to lose his pickup in a Hennepin County lake because he thought he knew more about the safety of the ice than the people telling him he couldn't drive on it.

Meanwhile, another winter tradition gets underway this evening in St. Cloud with "trivia weekend," which started decades ago to cure cabin fever:

Bonus: Barbara Tuttle's MPR commentary this morning is a fabulous story of Minnesota nice when she hit a car while backing out of a parking place...

"Hey! You just hit a $100,000 vehicle!" he yelled. He was a big man in his late 30s. His body language told me I was going to get socked in the jaw. I wondered what it would feel like.

Instead, the assault happened in words. As he roared invectives, the woman beside him screamed over and over, "You witch! You witch!"

She knows the people who helped her only as "Patrick, Casey, and The Man Who Loves Jesus."

TODAY'S QUESTION
For the first time since 1978, regulators have approved the construction of new nuclear power plants in the United States. Today's Question: How have your views on nuclear power changed over the years?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

We haven't put together a News Cut Quiz in months. It was a fairly busy week, so let's plan on having one later this afternoon.

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Rebroadcasts of conversations with Grammy winners Martha Reeves, Rodney Crowell and Al Jarreau.

Second hour: Rebroadcasts of three of the four Talking Volumes events with Stacy Schiff, Jennifer Egan and Chuck Palahniuk.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - Both hours:Bright Ideas; Stephen Smith with Dawn Upshaw and Donnacha Dennehy on the art of collaboration.

Science Friday (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Are the health claims about yoga true?

Second hour: A look at audio science. Plus, learning to play music at any age.

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White people debating racism (5x8 - 2/9/12)

Posted at 7:30 AM on February 9, 2012 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Racial baby steps, who was Roy Wilkins, same-sex firsts in Fargo, for the love of winter, and cold people and warm hearts.

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'O'Keefed' in Scott County (5x8 - 2/8/12)

Posted at 7:12 AM on February 8, 2012 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

In search of a voting crime, supporting our signs in Little Falls, Boomtown Girls in Williston, how many computer monitors are on your desk, and why athletes speak in cliches.

Continue reading "'O'Keefed' in Scott County (5x8 - 2/8/12)"

The musty Constitution (5x8 - 2/7/12)

Posted at 7:08 AM on February 7, 2012 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Is the Constitution outdated, how many 'helicopter parents' are there really, a police death up close, remembering Luverne's Frederick Manfred, and embracing winter in shorts.

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Northfield's graffiti problem (5x8 - 2/6/12)

Posted at 7:02 AM on February 6, 2012 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Monday Morning Rouser:

1) NORTHFIELD'S GRAFFITI PROBLEM

Northfield, what's your problem? An outbreak of graffiti has occurred in the city's downtown of late, Locally Grown's Griff Wigley reported over the weekend.

Earlier last month, he reported on the outbreak in town. Once you notice graffiti, you begin to see it everywhere because it is everywhere.

Is graffiti art?

In Salt Lake City last week, a bill to criminalize the possession of "graffiti tools" was defeated in the state Senate. Right around then is when the group, Anonymous, hacked into the police department. The perpetrators said cracking down on graffiti is just one more step toward a police state.

And, yet, there graffiti normal people enjoy, as long as it's old enough. In a small town in Virginia -- Culpeper by name -- historians are gently trying to recover the graffiti that Confederate and Union forces scribed on the walls during the Civil War.

So, perhaps what we're looking at above is tomorrow's revered history.

2) WHEN GREEN IS UGLY

Solar energy is viewed as environmentally friendly. But what about when it's not? What about when it destroys an area just as the North Dakota oil patch is changing the environment?

In California, a piece of the Mojave desert is being mowed down, endangered species are being threatened, and an ecosystem changed forever, with the help, apparently, of environmentalists who used to protest such things, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Industrial-scale solar development is well underway in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The federal government has furnished more public property to this cause than it has for oil and gas exploration over the last decade -- 21 million acres, more than the area of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties put together.

Even if only a few of the proposed projects are built, hundreds of square miles of wild land will be scraped clear. Several thousand miles of power transmission corridors will be created.

The desert will be scarred well beyond a human life span, and no amount of mitigation will repair it, according to scores of federal and state environmental reviews.

"The scale of impacts that we are facing, collectively across the desert, is phenomenal," said Dennis Schramm, former superintendent at neighboring Mojave National Preserve. "The reality of the Ivanpah project is that what it will look like on the ground is worse than any of the analyses predicted."

Some environmentalists say ecosystems must be destroyed in order to save the planet from climate change.

3) THE LAST WORDS THAT LIVE ON

If you knew you were dying, and you could record phrases to live on after you, what would they be? Dr. Richard Olney, one of the country's experts on ALS -- Lou Gehrig's Disease -- died late last week. He had ALS.

In Wisconsin, a Native American girl was benched from her basketball team because she said "I love you" in the Menominee language. The principal has since apologized.

4) HOME, JAMES

Air traffic around Indianapolis an hour before the Super Bowl yesterday...

Air traffic an hour after the Super Bowl. Most of the departing traffic was private corporate jets.

Over 1,000 private aircraft showed up at the airports around the city on Saturday. Fansmanship.com flew in, too, and documented "The Super Bowl of the Air."

(h/t: Flight Aware)

5) OK, PLAY

Maybe this should've been the Rouser this morning:

TODAY'S QUESTION
Minnesotans will gather Tuesday night to declare their preferences for president, elect delegates to party conventions and help shape party platforms. What do you think of Minnesota's system of party caucuses?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Why does the U.S. imprison so many people?

Second hour: How we can incorporate more smart thinking into our daily lives?

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Phil Picardi and Mike Pomeranz co-host on sports. Jim Klobuchar on Vikings, Terry Ryan on Twins & David Kahn on Timberwolves.

Second hour: Jane Kirtley of University of Minnesota, speaking at the Minnesota History Center about a free press.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: The failure of the world to intervene in Rwanda spawned a principle called "the responsibility to protect," which compels the international community to step in and prevent genocide and war crimes. But principles don't determine who rates help, who intervenes, and when.

Second hour: Will the Occupy movement have any lasting effect?

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Scary Glitter (5x8 - 2/3/12)

Posted at 7:23 AM on February 3, 2012 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Is it time for 'glittering' to go, Jane's heavy lifting; a woman, two kids, and the people who cared; comeback of the noose, and wonder dogs.

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The rural doctor (5x8 - 2/2/12)

Posted at 7:06 AM on February 2, 2012 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Rural doctors and better people, Romney's tough day, when business in Saint Paul ain't Grand, weather from rodents, and math fun with candy.

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What would Suzie say? (5x8 - 2/1/12)

Posted at 7:02 AM on February 1, 2012 by Bob Collins (16 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Politics in pink, the mystery of the Postcard Underground, ugly science in Minnesota, the medallion search ends, and it was nine years ago today.

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The color of racism (5x8 - 1/31/12)

Posted at 7:20 AM on January 31, 2012 by Bob Collins (29 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Racism in Duluth, the return of Select A Candidate, melted memories, the X -- and L and V -- factor, and Minneapolis: The whole grain city.

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We're melting! (5x8 - 1/30/12)

Posted at 7:20 AM on January 30, 2012 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Embracing water, Dakota 38, the law of unintended consequences, the things that don't stop us, and photographing Duluth.

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Life in the man camp (5x8 - 1/27/12)

Posted at 7:33 AM on January 27, 2012 by Bob Collins (20 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

What now, Williston; dispatches from the American now, St. Francis' flag tattoo brouhaha, a cyclist's blind faith, and the stand-up society.

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The case of the scavenging women (5x8 - 1/26/12)

Posted at 7:36 AM on January 26, 2012 by Bob Collins (24 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

You're a cop who discovers hungry scavengers, the cost of cool, let the robots do the dying, requiem for a funeral in Mille Lacs County, and the lyrics to the Morning Edition theme revealed.

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Dying to walk, ride a bike (5x8 - 1/25/12)

Posted at 7:11 AM on January 25, 2012 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

A bicycling report card, a kid worth rooting for, a sister's tribute, dogs caught in beaver traps, and when you should put the video camera down.

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Mixing politics and sports (5x8 - 1/24/12)

Posted at 7:25 AM on January 24, 2012 by Bob Collins (18 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Should athletes protest, the Senser investigators upon further review, one home at a time in Duluth, the tower climb, what's on your cassettes, and Dr. Demento.

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How passive voice killed off Joe Paterno in the papers (5x8 - 1/23/12)

Posted at 7:10 AM on January 23, 2012 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Paterno blunder up close, Giffords' goodbye video, solving suicide in northeast Minnesota, the return of Art Shanty, and stuff public radio listeners say

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The death of SOPA (5x8 - 1/20/12)

Posted at 6:54 AM on January 20, 2012 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Avatar power, why don't you know your tax bracket; lights, camera, outrage; how a political party went broke; and what's in the Cougar name?

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If there were no Internet (5x8 - 1/19/12)

Posted at 7:10 AM on January 19, 2012 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The next move in the SOPA debate, Packer proud, just deserts, who should own Nell the dog, and your daily Ricky.

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Desperation and a death on I-694 (5x8 - 1/18/2012)

Posted at 7:39 AM on January 18, 2012 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Suicide and shameful secrets, the changed soldiers of Iraq and Afghanistan, where do you get your news, the old gang at Target Center, and embracing winter.

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Chivalry is dead (5x8 - 1/17/12)

Posted at 7:15 AM on January 17, 2012 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Whatever happened to 'women and children first,' tough times in the wild; an orchestra, a viola, and a woman; how it's all connected to the weather, and how the world might end.

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Dreaming dreams (5x8 - 1/16/12)

Posted at 7:19 AM on January 16, 2012 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Monday Morning Rouser:

1) THE TEST OF TIME

Yes, it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day and, yes, every news organization will play a part of his famous "I've Got A Dream" speech. But few will play more than the usual 15 or 20 seconds of the speech, which is too bad because relatively few people have listened to the entire thing.

It was two years ago that I had the day off, so I headed to the hangar to work on the great airplane project, not thinking of the reason I had the day off. But I had the radio on and NPR's Talk of the Nation presented the entire speech.

And there and then I put down the tools, sat in the cold hangar, and felt ashamed that me, a child of the '60s, had gone the 47 years having never listened to the entire speech.

Here's the entire speech:

Philip Greenspun takes a cold-water-in-the-face approach to the day:

I wonder if any of our politicians will stand up and say "It doesn't matter if you're black or white because probably there are at least a few hundred million people in China who are smarter, better-educated, and harder-working than you and private companies would much rather hire any of them."

2) PUTTING THE "AWE" IN "AWESOME"

It's unlikely that this is the final video that Red Bull wants to go viral, but here's another look at Saturday night's Crashed Ice event.

The video didn't make mention of one of the highlights of the evening, when a rat scurried into the crowd near Mother Teresa St.

Here's another:

It was a wonderful night with people in a great mood. But are we ready to embrace this as a sport worth following? Probably not. Few people cared who won the championship (By the way, who did win the championship?), and we also noticed that as the competition neared the end, there was fewer and fewer thrills and spills because the skaters were... good.

I'd spend another three hours with frozen toes to be in the crowd again in a heartbeat.

It was another moment when I wondered why more people in Minnesota aren't madly in love with winter.

Like, apparently, Leif Enger ...

Cedar Lake, the World from Leif Enger on Vimeo.

3) THE HUMAN SIDE OF SCORN

It must be tough enough being an actor/actress in Fargo without having the world make fun of you.

"I am a North Dakota native. I love North Dakota. And I was really, really excited to be part of this," Phaidra Yunker, 30, tells the Fargo Forum. "And now it's awful."

"I had to call my parents and be like, 'You know, you're probably going to hear these words thrown around like slutty, sleazy, sickening,' " she said. "And I don't think the ad is any of those."

She's on the left.

Here's what we didn't know when the tourism ad controversy flared last week. The guy with the beer and the boots is the beau of the women in the middle.

It didn't do much for you? It doesn't matter, tourism officials said. It was aimed at Canadians.

4) DELAYING DREAMS

Gerald and Barbara Heil of White Bear Lake are still missing. They were on the luxury liner that hit the rocks in Italy and capsized. Their daughter, who lives near Chicago, tells a familiar tale. Her parents didn't splurge much when she was growing up because they were sending their kids to private school, figuring when they were grown and gone, they'd have time to spend together traveling the world.

She talked to Chicago radio station WBBM. Hear the interview here.

5) THE LAST WEEK OF GARY

This is it and it's not a heck of a deal. Gary Eichten is in his last week of work at the joint he built -- the newsroom at Minnesota Public Radio. The Pioneer Press' Amy Carlson Gustafson captured the Eichtens perfectly in this story over the weekend:

"I've never been in a journalism classroom," he says. "I've always been intimidated by people who are journalists. I don't think of myself as one. I'm a radio announcer who does news stuff. I'm self-taught."

If that's true -- if Eichten said it, it is -- it calls for a redefinition of what a journalist is.

Curiously, former Tim Pawlenty handler Brian McClung gets a prominent role in the feature. No governor in the last few decades avoided appearances on Midday as much as Pawlenty did.

Bonus: But when did we become jaded with the usual forms of sport? When did recreational exercise become so extreme? (BBC)

TODAY'S QUESTION
It's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a time for honoring the civil rights leader who pushed for non-violent social change. Today's Question: What's the best way to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

It's a holiday for the bloggers today. We'll see you again tomorrow.

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: The growth in health care costs in the U.S. has slowed to it's lowest rate in nearly 50 years, but some observers believe it's less a result of health care reform than a by-product of the economy.

Second hour: For much of American history, racial identity has been defined in terms of black and white. But because of their heritage and physical appearance, some families walk the line between cultures. A new book chronicles three mixed-race families whose identities were called into question at various periods in history - with surprising consequences. (Rebroadcast)

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Rep. Keith Ellison.

Second hour: Historian Taylor Branch, speaking this morning at Gustavus Adolphus College.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: The superPACS came out swinging in South Carolina, where the political attack ads are on nearly every television screen. Ted Koppel reports on super PACS, plus Ambassador Thomas Pickering calls for diplomacy, not military strikes in Iran.

Second hour: What are we learning about alcohol?

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North Dakota's short-lived legend (5x8 - 1/13/12)

Posted at 7:20 AM on January 13, 2012 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

We're from Minnesota. We're here for your women. Plus: the skyway effect, the agony of defeat at Crashed Ice, a deadly 'whoops' in Chicago, and a toilet-paper-folding record.

Continue reading "North Dakota's short-lived legend (5x8 - 1/13/12)"

Marines who embarrass us (5x8 - 1/12/12)

Posted at 7:10 AM on January 12, 2012 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The few but not the proud, the neighborhood where Terrell died, treated like dogs, build your own president, and bottles of hope.

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The dreams you leave behind (5x8 - 1/11/12)

Posted at 7:02 AM on January 11, 2012 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) GIVING UP THE DREAM

Lonnie Dupre, the Grand Marais adventurer, has tried for two consecutive years to climb North America's highest peak -- Mt. McKinley -- solo. For two consecutive years, nature has had other idea, pinning him to the mountain with days of wind and weather. Dupre will not try a third time, he tells the Duluth News Tribune.

"It's such a roll of the dice these days that I don't know if it is worth it. You could easily get pinned down at high altitude for 10 days and run out of food and fuel. Now that I'm qualified to join AARP I might just start dogsledding again."

Discussion point: What dreams have you given up? How do you know when it's time to give up a dream?

2) THE DAYS OF GARY

Let the tributes begin! Gary Eichten retires next Friday and the rest of the Minnesota media is starting to notice. Jon Tevlin at the Star Tribune is the first out of the gate in the broadcasting legend's final work days.

While the station has sometimes had a reputation for being elitist, Eichten "is kind of the everyman in the newsroom," (Senior editor Bill) Wareham said. "He loves outlaw country, softball, red meat and Grain Belt. If you have a risk of running off the tracks, you have a guy like that sitting in the middle of the room."

Wareham thinks Eichten will do just fine outside of radio. "He'll probably sleep in until 5 or 6," he said.

Eichten says he'll miss his colleagues the most. "I love being around younger people."

But he is looking forward to reading for leisure and spending time with his wife, Joann. "I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with Joann over the years," he says. "Who knows, a couple of weeks into this I think she'll be looking at the want ads for me."

One correction in Tevlin's article: Eichten's last day is January 20th, not the 19th.

Related "company men:" The St. Cloud Times editorial today suggests Garrison Keillor step forward to keep the Swany White Flour name alive. The Freeport building burned to the ground just after Christmas:

The state's best bike trail -- in the middle of which is Freeport -- was named after Lake Wobegon. And you even jumped into the area's restaurant scene when you were part of a group that purchased Fisher's Club in Avon in 2005. Since then, you've visited and even performed your show in that town.

So why not make your next connection one involving Swany White flour out of Freeport?

The possibilities are endless. Turn those fictional Powder Milk Biscuits into a reality. "Has your family tried 'em? Heavens! They're tasty -- thanks to Swany White flour!" Use Swany White to bread Fisher's walleye fillets, or in the crusts that hold Bebop-A-Reebop Rhubarb Pie.

You get the idea. Find some way to help a rock-solid part of the real place behind your fictional masterpiece.

3) WHAT IKE WOULDN'T LIKE

There are so many interesting angles to the story that the family of Dwight Eisenhower wants the person designing a Washington memorial for the former president to take another crack at it. Architect Frank Gehry got low marks from the family for overemphasizing Eisenhower's Kansas roots while de-emphasizing the matter of World War II.

Gehry's response was sobering, indicating that statutes aren't the way to go because "all the great sculptors are long gone." Is sculpture extinct?

Reports the AP:

Susan Eisenhower, another granddaughter, said "Ike" is simply the wrong figure to memorialize with an avant-garde approach. He was a traditionalist and bewildered by modern art, she said.

In a 1962 speech at the dedication of his presidential library, Eisenhower spoke of modern art as "a piece of canvas that looks like a broken down tin lizzie (Model T Ford), loaded with paint, has been driven over it."

"Just about everybody on the mall had humble origins," she said. "But you don't get to the mall because you had humble origins. You get to the mall because you did something for which the nation is grateful.

When he unveiled his design almost two years ago, Gehry acknowledged he didn't know much about Eisenhower:

Does every president need a memorial in Washington? And if it's been more than 50 years since his term ended, does Eisenhower really need a memorial?

4) I CAN SEE YOUR LIFE FROM HERE

The Consumer Electronics Show has opened in Las Vegas and we're getting a look at all the new gadgets, many of which will report much of what you're doing, allowing companies to have a better idea of who you are, and what you want. Privacy advocates are not happy, the Washington Post reports, but they haven't been happy since Prodigy was the social network of choice. Do you care?

LG was among several companies to showcase "connected homes," where appliances are connected to one another as well as energy grids via the Web. Scan a receipt onto your smartphone and that information will be sent to your refrigerator, which will serve up a recipe based on the grocery list. That recipe is then sent to an oven that pre-programs your oven to preheat at the recipe's suggested temperature. And if you are doing a load of laundry at the same time, your "smart" energy meter will suggest cooking later so you can save energy.

"We are putting privacy first and the data here will be kept on the appliances and not pushed to the cloud," said LG Electronics spokesman John Taylor, whose smart refrigerators and stoves will debut in the United States later this year.

While the companies argue that the data collection is harmless, some lawmakers want them to be upfront and specific about what is being collected.

"There needs to be clarity around how and when that information is collected, stored or transmitted that takes into account a consumer's right to privacy," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who has introduced a privacy bill that would prevent tracking of children online without specific permission.

Maybe it's already happening. The Fargo Forum reports today on the increasing use of cellphone spyware, on sale at the nearest electronic store and a favorite product of people who think their spouses are cheating on them:

Easy-to-use spyware can be installed on computers to monitor keystrokes, emails and passwords and to take screen snapshots.

And within minutes, software can be loaded on a smartphone to allow a third party to monitor calls, view text messages and photos and track a person's location and movement via GPS. The built-in microphone can also be activated remotely to use as a listening device, even when a phone is turned off. And the phone user will have no idea that he or she is being spied on, say technology experts.

What can the world learn about you? Do you have a cellphone? You like to be drunk.

5) TEN MINNESOTA BLOGGERS YOU SHOULD BE READING

Audrey Kletscher Helbling, who pens Minnesota Prairie Roots (if you're not reading it, you haven't been paying attention to NewsCut), is doing everyone a big favor with her latest project -- a Minnesota Moments article introducing us to 10 Minnesota bloggers.

We set out to find 10 Minnesotans who blog with a passion about their lives and/or the people, places and events of Minnesota. We weren't looking for writers with an agenda. We wanted down-to-earth, everyday Minnesotan. Even though several of our bloggers weren't born here, they have lived here long enough to pass as natives.

Mission accomplished. Find the article here.

Bonus I: Ten classic videogames you can play online for free. (Mashable)

Bonus II: What's it like to be stuck on a tarmac, in a big aluminum tube for 8 hours? The Cranky Flyer blog has a minute-by-minute answer. Here's the illuminating part: The part where an airline employee puts a rude man on a flight to Chicago, knowing he'd never make a connection to Cleveland. Be nice to airline employees, people.

While in line to speak to the lone American employee, we witnessed some interesting drama. The Europeans from our flight got angry. First a few men were angry at the only employee trying to help us. Then they turned on themselves. A French lady in the crowd started chastising the lead man who was giving the employee a hard time. "It is not her fault!" she told him. The French lady brought calm to the crowd, and we resumed our spaces in line. The man in front of us sat next to my husband on the plane. We knew he was French and was trying to get to Cleveland. He gave the American employee a hard time.

He was put back on our flight, which left for JFK that afternoon, and arrived 45 minutes before his connection to Chicago, where he would then have to figure out his flight to Cleveland. She told him this was the best she could do. We also needed to get to Chicago, and when it was our turn we suggested the same itinerary. She admitted to us that there was no real chance of making that connection and thought our plan to fly from Hartford to O'Hare directly was a better one. She printed our boarding passes to Chicago. Lesson # 3 -- being nice pays. We again questioned if we could get our luggage. She confirmed we would be abandoning it to fly home from there.

Related airline fun: Non-stop flights to the U.S. from Europe are stopping. For fuel. Headwinds blamed. (WSJ)

VIDEO OF THE DAY

A tractor's story (contains a few obscenities).

THE FLOOD from Juicy Studios on Vimeo.

TODAY'S QUESTION
The primary campaign for the GOP presidential nomination is becoming a battle of super PACs. Groups with names like "Winning our future" and "Restore Our Future" are devoting millions of dollars to attack ads, free of the spending limits that would apply to them if they directly coordinated their efforts with the campaigns they support. Today's Question: What do you think of the role super PACs are playing in the campaign?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: itizens United upended campaign finance reform and resulted in what we have now, Super PACS. What are they? How will they influence the election?Another form of free speech or more corruption?

Second hour: The year in science.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: MPR political analysts Todd Rapp and Maureen Shaver, on the presidential election and the upcoming legislative session.

Second hour: A new documentary from the America Abroad series: "America and the Middle East: What Lies Ahead."

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Wrapping up the New Hampshire primary.

Second hour: With Khalid Sheikh Mohammed set to stand trial before a military tribunal as early as March for his part in the 9-11attacks, William Shawcross draws comparisons to another trial of the infamous: the Nazi war crimes trial at Nuremburg -- where his father served as chief British prosecutor.

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A blow to the 'misery economy' (5x8 - 1/10/12)

Posted at 7:20 AM on January 10, 2012 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The pain index bottoms out, Best Buy from the inside, apples to Apple, the candidates who keep politics 'interesting,' and the cupcake incident upon further review.

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Why is Jack Jablonski a news story? (5x8 - 1/9/12)

Posted at 7:40 AM on January 9, 2012 by Bob Collins (40 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The nature of humanity, the curse of the branded building, the 60 Minutes stem cell fraud story, falling through thin ice, and when the bungee cord breaks.

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What have you learned? (5x8 - 1/6/12)

Posted at 7:25 AM on January 6, 2012 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Forty-five is the new 60, saving the Arboretum or destroying it, the bus people of Fargo, the Twins natives are restless, and temperatures are up and pants are down.

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Your life with a 13-year-old (5x8 - 1/5/12)

Posted at 7:15 AM on January 5, 2012 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

In search of the rational argument, the power of principles, Morris v. Blyleven, Jablonski's future, and scenes from the sidewalk superintendent.

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The strangest question you've ever been asked (5x8 - 1/4/12)

Posted at 7:15 AM on January 4, 2012 by Bob Collins (17 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The blender mystery, Jabby's fight, post Iowa, swing 'til you puke in a nuke plant, and the art of rejection.

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Don't mess with Iowa (5x8 - 1/3/12)

Posted at 7:15 AM on January 3, 2012 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) IOWA UP CLOSE

It's almost over. The national media will soon pack up and take its "isn't Iowa just the cutest state full of hillbillies" nonsense with it. One thing we learned in this caucus season: You don't want to dump on Iowa. (not suitable for the workplace)

The assertion that Iowa is a Democratic state is an interesting one, and one on which David Yepsen, a political reporter in Des Moines, disagrees. Writing in the Washington Post, Yepsen debunks five myths about Iowa, one of which is that Iowa isn't the far right state this crop of candidates thinks it is (maybe that's why 41 percent are still undecided). But it is conservative.

After today, then, Iowa will go back to being Iowa. New Hampshire and South Carolina will be the new darlings of the national media. Maybe that's good news for Emily Price and her husband, Dave. They're political reporters in Des Moines, for competing TV stations.

Iowa lends itself to great images of campaigning. Today, the BBC provides this slideshow, which pales in comparison to MPR photographer Jeff Thompson's gallery of a day with Michele Bachmann.

Here's MPR's coverage of today's events.

2) HOLIDAY WINNERS AND LOSERS

How did the holiday economy perform? Fast Up Front has the winners and losers:

John Hammergren, the CEO of the McKesson Corp., a giant medical-supply company in California, is the $145 million man, top dog on the latest listing of the country's highest-paid chief executives. He's from St Paul, graduated from the University of Minnesota and the chances are you've never heard of him. (Daily Beast)

(h/t: Michael Wells)

4) CROSSING THE CONSTITUTION

Last Veterans Day, a retired Navy chaplain -- who served with four Marines who were killed in Iraq -- led a group of Marines and family members up a hill at Camp Pendleton to plant a 13-foot tall cross in their memory, the Los Angeles Times reports. They didn't ask for permission.

Now the cross isn't about the Marines' memorial, it's the latest battleground over the Constitution.

"The legal test is whether from the perspective of a reasonable observer this would be perceived as government endorsement of religion,'' said Erwin Chemerinsky, founding dean of the law school at UC Irvine and a constitutional scholar, who says it is.

5) TONE IT DOWN, TWOLVES

In his column yesterday, Star Tribune sports reporter Michael Rand urged people to "tone down" the Ricky Rubio mania. Just one question: Why? Two moments from last night:

There's magic happening at Target Center, but, Minnesota sport teams, we have to talk about something that's getting out of control: Phony noise. The idea of a "host" at the game started several years ago and it was a nice little idea to get the crowd into the game. But now, the Minnesota Timberwolves have crossed the line. Constant, ear-splitting, high-decibel, "let me show you how to swallow this microphone!" pleas to "make some noise," are generally ruining the "fan experience" at sports venues. You can't go two minutes at a game now without the nagging. Even during Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Part 2, we're instructed when to shout "hey." Who doesn't know when to shout "hey" during Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Part 2?

Just, stop it!

Bonus: How "our newspaper" became "the newspaper."

TODAY'S QUESTION
It's the day of the Iowa caucuses, where voters will finally begin to get their say in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. Today's Question: Who would you like to see emerge as the winner in the Iowa caucuses?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Kerri Miller talks with a panel of experts in Iowa politics and an audience of Iowa voters about the Iowa caucus and about how they define political leadership in 2012. A co-production of Minnesota Public Radio News and Iowa Public Radio.

Second hour: On the day of the Iowa caucus, we'll look at the campaign strategy for what happens after Iowa. Will victory in Iowa launch one of the candidates to the nomination, and will a disappointing result mean the end of the road for others?

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Dennis Goldford of Drake University on the Iowa caucuses.

Second hour: American RadioWorks documentary, "Bridge to Somewhere: Lessons from the New Deal"

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Why is there less crime?

Second hour: Tara Parker Pope talks about "The Fat Trap." Plus, Facebook's so-called
"compassion czar."

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What's wrong with flip-flopping? (5x8 - 1/2/12)

Posted at 6:54 AM on January 2, 2012 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

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In praise of young people (5x8 - 12/30/11)

Posted at 7:03 AM on December 30, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The brilliance among us, the issues of Iowa, staying home with the kids, the church of the gay nativity, the oil patch isn't for everyone, and Minneapolis by air.

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Words and phrases that should die in 2012 (5x8 - 12/29/11)

Posted at 7:35 AM on December 29, 2011 by Bob Collins (21 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Tidying up the language, the winter that wasn't, faceless, breastfeeding backlash, and last call for a polar bear.

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Walking drunk (5x8 - 12/28/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on December 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (17 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

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The Christmas trees by the side of the road (5x8 - 12/27/11)

Posted at 6:49 AM on December 27, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Dumping the tree, the pride of Longville, the brawl at the mall, the death of representative government, and everything you've heard about Ricky Rubio is true.

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The same-sex marriage debate, one person at a time (5x8 - 12/23/11)

Posted at 7:29 AM on December 23, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The reasons behind the vote, youth sports and the parents who ruin them, when soldiers come home, is America's religious freedom under threat, and the Eichten countdown.

Continue reading "The same-sex marriage debate, one person at a time (5x8 - 12/23/11)"

Credibility is early casualty in Koch probe (5x8 - 12/22/11)

Posted at 7:03 AM on December 22, 2011 by Bob Collins (18 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

What did they know and when did they know it, how to handle a crisis, comedians on a plane, the price of free speech, and bring it, Grinch!

Continue reading "Credibility is early casualty in Koch probe (5x8 - 12/22/11)"

Wisconsin researcher creates world's most deadly virus (5X8 - 12/21/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on December 21, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The secrets of Madison, NPR and coverage of Catholics, no transplants for noncitizens, the morning broadcaster, and what's really happening in those Christmas card scenes.

Continue reading "Wisconsin researcher creates world's most deadly virus (5X8 - 12/21/11)"

Two standards in the Koch case? (5x8 - 12/20/11)

Posted at 7:17 AM on December 20, 2011 by Bob Collins (16 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Koch affair, fantasy election, the danger of Twitter, the best pictures of 2011, and Minnesota's mascots.

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Coming home (5x8 - 12/19/11)

Posted at 6:55 AM on December 19, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Iraq war is over. Now what? Also, the SOPA story, the disappearing post office, closing airport control towers, and Roy Babcock's lousy year.

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The disappearing drive-in (5x8 - 12/9/11)

Posted at 7:25 AM on December 9, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Today will be the last 5x8 for a week. I'm taking next week off.

Drive-In Movie from Nancy Breslin on Vimeo.

1) DISAPPEARING AMERICANA

Single-digit temperatures in Minnesota? Let's talk summer. Let's talk sitting in a big field or in our cars watching movies, occasionally swatting the maverick mosquito. That's living, my friends. But probably not for long.

The BBC today tackles the very poignant question: Are drive-ins long for the world? Probably not, for all the reasons everyone knows and one most people don't: 35mm film is dying. Hollywood studios are eager to eliminate the cost of manufacturing and shipping the 35mm film prints that have traditionally been the mainstay of the industry, the BBC says, and sending hard drives with digital versions of the movies is cheaper and the quality is better. But the drive-ins have to spend money on new projection equipment, and many can't afford it.

That's great news for Walmart.

"I think it is a big loss to the American people. Everywhere, you see theatres winding down and people are just aghast at what is going on, but they cannot do anything about it," says Steve Wilson, who owns -- owned -- a drive-in in Indiana.

In Pennsylvania, a non-profit drive-in has just started a capital campaign to make the conversion. The same thing is happening in Tampa. Say, there's an idea. If drive-ins are art and part of our culture, should they get Legacy funds from taxpayers?

Minnesota, fortunately, still has a few drive-ins like the SkyVu in Warren, the Verne in Luverne, the Long in Long Prairie, the Vali Hi in Lake Elmo and the Cottage View in Cottage Grove.

In the 1960s there were over 4,000 drive-in movie theaters in the United States. Today there are 371.

2) ABORTION AND MENTAL HEALTH

Does abortion adversely affect a woman's mental health? No, a new study says, but an unplanned pregnancy does. "It could be that these women have a mental health problem before the pregnancy. On the other hand, it could be the unwanted pregnancy that's causing the problem," professor Tim Kendall said. The study was coordinated by the U.K.'s National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health.

The Associated Press reports:

They concluded the best predictor of whether women would have a psychiatric problem after an abortion was whether they had mental health issues before getting pregnant. Kendall said it was possible women with mental health problems after an unwanted pregnancy were at greater risk of getting pregnant or that an unwanted pregnancy worsened their mental health.

3) THE ART OF GIVING BACK

Next May, Brian Bender will get his law degree from William Mitchell in Saint Paul. It wasn't easy. When he was a first year law student, his wife died on their daughter's first birthday. The law school gave him a year's leave to care for his daughter, and WCCO reported that it cared for Brian when he returned. So Bender has set up a scholarship fund to benefit other students.

4) BURNING SWEDE HOLLOW

Today's required listening is Cathy Wurzer's interview about the day -- 55 years ago Sunday -- Swede Hollow went up in flames. The St. Paul City Health Department had declared the immigrant community's homes contaminated and uninhabitable and burned them down.

You can find images of Swede Hollow's demise here.

5) MAKING SENSE OF FLYING

SENSE OF FLYING from Goovinn on Vimeo.

Bonus: From xkcd.

TODAY'S QUESTION

The Anoka-Hennepin school district might drop its neutrality policy about sexual orientation and replace it with a new policy that addresses controversial issues. The proposed new policy would bar teachers from advocating for one side or another on controversial issues in classroom discussions, but does not specify what those issues are. Today's Question: What topics would you consider controversial in a classroom setting?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Author Susan Orlean tells the powerful story of Rin Tin Tin (Rebroadcast)

Second hour: Who are the literary characters who inspired you the most?

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - Both hours: An America Abroad documentary on the European debt crisis.

Science Friday (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Asia's space race.

Second hour: The debate over genetically modified salmon.

Follow @NewsCut

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The mystery of the Mankato anchorwoman (5x8 - 12/8/11)

Posted at 7:19 AM on December 8, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) WAS SHE?

Not since a reporter had what appeared to be a stroke at a Hollywood awards ceremony last winter has there been such a brouhaha over the "health" of a TV newsperson. This time it's one of ours.

Annie Stensrud, the Sunday night anchor on KEYC, disappeared halfway through her broadcast after an "uneven" performance.

The Mankato Free Press reports...

Dan Ruiter, KEYC news director, said viewers are jumping to conclusions if they assume Stensrud was intoxicated. There is no proof of that, he said.

In an official statement released Wednesday, KEYC Vice President and General Manager Dennis Wahlstrom declined to say whether Stensrud is still working for the station.

That usually means "no."

2) PEOPLE DOING GOOD: REDDIT

Lucas Gonzalez, 3, of Jacksonville, Fla., was born with a rare primary immune deficiency disorder called Hyper IGM Syndrome. He needs a bone marrow transplant in North Carolina and his folks have to quit work The trip would cost $50,000.

His aunt's boyfriend had an idea: Appeal to the good people on reddit:

It was a great idea. The good people on reddit raised more than $50,000. The young man gets his transplant next month.

3) THE GOOD SOLDIER, THE BAD SOLDIER

"I was starting to think about how lucky I am to have a warm place to come home to,"
Eric Jungels says about his Thanksgiving. He's a veteran of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He's not pleased that a lot of people don't have a home, so he's camping out in a tent in Sartell, the St. Cloud Times reports. He wants to raise $5,000 for a group that helps the homeless.

Veterans are 50-percent more likely to end up homeless than the general population, according to the Center for American Progress.

As a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan myself, it's disheartening to think that--among others--some of the men and women who have served our country are sleeping outside this December. So, I've decided to do what I can to help out. If nothing else, I'd like to raise some awareness of the challenge we're facing as a community and raise a few dollars that will be put to good use, in an effort to end homelessness.

He plans to stay outside until Christmas Day.

That's more consideration for the people who served than high-ranking Air Force officials have shown. The Washington Post reports today that the remains of more than 274 soldiers, killed in the wars, were dumped in a landfill.

The military doesn't want to look in the landfill for the remains now because it would take too much work, prompting an appropriate response from Rep. Rush Holt, D-NJ.

"What the hell?" Holt said in a phone interview. "We spent millions, tens of millions, to find any trace of soldiers killed, and they're concerned about a 'massive' effort to go back and pull out the files and find out how many soldiers were disrespected this way?" He added: "They just don't want to ask questions or look very hard."

"They have known that they were doing something disgusting, and they were doing everything they could to keep it from us," a war widow told the paper.

4) US UNLEASHES MUPPET POWER

Nothing much has worked to prevent Pakistan from slipping toward an anti-American role in the region, so the U.S. is unleashing a big gun: Elmo.

The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, is spending $10 million to fund production of a Pakistani version of Sesame Street, the BBC says.

Elmo's new home is a Pakistani village, complete with tea-stall and shady Banyan tree. Big Bird has not made the journey, so he is surrounded by new friends. There is Baily the donkey - who wants to be a pop star - and a vain crocodile called Haseen O'Jameel, who dwells at the bottom of a well.

5) CHANGE FOR A DOLLAR

(h/t: Bernie Ockuly)

TODAY'S QUESTION
The Obama administration has announced that a focus of U.S. foreign policy will be to promote the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people abroad. Today's Question: Should support for gay rights around the world be part of U.S. foreign policy?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: The science of siblings.

Second hour: The value of failure. Author: Tim Harford (rebroadcast)

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Washington University political scientist Steven Smith on the presidential campaign one month before Iowa and NH.

Second hour: New York Times columnist David Brooks, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival about his book, "The Social Animal."

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Sovereignty and stability in the Eurozone. Plus, Kyra Sedgwick.

Second hour: How are these hard times affecting you? The NPR stories of economic struggles across the nation.

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The binge-drinking state (5x8- 12/7/11)

Posted at 7:22 AM on December 7, 2011 by Bob Collins (18 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) WHY DO WE POUND DOWN THE BOOZE?

We drink a lot in Minnesota. We binge drink a lot, too. The new national rankings for health in the country are out and we're the #6 overall healthiest state -- the same as last year. But it's binge drinking that knocks us down a peg. Only six other states are worse than Minnesota when it comes to pounding down the booze. Almost 1 in 5 have us have engaged in binge drinking in just the last 30 days.

Curiously, while we're one of the healthier states in the nation, we're one of the worst when it comes to public spending on health -- 46th in the nation.

And in the last five years, the percentage of children in poverty increased from 9.0 percent to 17.4 percent of persons under age 18, according to the United Health Foundation.

What's your experience? Are you living a more health lifestyle than five years ago?

Here's the full state report.

2) WHY DO PACKERS FANS BUY WORTHLESS STOCK?

When people spend money on a worthless piece of paper, maybe the economy isn't so bad in the households of Wisconsin afterall. The Packers put stock in the team on sale yesterday, only it's not investment stock. It's not worth anything, as the Wall St. Journal points out:

The shares don't help fans get hold of coveted seat licenses, for which a team spokesman said there is a 93,000-person waiting list. The shares don't trade on an exchange, and they aren't transferable, except to family members, by gift or in the event of death.

The team concedes in its 12-page offering document that the stock "does not constitute an investment in 'stock' in the common sense of the term," but it implored fans to invest anyway, to help keep crowd noise in Lambeau and to "maximize our home-field advantage."

Peter Duffey, a 25-year-old Wauwatosa, Wis., resident, acknowledged the conditions of the sale indicated "you're just getting a piece of paper, not much more than that," but said it was worth it because "I've grown up being a fan of the Packers and loved them all my life."

The Packers are going to make $62.5 million on the deal.

3) PEARL HARBOR AT 70

It's the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and there are plenty of stories about local people who were there.

Lola Yoder of Afton tells the Pioneer Press she could see the face of the pilot as the Japanese fighter flew over her house. "The milkman came flying into the house and jumped into our broom closet," she said. "We couldn't get him out. He didn't want to leave. He thought he was safer with us."

Agnes Shurr, of Grand Forks, was a nurse on a hospital ship in the harbor. She's the last of the 13 nurses aboard the ship. "But I don't see any point in dwelling on the past. Why do you want to remember the bad things that happened, and what can you do about them at this stage of the game?" she tells the Grand Forks Herald.

Richard Thrill of St. Paul, on the other hand, says it's important to keep the day alive. "I go to a lot of funerals," Thill tells the Star Tribune. He was on a destroyer that sunk a Japanese mini-submarine.

Not everyone was there. The only man at the University of Minnesota to win the Heisman Trophy, had to rewrite his acceptance speech, two days after the attack. An audio recording of it was recently discovered, according to ESPN.

At Pearl Harbor today, members of the Sauk Rapids-Rice High School will lay a wreath at the USS Arizona memorial.

4) THE HEALING ARTS

There'll be a lot of chatter today about the state of the arts in Minnesota, what with a couple of major organizations revealing they're bleeding red ink badly. The arts are often considered a "nice to have" rather than a "need to have," but quite often the arts is a need to have.

Two stories this week prove the point.

MPR's Cathy Wurzer talked with Bruce Kramer this week. He directed the Good Samaritan United Methodist Church choir in Edina. A year ago, yesterday, he was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Music keeps him sane, he says:

The Associated Press reports today that dance -- and in particular, a dance class in Chicago -- is lifting the spirits and hopes of people with Parkinson's.

Dancing, because it's accompanied by music, may offer benefits beyond other types of exercise for Parkinson's patients, including socialization for people otherwise isolated by their disease, said Harvard neurology professor Dr. Daniel Tarsy, director of the Parkinson's disease center at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

"When you hear music, it sort of drives the emotional parts of the brain," he said.

5) DIY AIRPLANE

Wired.com takes a look at do-it-yourself-airplane building today. In its piece it says, "Many of the aluminum parts on the RV-7, RV-8 and RV-9 are pre-drilled for easier fitment and riveting. That saves time, and those planes can be built in around 1,500 hours."

Last week, I passed 2,800 hours of work on mine.

You know who needs one of these? Alec Baldwin.

Bonus I:

Bonus II: How people "picture" the NPR stars. This would be a fun exercise for the MPR "voices." Is there an artist in the house?

TODAY'S QUESTION
Some prominent Twin Cities arts organizations are suffering persistent fiscal problems - the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and Penumbra Theater, to name three. Today's Question: What could arts organizations do better to get you in the door?

THE BIG STORY
The Big Story Blog examines the financial challenges of Minnesota arts organizations.

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong (rebroadcast)

Second hour: Excerpts from conversations with Ray Davies of the Kinks, Minneapolis-based Dessa, and the legendary Al Jarreau.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - Both hours: Remembering Pearl Harbor.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Joe Rochefort's War, from the intelligence disaster of Pearl Harbor to triumph six months later.

Second hour: Putting a stop to band hazing. Plus, an update on Egypt's elections.

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The message from Boogie's brain (5x8 - 11/6/11)

Posted at 6:58 AM on December 6, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Punch drunk on the ice, searching for our non-earthly sister, is a casino in Arden Hills' future, why your paper shredder stinks, and can workers ever get ahead while cutting costs?

Continue reading "The message from Boogie's brain (5x8 - 11/6/11)"

A day in the life of Occupy (5x8 - 12/5/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on December 5, 2011 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Occupy around the nation, the things we don't have, dying to please in the NHL, why people crash, and NPR's new boss.

Continue reading "A day in the life of Occupy (5x8 - 12/5/11)"

State of barbarism (5x8 - 12/2/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on December 2, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

What happens when we look away, the people who make us root for their success, voter fraud in Duluth, the shadow banking government, and when should you stop sitting on Santa's lap?

Continue reading "State of barbarism (5x8 - 12/2/11)"

A suicide in Grand Forks (5x8 - 12/1/11)

Posted at 7:20 AM on December 1, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The tragedy that happens every 36 hours, rediscovering a son, making friends in Minnesota, leaving vacation time on the table, and changing University Avenue.

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You're not being paid. Do you stay or go? (5x8 - 11/30/11)

Posted at 7:20 AM on November 30, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

You can't cash gratitude, the last Vietnam soldier in North Dakota, stealing stuff for Christmas, privacy and the secrets you tell the government, and an interview with Temple Grandin.

Continue reading "You're not being paid. Do you stay or go? (5x8 - 11/30/11)"

On-campus struggles for returning vets (5x8 - 11/29/11)

Posted at 7:24 AM on November 29, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1)ON READJUSTING

Visit any college campus in Minnesota, especially the community colleges, and the chances are good you'll run into a veteran. The Post-9/11 GI Bill is sending many returning veterans back to school, and many are having a difficult time with the readjustment, the Washington Post reports.

As a result, colleges are contending with adjustment problems and serious disorders far different from those for which their staffs have been trained: traumatic brain injury; post-traumatic stress related to combat and often accompanied by depression and substance abuse; and military sexual trauma, as sexual abuse in the service is known.

Some student veterans say they have little in common with their younger, more sheltered classmates whose concerns typically revolve around their social lives and separating from their parents. They describe feeling both conspicuous and isolated, put on the spot when they are singled out in class by well-meaning faculty members who solicit their views on foreign policy; turned off by the unstructured, sometimes frivolous, college atmosphere; and loath to admit they are having difficulty. Many mourn the absence of the close friendships and intense sense of mission that are often the glue of military life, particularly in a war zone.

2) TARGETING THE EDITORIAL

The Star Tribune today has posted an op-ed response to its somewhat crude editorial on the efforts of some Target workers to get a break around the Thanksgiving holiday ("they should be grateful they have a job," the dismissive advice was). Elissa Hulin Peterson, a psychologist who says she works with dysfunctional families, penned the response:

There is an old proverb about how the best way to fit rocks, pebbles and sand into a bag is to put the rocks in first and fit the pebbles and sand around them.

It is interesting that even the thoughtful editors of a newspaper in a family-friendly state say that the corporations' needs are the rocks, and families will just have to fit around them, rather than vice versa.

Let's be clear that intruding into holidays is only one way in which corporate interests are squeezing out everything else. They have already crowded out leisure time -- we work, on average, nine weeks a year longer than do Western Europeans, longer even than the Japanese.

They have seeped into our public spaces -- we now attend sporting events at places named after corporations instead of revered senators.

But, as you may have heard, plenty of people went shopping last week, and went online yesterday. One line in MPR reporter Marty Moylan's story stood out. Andrew Lipsman, a vice president of marketing and industry analysis for comScore, which tracks retailers' website traffic, observed our habits:

About half the online shopping done Monday occurred at workplace computers, mostly during coffee and lunch breaks, Lipsman said.

Coffee and lunch breaks? Do people really wait until a break to do their personal thing on the web? Confess.

Economic reality check: Santa is worried about his economic future:

3) WHY IS RECYCLING SO HARD?

Recycling is too hard for many people in Duluth, Hermantown, and Proctor, the Duluth News Tribune reports. The Western Lake Sanitary District in Duluth ripped open all the plastic garbage bags recently and found them filled with glass and aluminum, things that should've been recycled:

"We knew we had an issue with beverage containers. But when we did the math, it was shocking," WLSSD spokeswoman Karen Anderson said. "It came to more than 18 million pop and beer cans, and another 19 million plastic bottles, every year." And that only from Duluth, Hermantown and Proctor, she said.

That's a lot of AquaFina, Mountain Dew and Bud Light -- 423 cans and 461 plastic bottles per house per year in the Duluth area that aren't being recycled.

That's $721,000 in lost revenue to the District -- the amount recycled aluminum, plastic, and glass brings in.

The survey may give some impetus to efforts to enact a "bottle bill" in Minnesota, requiring deposits on bottles and cans to encourage recycling. A 5-cent deposit in Iowa, the paper says, has led to a 90-percent recycling rate.

More trash: In Maplewood, city officials last night voted to require residents to use one trash hauler, the Pioneer Press reports, saying it will be more efficient.

At one point, Mayor Will Rossbach warned an angry crowd to act like adults.

"You're not the boss, and you're not the king!" one man shouted.

"Yes, I am, as a matter of fact," Rossbach replied, threatening to have police evict anyone who continued to disrupt the meeting.

4) THE THINGS YOU DON'T SEE IN THE CITIES

The Northern Lights yesterday afternoon in Fergus Falls:

5) THE KNOCK-OFF STRADIVARIUS

CAT scanners were developed to detect cancers and other illnesses. But a conference of radiologists in Chicago has been told of a stunning new use -- violins. A Stradivarius violin has been "recreated" using the scanner normally used to detect cancers and injuries, researchers say. The team said the technique could be used to give musicians access to rare musical equipment, according to the BBC.

It's a big deal for serious music students who need an intrument to learn to play is "at the level that you need to have a really first rate career," a Julliard dean says. But they can't afford the $16 million an original Stradivarius goes for.

Bonus: Urinal video games have been installed in London.

TODAY'S QUESTION
Relations between Pakistan and the United States continue to deteriorate, following the deaths of two dozen Pakistani soldiers in NATO airstrikes. Pakistan has closed supply routes into Afghanistan and ordered a CIA drone base shut down. Today's Question: What should be the goal of U.S. policy toward Pakistan?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Getting paid to lose weight.

Second hour: In the space of a few weeks, four serious dramas about mentally unstable characters were released in theaters. We discuss how mental illness is portrayed in film, and how filmmakers use narrative form to put audiences in the same frame of mind as the characters they're watching.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: The latest from Pakistan.

Second hour: From MPR's Bright Ideas series, Carol Stack gives advice on selecting and paying for college.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: A look at holiday retailing.

Second hour: Police tactics and the Occupy protests.

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A dream in the bucket (5x8 - 11/28/11)

Posted at 7:04 AM on November 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

U of M closes a pathway to a better future, droning on, how others see us while shopping, living small, and holiday leftovers from Aitkin.

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Smacking down the Target workers (5x8 - 11/23/11)

Posted at 7:01 AM on November 23, 2011 by Bob Collins (46 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Just be glad you have a job, the great sleepover debate, why you shouldn't deep-fry the turkey in the house, should there be religion at a holiday display in Duluth, and the art of writing backwards.

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11/22/63 (5x8 - 11/22/11)

Posted at 7:40 AM on November 22, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) DYING CONSPIRACIES

November 22, 1963. You've got September 11th. I've got November 22nd, a vanishing date in the memory of most Americans because -- and this is impossible to believe -- it's been 48 years since someone killed our president. I had been let out of school early to get a haircut -- this was 1963, after all -- when I walked in and nobody was talking in Rocky's Barber Shop. It was another 45 minutes before the radio announced that John F. Kennedy was dead and I don't recall anyone saying anything during that time or after.

It's a scene that couldn't possibly be repeated today. The radio would be replaced by the TV, and we'd probably be chattering about who did it -- either the other political party, or the usual suspects, we'd figure. We wouldn't be united in our grief as we were in 1963; we'd be looking for people to blame. In other words: Life would go on. And video from a thousand different perspectives would be on YouTube in a few minutes, debunking one conspiracy theory will raising a dozen others.

Today, over at the largest institution of higher education in Minnesota, professional conspiracy theorist Jesse Ventura will represent his learned side of the debate over who killed Kennedy. He'll debate Judge John Tunheim, who chaired the declassification process of CIA and FBI files on the investigation. When a host of a b-grade reality show is the best that can be found to argue the conspiracy, the conspiracy theory is dying.

It's existed this long partly on the optical illusion of the video of the time. Colleague Eric Ringham learned what many who've visited Dallas have learned since -- Kennedy was an easy target:

That gridiron image stayed with me until a couple of months ago, when I had an opportunity to visit Dallas. The sniper's nest in the Texas School Book Depository building is now recreated as an exhibit in what has become the Sixth Floor Museum. Though you can't approach the exact window, you can go to one nearby and peer down at nearly the same angle.

As I said, Oswald could have hit Kennedy with a rock. The space isn't like a football field. More like a baseball diamond.

In the New York Times today, Errol Morris unveils a film, "The Umbrella Man," which , unfortunately, cannot be embedded. "If you put any event under the microscope, you will find a whole dimension of incredibly weird things going on," investigator Tink Thompson tells Morris about the mysterious man under an umbrella on the plaza.

It's a comment remarkably similar to a passage near the end of Stephen King's new book, "11/22/63."

"For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dream clock chiming beneath a mystery glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark."

2) PUBLIC RADIO HUMOR

If you're not a real public radio fan, you won't get any of the jokes in this parody of Radiolab, which is not necessarily suitable for the workplace.

(h/t: Micah Gordon)

On the serious side, NPR knows a lot about you, Jim Romenesko writes today. What does it do with all that information?

3) KNOW LESS, NO LESS

The more news you watch, the less informed you can become, at least if you're watching FoxNews, a Fairleigh Dickinson University study says.

But the real finding is that the results depend on what media sources people turn to for their news. For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other news sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors). Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news.

"Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News," said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll. "Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don't watch any news at all."

4) TURKEY LOVE

It's the rule of the farm. At some point, your animal pals have to be sent to slaughter -- though it's easier if you think of it as "processing." Kathryn Draeger at A View From Here: Resettling Big Stone County tells the story of her turkey, who looked over the poultry flock until it was its turn.

When the Flock 1 was sent to Ashby, the turkey was at a complete loss. We put him in with our laying hens, but he would run back the quarter mile to where the flock had been pastured. He wandered around gobbling and searching our back yard for his lost flock. He was inconsolable for about a week. The windows were open to let in the summer breezes and he would walk back and forth beneath the dining room window mourning for his lost flock.

So we put him in with Flock 2- which he mightily towered over. And he became their guard and protector. Standing between the flock and any dog or human who came near. Not threatening or mean-- just using his body as a barrier. When the hawk perched nearby to eye the chickens, the turkey jumped on top of a waterer and spread his big wings over the birds.

"He was a beautiful bird," she writes.

5) THINKING OUTSIDE THE MINE PIT

If there's one thing Minnesota has plenty of it's abandoned mine pits. And wind. We've got wind. Now, Dan Haugen at Midwest Energy News reports, the two may be a solution to an alternative energy problem -- how to store the power generated by wind. He reports on research from the University of Minnesota-Duluth's Natural Resources Research Institute.

The report specifically looks at using iron ore mining pits for pumped storage hydropower. It's one of the oldest and most widely used methods for storing energy. Cheap or excess electricity, such as nighttime wind power, is used to pump water uphill from a lake or reservoir into a higher-elevation holding pond. When electricity demand is higher, the energy is recaptured by reversing the flow and sending water through hydro turbines on its way back down.

TODAY'S QUESTION
A video showing animal cruelty has prompted major food outlets to drop their business with Sparboe Farms, an egg supplier based in Litchfield. Today's Question: How much do you want to know about food before it reaches your plate?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Retired Episcopal bishop John Spong has spent years forging a view of the Christian faith that challenges the beliefs and politics of traditional doctrines. In his new book he argues for a far-less rigid interpretation of the Bible.

Second hour: Talking Volumes with Chuck Palahniuk.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Midday's series on the GOP presidential candidates: Ron Paul's biography and his views on the issues.

Second hour: Former Sen. Alan Simpson

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: War and sacrifice.

Second hour: TBA

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - The man known as Phoenix Jones is a self-styled superhero -- with no superpowers except a stubborn resolve to fight crime. He is Seattle's real-life masked avenger and the subject of a new e-book. A conversation with the author about Phoenix Jones and others of his ilk.

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How to become an Occupy icon (5x8 - 11/21/11)

Posted at 7:24 AM on November 21, 2011 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Pike meme, hard times on Easy Street, the Runestone debate, the look on your face suggests you think this is odd, and Aerosmith on the Vikings

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Adapt or die? (5x8 - 11/18/11)

Posted at 7:22 AM on November 18, 2011 by Bob Collins (26 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The link between climate change and bad weather, who's more popular than Aaron Rodgers, the drinking water debate, a Social Security tale of one Minnesota county, and everyday should be National Unfriend Day.

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Sanctity v. Cents (5x8 - 11/17/11)

Posted at 6:41 AM on November 17, 2011 by Bob Collins (19 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The morality of Thanksgiving shopping, coverage of today's Occupy march, PETA vs. Super Mario, the undersea world of a mine pit, and why turkeys can't have sex.

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The things that stink (5x8 - 11/16/11)

Posted at 7:41 AM on November 16, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Invasion of the stink bug, war toys for therapy, death of a Munchkin, what now Occupy, and the vanishing Minnesota native.

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A letter to the East Coast (5x8 - 11/15/11)

Posted at 7:20 AM on November 15, 2011 by Bob Collins (55 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

We'll give you a second chance, no cake for same-sex couple in Iowa, the new normal is no fun, Tom's walk, and how a felon in Duluth got his gun back.

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Who's hungry? (5x8 - 11/14/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on November 14, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The food shelf crisis, one more post about Tom Keith, secret suicide, Tay Zonday on the economy, and the monarchs of Monterey.

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Troops in the trash (5x8- 11/10/11)

Posted at 6:50 AM on November 10, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The disposable soldier, the kidnappings we pay attention to, newspaper to Jesse: Get lost, Rick Perry's memory, and the power of power.

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The poll crutch (5x8-11/9/11)

Posted at 7:18 AM on November 9, 2011 by Bob Collins (18 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

A big polling 'miss,' Rushford gets out of the booze business, dog dog goose, duck and cover 2011, and a look at a classic prank.

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The Election Day dilemma (5x8 - 11/8/11)

Posted at 7:12 AM on November 8, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Should uninformed voters vote, goofing on Best Buy, the distracted planet, this day in veterans news, and what would you tell the world about Minnesota?

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Pox parties (5x8 - 11/7/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on November 7, 2011 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

When facts take a licking, the latest Vikings stadium video, the heart of a racer, dreams denied and dreams fulfilled, and Oklahoma's seismic mystery.

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Buck fever (5x8 - 11/4/11)

Posted at 7:21 AM on November 4, 2011 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The hunt, we should talk, a good time for clocks, the sound of success, the reality of health care in Minnesota, and the real meaning of 4:20.

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Is college oversold? (5x8 - 11/3/11)

Posted at 7:29 AM on November 3, 2011 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8, You Should Meet...

The case for college, you should meet Harriet Peterson, Minnesota girls are not for sale, the post-Vikings world examined, and a ride on the space station.

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The bright light appeal of pulltabs? (5x8- 11/2/11)

Posted at 7:33 AM on November 2, 2011 by Bob Collins (20 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Will bright lights increase gambling, pick a motto for the U.S., Fargo as the bean-bag capital, the war at home, and Fergus Fallsywood.

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When schools stand behind students (5x8 - 11/1/11)

Posted at 7:19 AM on November 1, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Walking the talk on bullies, Dale's tribute to Tom, asking for help, the work of Congress, and when science is cool.

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How the 'haves' have (5x8 - 10/31/11)

Posted at 7:01 AM on October 31, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Is it work or luck, if you ruin it they won't come, 7 billion and counting, the making of the Google doodle, and would you jump out of a plane?

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A billion here. A billion there (5x8 - 10/28/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on October 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Squeeze in, people; one at a time in Duluth, the old ways in the woods, the face of Occupy, and Polar BearCam

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Meeting Montevideo (5x8- 10/27/11)

Posted at 7:09 AM on October 27, 2011 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The road taken, requiem for the cabin, adult contemporary and the indie artists, South Dakota's shame, and Dale and Jim together again.

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To have and have more (5x8 - 10/26/11)

Posted at 6:48 AM on October 26, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The rich get richer, why property taxes are going up, the value of music in school, it's about (Steve) Jobs, and the Northern Lights from space.

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A concealed carry 'success' or 'failure'? (5x8 - 10/25/11)

Posted at 6:53 AM on October 25, 2011 by Bob Collins (28 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Is the 'good samaritan' good, sex and the Halloween costume, the tablet and the power news user, this week's Northern Lights, and the beauty of the abandoned building.

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When the fat lady sings (5x8 - 10/24/11)

Posted at 6:50 AM on October 24, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Mixing opera and politics, more scenes from the gene pool, the curse of the Halloween costume, the hero's bill, and the lost voice.

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Passion at play (5x8 - 10/19/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on October 19, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Fall colors, Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis from michael john on Vimeo.

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NPR ombudsman tackles 'too liberal' (5x8 - 10/18/11)

Posted at 7:28 AM on October 18, 2011 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE SOUND OF WHITENESS?

Edward Schumacher Matos, the NPR ombudsman, has delivered a smackdown to allegations from some conservatives that NPR overhyped coverage of the phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's UK news tabloid. You may recall that reporters for News Corp., hacked into the voicemails of a missing woman, and deleted some of them, giving hope to one family that their daughter was still alive. She wasn't.

Schumacher Matos, in an incredibly lengthy post for a blog, answered charges yesterday that the depth of NPR's coverage was payback to Fox (another Murdoch operation), which is not traditionally friendly with NPR:

NPR has rightly given a lot of coverage to the scandal, but not more so than other major news organizations or even The Wall Street Journal itself. With the glaring exception of one online headline, NPR's coverage has been professional, sound and calm. There has been no underlying tone of smacking lips, and certainly no liberal bias.

At the height of the coverage, the 15 days between July 7 and July 22, when new revelations and events rolled out almost daily, NPR aired 49 stories, not counting hourly Newscast briefs. This is an average of roughly 3 stories a day across seven hours of news programming on weekdays and roughly half that on weekends. Some listeners complained that this was too much, but the story count paralleled that of other news organizations, including the Wall Street Journal.

The Wall St. Journal is owned by Murdoch.

Schumacher Matos doesn't stop there. He takes on the entire "is NPR liberal?" question and its alleged lack of diversity. Those are two separate issues, rolled into one.

My focus is on whether conservative or minority voices are editorially being frozen out. I am Latino and it does seem to me that NPR needs more minority voices of all sorts on air. But I also recognize that minorities are working their way up and haven't fully arrived yet. I am a testament to NPR's openness, but will follow how many more come.

I imagine a news show that doesn't treat the occasional story involving downtrodden African Americans, Hispanic Americans or poor people like a dutiful piece of foreign reporting before reverting to its dulcet-toned narrative of all things white and comfortable. I imagine an NPR that includes black and brown and female experts on the economy, ecology, energy, foreign affairs and everything else, instead of your standard bland diet of the same old tired voices that already pollute mainstream media.

Mr. Knell, those of us from the news media who have struggled for decades to diversify the storytelling stream could give you many examples of bosses who didn't have the breadth of imagination -- or courage -- to embrace the model of America we saw, and that we lived every day. That hasn't shaken my belief that no one group, gender, ethnicity, religion -- or, yes, race -- has a monopoly on the truth, insight or analysis.

2) THE LOVE FOR RACHEL

At the hockey tournaments last spring, the kids from Duluth East High School waved signs and wore blue "The Love is on for Rachel" T-shirts. They were supporting a classmate fighting liver cancer. Many people started following her Facebook page and her Caring Bridge site, where she last wrote the week before last:

you people need not be concerned about my mental and emotional well being. Trust me. I feel totally accepting of all of this. Like really. What happens, happens, and it will when it will. I am living this beautiful life until im not anymore, just like all of us.

3) THIS DAY IN OCCUPY

Sure, it's just a joke, but it sounds plausible. That's what makes the Borowitz Report's "Letter from Goldman Sachs" funny in the first place (h/t: Tim Roesler):

The answer is the newly launched Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund, whose investment objective is to monetize the Occupy Wall Street protests as they spread around the world. At Goldman, we recognize that the capitalist system as we know it is circling the drain - but there's plenty of money to be made on the way down.

The Rage Fund will seek out opportunities to invest in products that are poised to benefit from the spreading protests, from police batons and barricades to stun guns and forehead bandages. Furthermore, as clashes between police and protesters turn ever more violent, we are making significant bets on companies that manufacture replacements for broken windows and overturned cars, as well as the raw materials necessary for the construction and incineration of effigies.

But seriously, folks: Goldman reported its quarterly earnings this morning. It lost money for only the second time in its history. This will tank the stock market today. Bank of America, on the other hand, reported a more than $6 billion profit, but it had to sell the fine china to make it.

If you don't laugh, you'll cry. Civil protest is gold for comedy...

"When I saw that it was growing and there was Occupying Portland and Occupying New Hampshire, I thought, for goodness' sake, what can I occupy? How can I get on this?" Diane McEachern said in an interview with The Los Angeles Times. "And I thought, well, what's my context? What's important to me?"

McEachern is occupying the Tundra.

And now she's a big hit on the Internet.

Wired.com today has published a guide to protest, including how to legally record things and estimate crowd sizes.

4) THE BREATHTAKING WORLD OF THE iPHONE CAMERA

It's only a matter of time before a major feature-length movie is filmed with a cellphone camera. We've come to expect a lot from these devices and it's easy to forget how far they've come in a very short period of time. Take this video, shot last week on the new iPhone 4S...

A video shot on the iPhone 4S from Benjamin Dowie on Vimeo.

Today, the Droid RAZR is unveiled.

What's the effect of all of this on babies? In the Boston area a mother noticed her infant is trying to swipe pages of books. She's worried the critter will grow up not appreciating books for what they are -- non interactive.

5) CAN WOMEN IN TV NEWS GROW OLD?

The debate started in 1983, when Christine Craft sued her Kansas City TV station for age discrimination. The debate, however, has never really gone away, but erupts in public from time to time. This is that time in Fargo where longtime anchor Robin Huebner reportedly filed an age discrimination complaint against KVLY last week, tried to resign this week and instead was told to leave immediately, according to the Fargo Forum.

Huebner, 50, was bumped from the flagship newscast in favor of a 26-year-old woman.

"Twenty-five years after the Christine Craft case, it seems local television stations may be more worried about their survival than their reputations," former network reporter Deborah Potter wrote on the subject last year after noticing a rising number of age discrimination suits at TV stations. "Viewers already are tuning them out. Revenue is down. What do they really have to lose in a public fight against a discrimination claim?"

Bonus: Some communities are bound by a state fair, some by a whale hunt.

Bonus II: At the World Scrabble Championship in Poland, a player from Thailand demanded his opponent be strip searched. It seems a "G" disappeared.

TODAY'S QUESTION

Gov. Mark Dayton on has set a Nov. 23 deadline for the Legislature to pass a Vikings stadium plan, but has not yet endorsed a specific proposal. Today's Question: Do you expect a Vikings deal to get done, and should it?

THE BIG STORY

The Big Story blog follows the day's developments in the Vikings stadium debate.

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Excerpts of conversations with Chan Polling, the Jayhawks, Adam Levy, Dessa and Chris Koza

Second hour: From Prince to Husker Du to Brother Ali, the Twin Cities music scene has been fluorishing now for more than three decades. Midmorning looks at the elements that have made the Twin Cities such a vibrant music scene.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - Both hours: Dr. Jon Hallberg on health and medical issues in the news.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: the politics of immigration

Second hour: When a health crisis involves mental health, most people have no clue. A new program hopes to change that.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - As they redesigned a property tax relief program for homeowners, state lawmakers aimed to make it progressive. People who own lower value homes may even see their taxes go down next year. Businesses and the owners of expensive homes will tend to pay more under the new system, but so will rental properties. And that means renters, who tend to be lower income, will likely see their rents go up. MPR's Curtis Gilbert will look at the new system.

Russell Banks' latest novel, "Lost Memory of Skin," explores the world of a young sex offender living under a bridge in Florida. As he has done in his previous works Banks reveals the humanity within a character reviled by the community around him. When he meets a college professor who wants to make him a part of a sociological study, the Kid as he is known, finds his life is taking a turn towards the even stranger. Banks reads Tuesday night at Magers and Quinn in Minneapolis. MPR's Euan Kerr talks with him.

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The road that should be traveled (5x8 - 10/17/11)

Posted at 7:11 AM on October 17, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Today is the 4th birthday of NewsCut. "They" said it would never last, although by "last" they might have meant, "five years." Here's this week's Monday Morning Rouser:

1) RETURN OF THE SOLIDAGO RIDERS

The Solidago Riders, five women who graduated from Macalester College last May, have finished their summer-long goal of riding their bikes around each of the Great Lakes. Reader Peter Larson spotted them in Stillwater on Saturday.

They were raising money for the organization, Grand Aspirations.

They have a terrific blog with good stories and pictures for those of us who live vicariously.

Since we started our now 67 day trek, the Solidago Riders have had a lot of time for conversation and twice as much for imagination. As much as we focus on the road, we also talk with each other about what's to come in our new lives after college. Robin and Ainsley want to run a backyard bakery when they return-it might be on Fridays. Jacque, Tressa, and I hope to build an Art Shanty this winter using found materials and replaceable magnets. We all want to host our people's festival, Solidago Bombago, again next summer. We all want to find jobs. Both collectively and as individuals, one thing we've gained from our adventure is a desire for imagining ways to improve and support our communities. Roberto Mangabeira Unger writes that "If we accept that society is made and imagined then we can believe that society can be REmade and REimagined." For our sakes, acknowledging that the problems we face in the world (like wars, economic upheavals, and institutional inequalities) are made, demonstrates how we can all feel empowered to imagine and practice the solutions we hope to discover in our futures.

In our first days of biking, one friend told us that "If you fall in love with the place you live," then the things you do for your home and your community "will never feel like a sacrifice." Two months later, this notion has become somewhat of an anthem to us, as friends from around the Great Lakes region give the same advice described in different words. However they put it, such advice always returns to our relationships-how we build connections with each other and our environments.

These sorts of expeditions -- I imagine, since I've never gone on one -- are transformational for those who take them. The riders' trip through Cleveland, for example, provides a great testimonial for the value of getting out of Minnesota once in awhile.

Though I consider myself an open-minded person, there are very few times in my life where I have been in the racial minority. In my life, I have lived in white-dominated areas and even our college, which may have more diversity than other small colleges, still is very white. On a daily basis, I generally haven't been stared at, or had people suspicious and confused because I look different. Though unintentional, I- like many Americans-live a life surrounded by people like me because that is just the way it is. It's a problem, but it's "the system." However, that seems an incredible pathetic answer to the lines that divide and plague our country. It is far too easy to ignore my white privilege and isolation. I do not have a hard time with airport security, will not be arrested for not having enough bus fair, will not be started at in wealthy neighborhoods for my skin. Our country and cities and towns are segregated by race, gender, income, culture, religion, etc., etc., etc., and the inequalities are ghastly. These lines are everywhere. Though they lead us no where, we follow them because we are afraid of going anywhere else.

Welcome home.

2) AN OCCUPIED WEDDING

Scenes from the Occupy protests:

Protesters in Cincinnati saw the story of a woman who was concerned her wedding pictures, which she'd planned to have taken in a park, would be affected by the fact Occupy Cincinnati has occupied the park. So the protesters moved and they ended up in the pictures anyway.

In Gainesville, Florida, Occupy Gainsville protester Ellas McDaniel was arrested in a park named after Bo Diddley. McDaniel is Bo Diddley's son.

Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture ponders the future of Occupy Wall Street...

The founders of OWS are aware of how the Tea Party was Jiu Jitsued by the existing GOP political establishment. OWS want to avoid a similar fate. Such an end could occur of the leaders of MoveOn.org, a partisan Democratic group, gets their way. They have bulled their way into the media, pretending to speak for OWS. (The media are suckers for a simple narrative, and MoveOn.org provides that).

Hence, OWS needs to demonstrate a few things: A clear leadership. A consistent message. But most importantly of all, some specific policy objectives.

Ritholtz also takes the usual shot at mainstream media for not properly covering the protests (charts don't translate to sound bites well). But if anyone ever gets around to focusing on something other than tents, maybe this story -- did I mention it comes from mainstream media? -- might get some attention: Some banks, it's alleged, are proceeding with foreclosures, even after agreeing to modified mortgage payments with people who are struggling to keep their homes.

"It is all too common for banks to enter a loan mod and then try to foreclose on people and try to harangue them for money,'' a spokeswoman at the Center for Responsible Lending said. "All the evidence shows that servicing procedures and record keeping are just a mess. It ranges from disarray to out-and-out fraud.''

Perhaps the debate surrounding OccupyXX can be modified from a question of whether capitalism is or isn't good to "is a deal a deal?"

3) FEAR AND HATE IN DOWNTOWN MINNEAPOLIS

Michael Dennis and Winfred Bates don't hold hands when they're out in public anymore, not since the couple was attacked by about 15 men, punching them and shouting gay slurs last month, the U Daily reports.

"Everyone is telling us to act like straight people and pretend this never happened," Dennis said. "I think this is a chance to show people that this does happen and encourage awareness to hopefully end this kind of hate crime."

Dennis said he transferred to the U of M from out of state because of the culture and resources for gay people here.

4) THE THINGS THAT AREN'T FOREVER

"Parenting advice is all future directed," writer Emily Rapp writes in the New York Times. The Santa Fe woman's son won't survive past his third birthday and her compelling story raises a question for many parents: What if we just parented for right now?

Nobody asks dragon parents for advice; we're too scary. Our grief is primal and unwieldy and embarrassing. The certainties that most parents face are irrelevant to us, and frankly, kind of silly. Our narratives are grisly, the stakes impossibly high. Conversations about which seizure medication is most effective or how to feed children who have trouble swallowing are tantamount to breathing fire at a dinner party or on the playground. Like Dr. Spock suddenly possessed by Al Gore, we offer inconvenient truths and foretell disaster.

And there's this: parents who, particularly in this country, are expected to be superhuman, to raise children who outpace all their peers, don't want to see what we see. The long truth about their children, about themselves: that none of it is forever.

The other end of the spectrum: Every five hours in the U.S., a child dies from abuse or neglect, the BBC says.

5) NEVER TOO LATE

It took Fauja Singh more than eight hours to finish the Toronto marathon yesterday. He was the last competitor on the course. He's also 100 years old.

Mr. Singh ran his first marathon when he was 89.

He runs 10 miles a day.

Bonus: The sugar beet harvest in the Red River Valley might start this afternoon or tonight, if the weather cooperates. That's good news for dozens of "hoboes," profiled by the Fargo Forum today. They're part of the workforce upon which the industry depends each season.

They are young, footloose types, living on the road, maybe homeless, technically, traveling with friends by freight train or their thumbs, playing music for tips and finding odd jobs when they can. Word of good jobs travels fast among them.

Micaela Madden, from Petaluma, Calif., is a three-year veteran of the road.

"I've been in box cars with 20 people," she said. Gesturing to include the gathering around the picnic table, she says, "I guess we are all travelers, or just hoboes."

They are part of a workforce that often goes unnoticed during the valley's sugar beet harvest.

Bonus II: The Conversationalist has returned after two years in Japan. The Idea Peepshow blog talked with Taylor Baldry yesterday, who set up shop along Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis.

"The Conversationalist is a performance art piece that invites guests to select a topic from the conversation menu...as a means to engage human interaction with a stranger without the aid of social media and technology. As users of social media, we have become consumed with one-sided, broadcast conversations that we have weakened our analog social skills that allows us to converse with friends and strangers alike."

Which brings us to...

TODAY'S QUESTION

Eighty-three percent of American adults have cell phones, according to the Pew Center's Internet & American Life Project. Nearly 90 percent own some kind of computerized device. Three in four Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 use social media. Today's Question: Has technology taken over too much of our lives?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Hope is a word that's used often in our culture, a concept that is promoted by some and disparaged by others. Is hope less important than hard work, courage and determination, or a necessary companion to those traits? Midmorning examines the value and meaning of hope. (Rebroadcast)

Second hour: We apply principals of ethics to all areas of life, from law to medicine to everyday behavior. But where do our ideas about ethics come from, and who decides what's ethical and what isn't? (Rebroadcast)

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Milken award-winning math teacher Seth Brown, from Wayzata West Middle School, on how to teach and learn math.

Second hour: Three award-winning reports from MPR's young reporters series.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Most big companies aren't hiring, a lot of small businesses can't get loans to expand. But there is a bright spark; many mid-sized companies are holding their own and they could start the engine, and drive the U.S. economic recovery.

Second hour: It's 50 years since the Jets and Sharks rumbled on the big screen. Rita
Moreno and George Chakiris, two of the original cast members, join host Neal Conan.

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The Brainerd bump and grind (5x8 - 10/14/11)

Posted at 7:26 AM on October 14, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Homecoming hell, the Zamboni crew, news from the great unwashed, the things worth waiting in line for, and your moment of Minnesota Zen.

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The reluctant Republican (5x8 - 11/13/11)

Posted at 7:55 AM on October 13, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Political flavors, is life worth living without your iGadget, the day they killed JFK, a day on Planet Booze, and homecoming in Fergus Falls.

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When only the money matters (5x8- 10/12/11)

Posted at 7:35 AM on October 12, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Politics and the game of chicken, pinkwashing, the commute on Mars, lost in a maze, and the death of Frank Kameny.

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How the middle class avoids income taxes (5x8 - 10/11/11)

Posted at 7:46 AM on October 11, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Who's not paying taxes, the devil in the front lawn, the key to the flu, the disappearing glaciers, and in sickness and in health.

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The ribbon (5x8 - 10/10/11)

Posted at 7:09 AM on October 10, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Goodness and tragedy at the finish line, drive-in memories, an anniversary on the farm, Sgt. Prince's final trip, and the hyperbole of mental illness.

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The sweet sound of human decency (5x8 - 10/7/11)

Posted at 7:24 AM on October 7, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Getting life out of the way, the turtleneck and toothpick comebacks, bring on winter, just keep riding, and the mystery of the universe.

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Who else? (5x8 - 10/6/11)

Posted at 7:40 AM on October 6, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) TO BE AN ICON

There are a million places to get more informed coverage of the death of Steve Jobs than here (might I recommend this article? And also, this one.), and I'm just smart enough not to try to outdo people smarter than me on the subject.

So just one question for discussion: Who else could generate the kind of outpouring that Jobs' death elicited last night? The death of a president? Obviously so, but who else? John Lennon certainly did, but that was then; there doesn't seem to be anyone in popular culture to whom people felt an emotional connection because of their connection with the gadgets he created.

Andrew Phelps made this video showing what his twitter feed was doing after Jobs' death last night:

In Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported, "29-year-old Wang Xi, bought lilacs for her husband to place at the door. He kneeled down in front of them for a few minutes after propping them against the glass building, just outside a large iPhone display. The card read: 'Thanks, Steve!'"

One question: Who else?

(Photo: Sticky notes left on the windows of an Apple store in San Francisco overnight. Via Instagram)

2) HOCKEY'S LITTLE SECRET

Our enjoyment of some sports is killing the people who play them. That much can no longer be denied as more information comes out daily, it seems, about brain injuries to athletes.

Today, the CBC is reporting, Boston University researchers have determined that former Buffalo Sabres star Rick Martin, who died at a young age in March, suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) -- a disease that causes cognitive decline, behavioral abnormalities and ultimately dementia.

BU has been studying the brains of dead athletes and has found that all three former NHL players who agreed to have their brains studied post-mortem -- Martin, Bob Probert and Reggie Fleming -- all had CTE.

In the recent past, apologists noted that goons -- enforcers for those who don't like the term -- are the ones with brain injuries from fighting. But Martin, unlike Probert and Fleming, wasn't an enforcer.

Martin also had only one concussion in his career.

"But when we look at this most recent case of Mr. Martin, that's a problem because he wasn't a fighter, he'd only had perhaps one concussion," neurosurgeon Robert Cantu told the CBC. "And so we've got to be concerned that the jostling of the brain just from the skills of the sport of playing in the National Hockey League led to him having chronic traumatic encephalopathy when he died."

Not fighting. Not hitting his head. Just playing the sport can cause brain damage, if the neurosurgeon is correct.

Watch the documentary that aired on the CBC last night.

As you might expect, this is big news in hockey-crazed Canada. This comment added to the report's website was typical:

My nephew turns eleven today, and he is becoming quite the little hockey star. Watching your report worries me, though. As a teacher, I know that children are highly motivated to please others. They will go back on the ice to gain approval from their parents, their coaches, their teammates... pretty much anyone, really. Boys do not like to look weak, and they don't see their role models going off the ice when they get hit, so they think that they should try and be tough. It is very worrying. My little guy is only four, but I don't know if I will ever let him play this sport. It makes you think twice. I'm going to share your findings with my sister, that's for sure.

Related: An introduction to hockey:

Hockey 101 from J-Scott on Vimeo.

3) A FIRING AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW

The manager of a St. Paul Rainbow Foods store was fired after he was stabbed by an irate customer, the Pioneer Press reports today. Scott Ostrom told the paper he was fired for "job abandonment," because he had to take frequent breaks after the attack because of post traumatic stress disorder.

"I worked hard for the company," Ostrom said after the sentencing hearing of his attacker in Ramsey County District Court. "I guess I was just another number to them." He gave a victim's impact statement to the court:

The stabbing had "altered my life in a huge way," Ostrom said in the statement. He found it difficult to work in the same Midway-area store, but the company refused to relocate him, he said. So he would leave the floor or go outside for breaks, trying to quell his anxiety.

Anytime he heard someone begin to raise their voice, Ostrom said, it brought back the trauma of the attack.

Asked later if he was offered a different position in the company that would not involve dealing with customers, he said no.

He was fired in July, "one week after the (Johnson) trial ended," Ostrom said.

"It's the first time in my life I've been out of work," said the father of two sons in college. "I've always been a good provider for my family."

Ostrom says he was fired a week after the trial ended, then Rainbow (Roundy's) contested his unemployment claim.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi says this sort of thing -- PTSD -- often happens to crime victims after an attack.

4) HELL AND BACK AGAIN

The war films spawned by America's longest war aren't anything like the post World War II, or even the post-Vietnam war flicks, which focused primarily on battle. The BBC looks at a Marine's journey after the war in the latest film, Hell and Back Again. The film was released to American audiences yesterday:

"By focusing on one US marine's journey to hell and back again, (Photojournalist Danfung Dennis) says he hopes to shake viewers from their apathy towards complex events in distant lands - and show that for some veterans, their tour of duty does not end when they finally come home," the BBC reviewer says.

Dennis says the long war has desensitized people to war. He's probably right. 2008 was the first time a major U.S. war was barely a blip in a presidential campaign. 2012 is the second.

Related: A study out today says 44 percent of returning vets report having trouble readjusting to civilian life.

5) LOVE AT FIRST CLICK

"If you think online dating is the domain of the young, maybe it's time to check in with your mother," the New York Times says. People 55 and older are visiting American dating sites more than any other age group. The No. 2 group? Singles 45 to 54.

Related: A woman is suing match.com because a picture of her is being used in its advertising. She says she's happily married.

TODAY'S QUESTION
In a recent interview, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly asked Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison whether America was "on the skids." Ellison replied, "No way. America's best days are ahead of her." Today's Question: Do you believe that America's best days are ahead?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Journalists often strive to get more than one side to a story in an effort to be fair and objective, but how well does that serve the audience? One press critic says "he said/she said" stories are among the lowest forms of journalism, and leave the audience more confused than informed.

Second hour: Geologist and climatologist Richard Alley has been known to break into song to explain how the orbital variations of earth influence climate.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: The Wall Street protest comes to Minnesota on Friday. Guests: Metro State historian, social science professor Tom O'Connell and Osha Karow of "Occupy Minnesota."

Second hour: An MPR Forum moderated by Stephen Smith, about the skills college graduates need to succeed in life and work. Guests included two college presidents and an economist, among others.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: This past spring, record floods rolled down the Mississippi basin, from South Dakota to Louisiana. The water overwhelmed levies, flood gates and dams and destroyed billions in property. Is there a better way?

Second hour: The protests to occupy Wall Street.

Speaking of which...

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Radiohead is arguably among the most influential bands making music today. But their sound nowadays differs greatly from when the British group emerged in the early '90s. NPR provides a conversation with Radiohead on their latest sound from the new album "The King Of Limbs."

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Ken Dahlberg, 1917-2011 (5x8 - 10/5/11)

Posted at 6:56 AM on October 5, 2011 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8, Icons

1) THE MAN WITH THE SMOKING GUN

There aren't a lot of people in the world who have been war heroes, created a high-flying business, and uttered the words that would bring down a presidency. Ken Dahlberg was one of them.

His obituary is tucked quietly in the Star Tribune today.

As a World War II fighter pilot (Barry Goldwater was one of his flight instructors) , Dahlberg was one of the war's "aces," with 14 1/2 "victories." He won the Distinguished Service Cross for leading a flight of 16 P-47 Thunderbolts against 70 German Messerschmitts, shooting down four of them. He was shot down three times and spent the last months of the war as a POW, returning to Minnesota to eventually start the Miracle Ear corporation.

The remnants of the P-47 from Dahlberg's last flight were recently unearthed by engineers inspecting a tract of farmland that was about to be developed.

Dahlberg was the Midwest finance chairman for the Committee to Re-elect the President during President Richard M. Nixon's 1972 campaign. A mysterious check, which later would be determined to be from the CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, was given to Dahlberg, who converted it to a cashier's check. It was money from the campaign, destined for the Watergate burglars.

When "Deep Throat" told reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein* to "follow the money," that was the money And when Woodward called Dahlberg to confirm he handled the check, Dahlberg didn't lie. It was the turning point in the Watergate investigation, the first proof that the Watergate burglars were financed by a money laundering scheme that was tied to the Oval Office.

It ended up a critical part of the movie All The President's Men.

Back then, it was all legal. People could make secret campaign donations and expenditures. You can't do that anymore and this is why.

It's still amazing his life didn't end up as a movie. Here's an interview I did with him a few years ago, when he released a book about his life, the proceeds of which went to the Minnesota Military Appreciation Fund.

(*There is some question about whether this phrase was actually uttered to Woodward and Bernstein by Mark Felt, who claimed to be "Deep Throat." Another reporter says, however, an assistant attorney general uttered the words to him.)

2) CUDDYER'S WORKPLACE

Michael Cuddyer, as I pointed out months ago, spent this season documenting the ballparks he visited. Cuddyer is quite a photographer. But Target Field was missing from his collection... until last evening, when he finally uploaded the behind-the-lens look at his workplace. He only has a few of places where fans can't go, however.

Cuddyer says he's like to know what you think about his work. Find him on Twitter.

3) SEARCHING FOR NORMAL

Sara Shourd took this picture of her fiance and his mother feeding horses up in Pine City. Shourd was one of the three hikers who spent time in an Iranian prison, Shane Bauer spent two years in prison before his release along with Josh Fattal.

Never having been in an Iranian prison, I don't know what I'd do once I'm back in a freer society again. But I think having a horse nibble out of my hand might be fairly high on the agenda, along with anything else that has the aroma of normalcy.

"His biggest task is not to get too overwhelmed with things to do, and trying to enjoy the simple fact that he's free," his mother told the Associated Press yesterday.

Maybe there'll be a time when he'll do the talk-show circuit, but in a way, it's refreshing to find a newsmaker who just wants to stay out of the spotlight and feed a horse in Minnesota.

Maybe this is the best place to be left alone.

4) WALK TO SCHOOL DAY

It's International Walk to School Day. We live two blocks from an elementary and junior high school where my kids went to school and, for the most part, they didn't walk to school that much. Why? Because it's not International Stop For People in the Crosswalk Day.

Sure, they've got kids with orange flags who stop cars at some intersections, but for the most part, anecdotal evidence suggests, Minnesota drivers consider crosswalks mere suggestions.

If you actually know state law and stop for a kid in a crosswalk, the odds are somebody in a car behind you will veer into another lane to go around you, and not see the kid in the crosswalk. This happened to me on Robert Street on St. Paul's west side the other day. I stopped for a kid walking his bike, and the car that veered around me almost killed him. By following the law, I almost got a boy killed.

No doubt today, there'll be some tsk-tsk'ing because people load their kids in the SUV and drop them off at school -- or put them on a bus - but that's the safest way to keep your kids alive and that's the primary responsibility of parents.

On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with a good walk and we are in the initial days of Walk Through The Leaves season.

5) UNDERSTANDING THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

"Fishing is hard. Investment banking is easy," author Michael Lewis said on Daily Show last night, one of the best explanations ever of the complicated events that have led to the worldwide financial crisis. If we're going down, we should at least understand why. These segments are well worth watching.

Pay particular attention to his description of the situation in Iceland in which he asserts that women have taken over because "men with money is a dangerous combination."

It's a far more informative segment than any economic lesson you'll hear in a campaign stump speech, or in any of the shallow coverage of the Occupy Wall St protests.

Bonus: I don't have a clue what this is, other than the fact it was uploaded yesterday and it features 'bridge bowling" in Minneapolis. I want to know more about this "activity. If you have knowledge, contact me:

TODAY'S QUESTION

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie insisted again on Tuesday that he will not run for president in this election cycle. So the eventual major party nominees are probably already on stage. Today's Question: Does your party have a presidential candidate you can get behind?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Many students work to achieve high GPAs, but what about CPAs, or character point averages? Certain educators and psychologists say that character development in the classroom is the key to student success.

Second hour: Michelle Norris' Minneapolis Reads event .

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: TBA

Second hour: A new documentary from American RadioWorks: "Who Needs an English Major? The Future of Liberal Arts Education."

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Political chatter with the Political Junkie.

Second hour: It's 25 years since Art Spiegelman published his epic, Maus. The comic-book chronicle of his parents' experience during the Holocaust. And, he says he still gets the same questions: "Why comics? Why Mice? Why the Holocaust?" Now, he attempts to answer them. Art Spiegelman joins host Neal Conan to talk about, Metamaus,

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The tip debate (5x8 - 10/4/11)

Posted at 7:32 AM on October 4, 2011 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Should restaurants deduct credit card fees from server tips, the story behind 'Occupy Wall Street,' kids learn how to play in Duluth, cities in the gun business, and the real lesson from a Nobel Prize winner.

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It takes a village to rob the elderly (5x8 - 10/3/11)

Posted at 7:25 AM on October 3, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Elderly couple losing home, Bernard Berrian tweets like he plays football, the end of Jazzman, chance-taking 101, and the wonderful world of excited electrons.

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The art of the protest (5x8- 9/30/11)

Posted at 7:38 AM on September 30, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Political street theater, the hilarity of science, the coming robotic takeover of orchestras, cleaning Minnesota's water, and signs you're spending too much time on the computer.

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Baseball's best night (5x8 - 9/29/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on September 29, 2011 by Bob Collins (22 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

First some housekeeping: Over the years, NewsCut has earned a well-deserved reputation for intelligent and valuable insight provided by those who offer their comments. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say this is unlike a large number of online sites that are polluted by trolls and people who have little to offer.

Of late, many comments have very little to do with the subject matter of the post. While I seldom delete comments (I have a great blog management system that filters out the cheap handbag knockoff spam), I'm being more aggressive eliminating comments that don't provide value to other readers. These include comments from people using phony email addresses, or single-line comments that only lightly reference the post. As always, comments that belittle other commenters are immediately deleted.

Most of the time, I send an e-mail to those people to explain why their comments were deleted. Most of the time, the messages bounce back from phony e-mail addresses.

At the same time, there are thousands of NewsCut readers each week who are reluctant to comment. Trust me: Your perspective is valuable and will be protected here. The wide diversity of talent and experiences gives us an opportunity to consider viewpoints we might not previously have considered (a comment in the previous post is a perfect example). On those occasions, we are all well served by your participation.

We will not be discussing this in the comments section today. But there are plenty of other things to note.

1) TEAR PARTY

If you went to bed early last night you missed a 278-million-to-one occasion (according to Nate Silver): The Red Sox did not make the playoffs when they blew a sure win, seconds before the Devil Rays turned around what had appeared to be a sure loss (Thanks primarily to Coon Rapids' Dan Johnson).

"The most magical night in baseball history," MLB Network declared. Wait! More magical than a 10-inning shutout that won a World Series? Keep in mind this was for the right to be the worst team in the playoffs, not win a World Series. It's a bad idea to write history seconds after it occurs.

Still, it was way more fun than the second half of a Vikings game:

Peter Sagal's "Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!" might not be that funny this week:

The best front page in America today belongs to the Boston Herald, which pulled out its own front page from earlier in the season...

NPR says baseball fans were left hyperventilating...

A tale of two cities: The Twins, meanwhile, won an exciting contest that had the players rolling on the field congratulating each other because it meant they didn't lose 100 games. Exciting stuff, indeed.

One last takeaway from the "magical night": There's no moment sweeter than a little kid singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame."

2) SHOULD STUDENT DEBT BE FORGIVEN?

Students are coming out of college with a stunning debt load. How's this for an idea: Forgive it. Some students at the University of Minnesota are signing a national petition asking the federal government to wipe out the debt, figuring students could stimulate the economy by spending money they otherwise would be spending on paying their loads, the Minnesota Daily reports.

"That'd be a lot of money that our economy could use," says Alexis Reineke, who graduated from the University of Minnesota in December 2008 with a communications degree and
$35,000 in debt. She makes enough now to pay about $260 month on her loans.

The idea comes from Robert Applebaum, who started the petition, and has posted it on the We The People site at the White House:

Forgiving student loan debt would provide an immediate jolt to the economy by putting hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of extra dollars into the hands of people who WILL spend it - not just once, but each and every month thereafter - freeing them up to invest, buy homes, start businesses and families. This past year, total student loan debt finally surpassed total credit card debt in America, and is on track to exceed $1 TRILLION within the next year. Student loans themselves are responsible for tuition rates that have soared by 439% since 1982 and for saddling entire generations of educated Americans with intractable levels of student loan debt from which there is, seemingly, no escape. Relieve them of this burden and the middle class WILL rebuild this economy from the bottom-up!

Caution: Old person story ahead. When I graduated from college in 1976 with my $4,000 in debt (that's about $16,000 in today's dollars), the last thing the financial aid boss said was, "make sure you pay this money back, because it'll be used to lend to other students later."

3) GOVERNMENT AND THE BOOZE BUSINESS

State governments need you to drink more, the New York Times says today. It needs the cash alcohol generates. Dozens of states have changed alcohol laws to try to gin up more revenue -- from raising alcohol taxes to allowing drinking on Sundays.

"These are kind of antitax times, so it's tough to raise any kind of tax, but this is one they might have more success with," said Mark Stehr, an associate professor of economics at Drexel University in Philadelphia who has studied the effects of taxes and other regulations on cigarettes and alcohol.

Lakeville officials have received a study to help them determine whether the municipal liquor stores make money and whether the city should get out of the booze-selling business. They do and it won't.

4) DO YOU KNOW THE PUMPKIN MAN?

You can always spot the kid who's going to grow up to be successful. In Fargo, Kain Carlson has figured out an unfilled niche. There weren't enough door-to-door pumpkin salesmen in town. There weren't any. Now there's Kain Carlson, pumpkin man.

He's pocketed about $1,000 so far, WDAY reports, and given a chunk of it to a Moorhead homeless shelter.

5) RACE-E-BOY

We have a new record for world's fastest couch. The record was set on Monday in Sydney.

Bonus: A bridge to the arts...

(h/t: Bryan Reynolds)

TODAY'S QUESTION

Australia has announced that women will soon be able to serve in combat with the infantry, in the special forces and in other front-line positions. Today's Question: Should the United States start allowing women to serve in all combat roles?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind describes rivalries and dysfunction within President Obama's first economic team.

Second hour: In her new book, physicist Lisa Randall examines the role of risk, creativity, and uncertainty in scientific thinking, and why answering the biggest scientific questions we face could tell us who we are and where we come from.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Rep. John Kline.

Second hour: Live broadcast from the National Press Club featuring entrepreneur Elon Musk, speaking about private sector space travel, electric cars, and the digital future

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: a preview of the upcoming Supreme Court term.

Second hour: Stories from a Chicago cabbie.

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Laptop blunders (5x8 - 9/28/11)

Posted at 7:45 AM on September 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (17 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Privacy's weak link, decency dies in Superior, Minnesota at high speed, a lake logo a day, and the last day of Minnesota baseball.

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Whatever happened to retirement? (5x8 - 9/27/11)

Posted at 7:36 AM on September 27, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Do you think you'll be able to retire, North Dakota: The Nigeria of the north, a hole in the ground in Babbitt, monument to an earthquake, and the call of the harvest.

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The art of just getting by (5x8 - 9/26/11)

Posted at 7:29 AM on September 26, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Marvin way in Warroad, why do people live in northern Minnesota, the pepper spray attack, power without status, and Vikings fans say they've had enough but they're probably haven't.

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The evil of gossip (5x8-9/23/11)

Posted at 7:47 AM on September 23, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

A tribute to Eleanor Mondale, the homeless horseman, high school heroes, the marketing meat wagon, and the end of capitalism.

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Taking on bullies (5x8 - 9/22/11)

Posted at 7:06 AM on September 22, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The cost of fighting back, Adam and Eve 101, the execution, the end of social media as we know it, and staying rich in Minnesota.

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The 'serves them right' society (5x8 - 9/21/11)

Posted at 7:15 AM on September 21, 2011 by Bob Collins (53 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Serving them wrong; serving them right; Minnesota and the homeless vet; a son, a father, and a secret; art and junk.

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Dispatches from BWCA (5x8 - 9/20/11)

Posted at 7:43 AM on September 20, 2011 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

A half-full/half-empty look at the fire, peer pressure 101, Minnesota moments, Canada's parental support law, and gays in the military.

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Peeved about Pocahontas (5x8 - 9/19/11)

Posted at 7:07 AM on September 19, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

NewsCut reader Ben Chorn selects this week's Monday Morning Rouser:

1) ACTOR INEQUITY

An attempt to celebrate Native American culture in Duluth has fallen flat in some quarters. The Duluth Festival Opera's production of "Pocahontas: A Woman of Two Worlds," has a cast, the Duluth News Tribune reports, with not a single Native American actor, not even Pocahontas. Now the debate is whether there weren't enough Native Americans interested in auditioning, or whether the opera company didn't look hard enough.

When it came time for auditions, (Opera director Craig)Fields said word was put out to American Indian communities around the country. The open tryouts were treated as "blind" auditions, he said, and they were looking for the best performer for the job.

"My personal feeling is that the work succeeds on its own merits, whether it is performed by a Native American or not," Fields said.

Fields said there are parts of the opera that call for only American Indian involvement and that Fond du Lac singers and drummers are involved with the production.

Robert Powless, an Oneida Indian and professor emeritus of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth, is an adviser on the project. Powless said he approves of the casting and that characters' ethnicities should be matched whenever it is possible, but in this case there weren't a lot of American Indian musicians who auditioned.

Complicating the controversy is that the production is funded via the Legacy Amendment, which provides state funding for preservation of Minnesota history and culture.

How culturally and ethnically accurate should casts be? It's a debate that occasionally surfaces in the performing arts. Twenty-one years ago, for example, tempers flared on Broadway when a white actor was hired to play an Asian pimp in Miss Saigon.

2) WHEN 'LEADERS' DON'T LEAD

Continue reading "Peeved about Pocahontas (5x8 - 9/19/11)"

The work we do that nobody notices (5x8 - 9/16/11)

Posted at 6:56 AM on September 16, 2011 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Pulling rail in St. Paul, the first step for a photographer, Tango time, what do we have against knowledge, and the bounty on the woman who talked to Rep. Bachmann.

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Muslim 101 (5x8 - 9/15/11)

Posted at 7:40 AM on September 15, 2011 by Bob Collins (41 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Teaching religion the FBI way, the life of the hikers families, in Alzheimer's and in health, the dollar coin, and your Minnesota moment of zen.

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Where are we risk free? (5x8 - 9/14/11)

Posted at 7:52 AM on September 14, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Where can nature not touch us, laughter as medicine, a man, the earth, and a dog, dispatches from the suspicion society, and victims fight back in Minneapolis.

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The unemployment game (5x8 - 9/13/11)

Posted at 7:28 AM on September 13, 2011 by Bob Collins (24 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Can you make ends meet, Owatonna Ted revealed, preserving a history of shame, Alzheimer's and the baby boomer, and balloon popping 101.

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Ted from Owatonna (5x8 - 9/12/11)

Posted at 7:02 AM on September 12, 2011 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8, When people do good

When people do good in Faribault, the BWCA in the rear-view mirror, when the earth speaks, girls just don't want to sing the National Anthem correctly, and spelling and security.

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How a word manipulates your political view (5x8 - 9/9/11)

Posted at 7:15 AM on September 9, 2011 by Bob Collins (25 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The 'J' word, Mauer's dough, the business of 9/11, give me your huddled masses; keep your mentally ill, and your moment of Minnesota zen.

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The unhappy working woman (5x8 - 9/8/11)

Posted at 7:48 AM on September 8, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE UNHAPPY SURVEY

What's the profile of an unhappy person in the office and at home? She's a 42-year-old, unmarried woman with a household income under $100,000, working in a professional position such as a doctor or a lawyer, a new survey reports.

The survey of white-collar workers finds women across all demographics are 33 percent unhappier than their male counterparts. When it comes to extreme happiness, men are consistently happier than women, the survey showed. The higher up the economic totem pole you climb, the better it gets for women, but a disparity exists there as well, LiveScience.com reported.

I'd have guessed the unhappiest would be the one who's still working, but has been told his/her job is being eliminated.

2) ADDING JOBS

You don't hear a lot of news about companies expanding in Minnesota. Coincidentally, there are two today.

In Eden Prairie, the state is giving a $500,000 loan to Emerson Electric that the company does not have to pay back. In exchange, the company will expand and add 100 jobs.

In Otter Tail County, the Brunswick Corporation has announced it's expanding its manufacturing facility that makes Lund boats in New York Mills.

President Obama gives his long-awaited speech on a jobs program tonight.You can hear it on MPR, of course.

Somewhat related: Wired.com presents 10 jobs that didn't exist on September 20, 2001.

3) FAITH AND 9/11

To be honest with you, I'd hoped for more from last night's Frontline documentary on faith and 9/11. It was 15 minutes of video of people jumping to their deaths before we heard how people reconciled their faith in God with 9/11. The imagery distracted from the intellectual. Better to begin with "chapter 3..."

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

The CBC chose a different path, focusing instead on one religion: Islam. It has put together a compelling website with 10 Canadian Muslims. Unfortunately, it couldn't resist opening with images of jets hitting the World Trade Center, either.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is banning clergy-led prayer at this weekend's events marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Some religious groups are calling the ban a sign of prejudice against religion, NPR reports.

9/11 related: A new app lets you dedicate your Facebook status to a single victim of the attacks. (h/t: @thequeengeek)

4) THE LIFE OF THE TOW TRUCK DRIVER

"I have one impediment to making money at this job," Gopher Towing's Gene Buell tells the U Daily today, "and that's that I have a conscience."

With the kids returning to the U, you'd think times would be good for a towing company. But the recession has hurt.

"The biggest thing is trying to be nice to people when they're not nice to us," he said. "We treat everybody nice no matter what they call us."

5) MAGICAL BILLBOARDS

NewsCut loves stories about billboards, you know. The Quebec City Magic Festival came up with this billboard, but in the spirit of most magicians, the organizers refuse to say how it was done.

TODAY'S QUESTION

Republican presidential candidates held a televised debate last night. It was their first debate since Texas Gov. Rick Perry joined the race for the Republican nomination. Today's Question: What's your reaction to last night's GOP debate?

Last night, by the way, Rep. Michele Bachmann claimed gas was below $2 a gallon when President Obama took office. She was wrong last night, she was wrong last January when I first wrote about it. What do presidents have to do with gasoline prices? Not much.

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: President Obama reveals his jobs plan tonight before a joint session of Congress, but will it be bold enough to make any dent in the unemployment rate?

Second hour: What the recent release of thousands of pages of oral histories, phone logs and radio transmission from 9/11 tells us.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: former VP Walter Mondale.

Second hour: Rebroadcast of the GOP presidential debate.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: The jobs plans.

Second hour: The future of the National Football League.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - A section of West Virginia's mountain wilderness is being transformed for the arrival of tens of thousands of guests. Boy Scouts from around the country and the world will converge on what's to become a super-camp. And it's expected to provide an economic lifeline to an area in need. NPR will have the story.

Fed chair Ben Bernanke is giving a speech today in Minneapolis. MPR's Annie Baxter will be there.

Laura Yuen will report on what it's like to be a Muslim in Minnesota.

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Jennifer's pillow (5x8 - 9/7/11)

Posted at 7:03 AM on September 7, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8, When people do good

1) WHEN PEOPLE DO GOOD (CONT'D)

Like most people with great personal stories to tell, NewsCut reader Jennifer Nelson prefaced her e-mail to me by noting that her story isn't as big of a deal as the "When People Do Good" entries of previous posts. Like most people with great stories to tell, she undersells her story.

Yesterday I decided to grab my camera and head out to the State Fair to take some photos since my family had an advance purchase ticket left over. It was a beautiful day. Since on the last day of the Fair vendors are usually offering deals, I made my way to the grandstand to check out a pillow that's been recommended to me. (Since I have a permanent neck injury, the right pillow can make a huge difference.) They didn't have any last minute deals and for my budget they are just a little too pricey. So I simply asked the saleswoman where else they sell them for future reference since I wasn't able to purchase one right then. She told me and I was about to leave when another customer at the booth announces "I'm going to buy two of them. One for each of us," and gestured towards me. I was a bit taken aback. This woman was a complete stranger. I'd never seen her before in my life and she knew nothing about me except that I was interested in this pillow.

"Really?" I asked.
"Yep." She replied.
"You're serious?"
"Uh huh."
"You don't have to..."
"I want to."

By that time the saleswoman had already swiped the card. She asked if we wanted one bag or two, to which the stranger replied "You better make it two. I don't even know her." The saleswoman stopped dead in her tracks. "Wait, you don't even know her and you just bought her a pillow? Wow. That's some good karma." I turned to thank the woman, nearly in tears and she simply smiled, said "We're going to sleep really good tonight," and walked away. I was speechless. Not only had a complete stranger just bought me a new pillow, but she seemed genuinely excited to do so.

The reason that this meant so much to me is what that stranger didn't know. Seven years ago I suffered permanent injuries in a car accident. One of those injuries was to a joint in my neck that has left me with chronic pain. I have purchased pretty much every type of pillow you could imagine over the years since when I sleep wrong, I wake up with headaches, muscle spasms, and numbness in my fingers. This isn't a visible injury and since I'm only 29, most wouldn't assume I have an injury like that.

What's made the situation even more complicated is that I was laid off just over a year and a half ago. It was difficult to get the insurance to cover any treatment for my injuries even when I had coverage, but when I lost my job I also lost my access to healthcare. In this economy, I have been unable to find work. I work what freelance I can, get some help from family members when needed, and am currently on my final tier of unemployment benefits. Even with all that, the bills barely get paid. When it comes to my chronic pain and injuries (which also include my knees - something that's complicated my job search efforts since I can't work full time on my feet), my only choice is to manage them the best I can on my own. I do what exercises and stretches I can, rely on over the counter medicine when needed, and save up my money when able for other items that help (supportive shoes, kinesiotape, braces, heat/ice packs, pillows, etc). When I stopped at that booth, I was simply trying to plan out how I could best save to purchase their product in the future. Instead I took one home that night. It may seem like such a small thing, but it makes every day a lot easier for me.

From now on, if anyone asks me if "Minnesota Nice" is real, I can confidently reply "You betcha!"

Keep 'em coming, people!

2) REVISITING RNC 2008

We got an inside look last night at the work of Brandon Darby, the FBI informant who blew the whistle on his colleagues who allegedly intended to come to Minneapolis St. Paul in 2008 and disrupt the Republican National Convention, including throwing bombs at police vehicles.

The documentary, Better this World, aired last night on PBS' Point of View program.

Watch the full episode. See more POV.

Darby's role came out during the Minnesota trial of David McKay. Darby initially agreed to be interviewed by filmmakers, but then reneged. There were no cameras permitted in the federal trial of McKay.

How did the filmmakers get all the footage of the protests? These babies....

"The Twin Cities got a $50,000 grant to put up cameras throughout the cities for the Republican National Convention as part of a security effort," documentary producer Kelly Duane de la Vega said. "There was a massive amount of security footage filmed throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul. That footage is actually part of the public domain -- not very many people know that, but we discovered that. We got a great deal of that footage, and then we started looking for our subjects. And it was like a needle in a haystack in many ways, but they would pop up, because there were cameras absolutely everywhere. There's a scene in a Walmart where the young men are going in to buy materials to build Molotov cocktails. And that's from Walmart's security cameras. We're all being filmed all the time."

McKay's trial ended in a mistrial, and shortly before a second trial, he pleaded guilty to one count of possession of an unregistered firearm, one count of illegal manufacture of a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm with no serial number. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

The film showed compelling scenes of his family discussing whether to make the plea or whether it was worth going to trial to say what happened and get a longer sentence as the penalty for doing so.

But the documentary suggests it was the FBI informant calling the shots and recruiting the people who ultimately went to prison while he went free.

According to Larra Elliott, one of the activists who accompanied the three to the RNC, "Brandon . . . said something that caught my attention, like, 'Don't you feel that firebombs and armed militias . . . that kind of . . . action is necessary sometimes?' And Brad was like, 'No, I don't feel that way.' Brandon would not leave it alone."

"Your own actions have taken you away from someone who might need you in the future, and you can't be there for that person. I don't feel anything but shame and guilt because I want nothing more to be there for the people that I love," McKay says near the end of the film.

The POV website today offers this quiz about the use of FBI informants.

3) PAWLENTY'S SPARKS

Tim Pawlenty's first interview since announcing he was ending his campaign for the White House wasn't with a reporter, or a news organization from the old sod of Minnesota; it was in New York, with a comedian.

The governor sported a more relaxed look, but he took a swipe at the electorate for being more interested in something other than serious policy. Then he made a joke about "shooting sparks out my butt."

A few minutes earlier, David Letterman was zeroing in on the other Minnesotan, with "top 10" reasons why Michele Bachmann's campaign is in trouble:

10.Intern answers phone, "Hello, O'Bachmann Train Wreck"
9.She keeps referring to the Governor of Texas as Katy Perry
8.Husband is leaving campaign to host a makeover show on Bravo
7.Spent last weekend campaigning in Juarez, Mexico
6.Ranks behind that creepy middle-aged white guy, that other creepy middle-aged white guy, and barely ahead of other creepy middle-aged white guy
5.Only polling well with people who are heavily medicated
4."Headquarters" is now the backseat of a Hyundai Sonata
3.Claims bad weather is God punishing us for J-Lo and Marc Anthony break up
2.Has yet to acknowledge the road to the White House goes through me, Dave
1.She's running out of batsh** crazy things to say

4) 9/11 at 10

The most iconic movie and TV roles for the icons of 9/11.

Meanwhile, the 9/11 Memorial Foundation has rejected the contribution of a French artist whose sculpture depicts the twin towers as a nude couple.

5) MICROFINANCE MISSILES

Kiva is a website with some Minnesota roots that lets you give small loans to people around the world. to help them get their small business up and running. This 2007 MPR story explained how the concept works.

Kiva has received a lot of attention for the innovative way it allows people around the world to make loans. Everyday people can act as banks, and make a loan of as little as $25 over the Internet.

If you log onto the Kiva Web site, you see exactly who is doing the lending and who is trying to start a business. You get updates as well, to see if the business is thriving or failing.

How well has it caught on? Check out this fascinating data map treats each loan as a dot and the type as a color and tracks the number of them over the last few years.

Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance from Kiva Microfunds on Vimeo.

Reportedly, the the loan repayment rate is 99 percent.

Bonus: Wednesdays should always start with bulldog-police horse love stories.

TODAY'S QUESTION

Although Minnesota has a reputation for stiff penalties against drunken driving, state law addresses only the operation of a motor vehicle - not a bicycle. Today's Question: Should it be illegal in Minnesota to ride a bike while intoxicated?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: The disappearing moderate.

Second hour: Severe drought in Texas and an active hurricane season in the Atlantic are just the latest events in what has already been a wild year for weather. MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Midmorning to discuss what's going on with our weather.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Michael Hurley of the 9-11 Commission joins discusses what was learned in the investigation and in the decade since.

Second hour: Rebroadcast of 2004 American RadioWorks documentary about the 9-11 Commission hearings. "Witnesses to Terror."

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Political talk with Ken Rudin.

Second hour: . Authors tell their stories of taunts and teases and tears.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - A decade after the terrorist attacks, MPR's Sasha Aslanian profiles its legacy for two Minnesotans. FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley made the cover of Time magazine for her criticism of U.S. intelligence failures. Today, she no longer has her FBI career and failed to win public office. Now on the outside, she devotes herself to fulltime activism against what she considers the US's misguided response to 9/11. The parents of Tom Burnett Jr., who fought the hijackers on flight 93 that crashed near Shanksville, PA., have taken a different path. Tom's death propelled them into suing the terrorists in an attempt to bankrupt them. They're pledging to fight on and want the U.S. government do everything possible to shut terrorism down.

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Wake me when it's 9/12 (5x8 - 9/6/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on September 6, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Tuesday Morning Rouser:

1) BOO!

The countdown to 9/11 is on. Every news organization is looking for a new angle and a different way to tell you what threat is lurking behind the rose bush, 10 years after the luckiest shot in the history of terrorism. I was working in the hangar at Fleming Field in South St. Paul yesterday, when a TV crew walked in and asked if they could ask me questions about 9/11 and aviation.

I'd already seen the silly warning from the Department of Homeland Security, so I knew what this story was going to say: "Small airplanes are dangerous to the public."

"Violent extremists with knowledge of general aviation and access to small planes pose a significant potential threat to the Homeland," according to an intelligence bulletin issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.

Never mind that authorities point out they have no information that says terrorists are trying to figure out how to get a small airplane. "A significant potential threat? What does that mean? That it's not yet a significant threat. But you can't get a story out of that.

Look, it's been 10 years and small airplanes aren't hard to find. If they played a significant role -- say a role as big as a Ryder truck, for example -- in terrorism, don't you think one would've been used by now? Other than the kid who killed himself in Tampa and the guy who ran it into an IRS office in Texas (people have run cars into IRS offices too, by the way), where's the evidence warranting an unusual warning?

Earlier in the day, I was out at Flying Cloud, where they have this blockade against the terrorists.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission has spent thousands of dollars to create the appearance of security. Is that really going to stop a dedicated terrorist? No, but that's not the point. The point is for you to think it would stop a dedicated terrorist, just as some in the media needing a good story think an open gate puts us on the brink of a terrorist attack.

The very best thing we could say 10 years after 9/11 is we're not a country full of people afraid of their shadow anymore. We'd be wrong.

2) THE COST OF 'SAFETY'

How much has it cost to keep us 'safe' since 9/11? The Daily Beast has figured it out:

So where are we now? Check out this Slate.com story:

Ten years after 9/11, al-Qaida is in profound disarray. Osama bin Laden is dead. Fanatical Islam is on the decline. Our military remains the most sophisticated and experienced in the world. And yet, 10 years after 9/11, it's also clear that the war on terror was far too narrow a prism through which to see the entire planet. And the price we paid to fight it was far too high.

3) DULUTH RALLIES FOR HIGH SCHOOLER

Brooke Wright, a high school senior, lost her eyesight in March during surgery for a brain tumor that had been discovered four days earlier, the Duluth News Tribune reports. "She also lost her sense of smell and taste and was left with numbness in her face, symptoms that have abated only slightly since then. She isn't expected to ever see out of her right eye again, but there's hope for her left eye," the paper says.

It's cost the family about $100,000 so far. They have no health insurance. "We just send them what we can; send everybody something," her father, Chris Wright, said about paying the medical bills.

People have been chipping in and organizing benefits. Brooke, meanwhile, is trying to train to participate in an inline skating half-marathon up north in a few weeks.

4) YOU ARE EDITOR: NAMING NAMES

For the past few days, I've been fascinating by the Star Tribune's reporting of Saturday's shooting of a woman who tried to flee a state trooper on I-94 in Woodbury. The trooper, David Kalinoff, was dragged by Debra Doree, 48, of Landfall, when she took off after he apparently spotted what appeared to be drugs in the car. That's the substance of the story so far, which has appeared in the paper three times.

This is the notation in each of the stories, this one from today's final paragraph:

The woman, who lived near the shooting scene, a half-mile west of the Interstate 694/494 interchange, had no previous criminal record in Minnesota. Her husband, Scott W. Doree, 53, has multiple criminal and traffic convictions in Pine, Ramsey and Dakota counties, including for drug possession and drunken driving.

Her husband was not in the car and there's no evidence he was involved in the incident, at least not yet. The question: Should someone's criminal record be the subject of a story in which his/her involvement has not been indicated?

"Maybe they were his drugs," a pal on Twitter said yesterday. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe they were the drugs of a neighbor of the woman. Should that person's criminal record -- if there is one -- be publicized on the possibility?

The Associated Press and KARE 11 did not include the husband's past in its stories about the incident.

5) PEOPLE DOING GOOD (CONT'D)

In early 2009, LeVan Williams was living the bachelor's dream. He was a young, successful, pharmaceutical salesman, making a good salary and living in his Chicago condo, the Chicago Sun Times says. Life was good, but he felt something was missing. He knew he wanted to help his community. Why not adopt a kid in need?

He ended up with six.

"They said, 'We have good news, we have you a little boy,' " Williams said. "Then they asked me if I ever considered taking more than one child, and I was like, 'no.' Not unless they had brothers and sisters, because I wouldn't want to break up a family."

Then he got laid off.

Bonus: Google raised the bar on its doodle this week in honor of what would have been Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday.

It took three months to make the tribute, its author reports.

Now, if Google can just stop indicating that thriving businesses have closed. It's "Places" site apparently makes it easy for "vandals" to say the businesses are permanently closed, the New York Times reports.

By the way, YouTube is streaming the Wembley Queen concert until this evening.

TODAY'S QUESTION

President Obama will address a joint session of Congress and the nation Thursday night to explain his plan to promote job growth and improve the economy. Today's Question: In today's economy, what's the best strategy for creating jobs?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: FBI terrorism informants.

Second hour: The future of the "Arab spring."

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Economist Ed Lotterman explains the Federal Reserve system and of all its controversies.

Second hour: National Press Club broadcast, featuring former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Real stories from real people.

Second hour: Poet Philip Schultz on his dyslexia.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Thomas Friedman and his co-author looked at industry, innovation and the drive for education in the Far East. Their conclusion became the title of their new book: "That Used to Be Us." NPR interviews the New York Times columnist on how America fell behind and how it can come back.

The growing population of homeless teens also struggles to find enough to eat. And free food, from food shelves or food stamps, is sometimes used to barter for a place to sleep. MPR's Julie Siple talks with youth on their own, who constantly balance paying for a place to stay with something to eat.

South Africans Stanley Trollip and Michael Sears write detective thrillers together under the pen name name Michael Stanley. Their books about a murder investigator David Kubu Bengu in Botswana have been translated into Spanish, French and Italian, and they have enjoyed international success. They do this despite the fact Trollip lives half the year in Minnesota. They read from their new book "Death of the Mantis" at Once Upon a Crime on this evening and MPR's Euan Kerr talks to them.

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The con game in the corner office (5x8 - 9/2/11)

Posted at 7:11 AM on September 2, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Fraud and foreclosure, life in a 'man camp,' dying in Duluth, reporters white with foam, and the problem with kids being kids.

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Your speech to a joint session of Congress (5x8 - 9/1/11)

Posted at 7:12 AM on September 1, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

(Photo: KPCC)

1) THE ABSENCE OF HOPE

You've probably heard that the president and the speaker of the House were feuding again yesterday over a speech the president wants to give outlining a jobs plan. Most of the coverage was about the politics of the feud. Jobs? Not so much.

Coincidentally, in Los Angeles yesterday, a jobs fair drew about 5,000 people -- most of them black -- before it even started. It was an accumulation of -- as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times said -- "wasted wisdom."

It was, one woman told me later, "like going back to the old days," pre-Barack Obama; "before black politicians got complacent and forgot they're the ones that represent us."

The president who campaigned on hope is presiding instead over hopelessness. And doing little, it seems even to his fans these days, to rectify the economic malaise. The Job Fairs, the Town Halls, the Kitchen Table Summits ... they are all part of a campaign to put political pressure on not just Republicans, but our Democratic president.

Our sister station in Los Angeles -- KPCC -- reported it this way:

When 26 year-old Rekita Charles showed up around 4 a.m., she was the third person in line. By 7 a.m., that line wrapped around a city block. Charles is a single mother with three children and a full course load at Southwest College. She's worked as a receptionist, guarded properties and handled customer service, but in the couple of years none of her job experience seemed to help.

"Remember it was a time where I could quit one job and just be like, I'm gonna find me another job next week. I'll get the newspaper and get me a job. But now, it's just like...non-existent," she said.

A day earlier, thousands turned out at a job fair in Atlanta. People camped out overnight wearing their best suits.

Maybe the people who should be speaking to a joint session of Congress, are people who stand in line for hours waiting for a shot at a job. And going home without one.

Is that you? If you were invited to speak to Congress, what would you say that might make any difference? Make sure it includes specifics of a jobs plan.

Of course, this all assumes people in Washington and New York have some solution to the woe. NPR reports there's no indication anyone knows how to end this mess.

2) IT'S THE RAIN

There's another potential hurricane out there and, sure as shootin', the weatherpeople will be out on the beach talking about the wind, missing the #1 lesson from last week's disaster: It's not the wind; it's the rain that'll get you., the Washington Post reports:

"People aren't scared of rain; they're scared of wind," said Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor of atmospheric science who has studied hurricanes. "In most people's minds, a hurricane is principally a wind event, and if they have heavy rain -- it's incidental, it's too bad."

The media generally think along the same lines, which is why hurricane coverage typically features a soggy, windblown weather reporter standing on a beach, shouting warnings of greater fury to come.

"Rainfall isn't sexy. Everyone went to the coast looking for the wind and the storm surge," said David Vallee, a National Weather Service hydrologist in Taunton, Mass.

In a generic storm, the experts said, most people who die aren't whacked by flying debris; they drown in fresh water.

In Brattleboro, Vermont, the water has receded, and now there's a flood of nice people underway (Brattleboro Reformer).

One man whose spent nearly eight hours per day helping clean tools and put the shop back together, (motorsports shop owner Stan)Lynde met at a coffee shop.

"He just asked me if I needed help with anything. I said sure and he's been here every day since working his butt off," Lynde said.

3) 9/11 AT 10

PBS NewsHour has been soliciting videos of people describing how 9/11 has changed their lives. Here are a couple of Minnesotans' reaction.

4) SAY SOMETHING NICE

What if we had a national holiday in which everyone just said nice things?

Go ahead, right down there in the comments section...

5) DAILY FAIR ZEN

Mark Wheat's favorite things at the State Fair...

If you saw a pregnant woman drinking at the Fair, would you say something? A group trying to raise awareness of fetal alcohol syndrome tested the question this week, WCCO reports.

Bonus: "Nothing says you're on an American street" more than the big, blue mailbox, Nancy Pope, the postal historian at the Smithsonian, says. But, the San Francisco Chronicle says, they're disappearing fast. Most of them have been removed because nobody uses them.

What has changed is us. In the 1970s, when women entered the workforce in earnest, letter writing began to decline because women - who had been the primary letter writers - had less spare time. At the same time, long-distance phone calls became cheaper.

"The Internet didn't kill mailboxes. We started the process long before the Internet came around," Pope said.

TODAY'S QUESTION

Although the Minnesota State Fair prohibits smoking in public buildings and in the seating areas of entertainment venues, fairgoers encounter lots of cigarette smoke. Today's Question: Should the State Fair prohibit smoking on the fairgrounds?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Travel expert Rudy Maxa at the State Fair.

Second hour: Food writer Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: An MPR special report and a discussion with St. Paul school superintendent Valeria Silva and Eric Mahmoud, founder of Harvest Prep and Best Academy, on ways to improve the achievement of minority students.

Second hour: Biz Stone and Evan Williams on the future of the Internet..

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: What's next in Afghanistan?

Second hour: The age of information overload.

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So long, summer (5x8 - 8/31/11)

Posted at 7:22 AM on August 31, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Our Fair summer, a better way to board an airplane, the life of Irene, 9/11 at 10, and cross carrying Chuck.

Continue reading " So long, summer (5x8 - 8/31/11)"

The mean backyards of Bloomington (5x8 - 8/30/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on August 30, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Busting the birdman, tapped-out FEMA, should daycare providers be required to join a union, blues for Honeyboy, and 500 people in 100 seconds.

Continue reading "The mean backyards of Bloomington (5x8 - 8/30/11)"

Irene's freak show (5x8 - 8/29/11)

Posted at 7:07 AM on August 29, 2011 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Why the storm wasn't overhyped, dogs and the mentally ill, the secret life of metal-detector hunters, the way we learn, and what the end of summer looks like.

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The barber's friends (5x8 - 8/12/11)

Posted at 7:11 AM on August 12, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

This will be the last Five by Eight for two weeks. We're driving out to Cape Cod and Vermont for a few weeks of looking at water and thinking about nothing. All you need is a good porch, a chair, and an ocean. Check.

It's Friday. Friday is for giving deserving people a chance at a little attention.

1) PEOPLE DOING GOOD: THE BARBER'S FRIENDS

I wrote briefly about this 89-year-old barber earlier this week...

Aaron Biber's shop was vandalized in the riots in the UK. He didn't have any insurance and couldn't afford to fix things. NewsCut reader Pat Kaluza of Lakeville writes this morning to report people have pitched in to help him get back in business. The Keep Aaron Cutting website has been raising money to clean up the shop and provides this video...

Keep Aaron Cutting from BBH Barn on Vimeo.

A similar effort has been launched for Siva Kandiah, whose shop was wiped out. The website is Help Siva. And the site set up for Ashraf Haziq has stopped taking donations; they received plenty for the young man who was robbed and beaten at the height of the riots.

2) GAVIN'S WISH

Gavin Maus, 5, of West Fargo, has wanted to ride on a big green tractor and has wanted to eat crab on a beach. Yesterday, a few dozen people marched up his street, behind a big green tractor. This weekend, the people who raised enough money for him will send him and his family to Virginia to go crabbing.

3) THE INVISIBLE ARTIST

Liu Bolin camouflages himself in his art. His latest work is in a grocery store. It's a protest, apparently, against the use of plastic. His exhibit is opening in New York. Find him -- if you can -- here.

4) TIME FLIES, TOO

Marine pilot Lloyd Flynn and his gunner mate Dan Williams hadn't seen each other since 1944, until yesterday in Edina. It was Dan's son who arranged the surprise, and drove him from Washington state, the Star Tribune's Tom Meersman says.

5) IF A COMEDIAN DETERMINED THE NEXT PRESIDENT

Stephen Colbert, the comedian, won his fight to create a "super PAC," partly as a protest against the political fundraising system. Overnight, he released his second ad in advance of the Iowa straw poll.

Rick Hasen, who writes the Election Law blog, tells Marketplace that Colbert may be "playing with fire," influencing the election in ways he didn't intend.

"I think it's completely ambiguous, and that is why if this were a real election, I'd find Colbert's behavior very troubling," he said.

I'll bite. How? By making a mockery of a serious, issue-filled, intelligent, well-informed campaign system?

MY 'TODAY'S QUESTION'

What dreams should we have about tomorrow?

THE OFFICIAL 'TODAY'S QUESTION'

Republican presidential candidates Michelle Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty traded jabs at a debate in Ames, Iowa last night ahead of Saturday's Iowa straw poll. Meanwhile, Texas Governor Rick Perry says he'll enter the race. Today's Question: Which Republican has the best chance of getting the party's nomination for president?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Strategies for reducing the amount of household waste.

Second hour: Gardening questions and answers.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Wall.

Second hour: Roy Blount Jr.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Will climate change cause more people to go hungry?

Second hour: How to get kids interested in science.

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When life intervenes (5x8 - 8/11/11)

Posted at 7:22 AM on August 11, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Taking risks in uncertain times, gaming the economy, a family goes to war, censoring kids' stories, the things you can't do in summer, and going home again.

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What turns people into looters? (5x8 - 8/10/11)

Posted at 7:48 AM on August 10, 2011 by Bob Collins (22 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The predictable outcome of nothing to lose, Wisconsin speaks, PTSD and 9/11, the polar bear probe, and Ellen in Minneapolis

Continue reading " What turns people into looters? (5x8 - 8/10/11)"

Breast cancer gets cold shoulder (5x8 - 8/9/11)

Posted at 7:25 AM on August 9, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Why men with breast cancer get the government's cold shoulder, on the death of Elizabeth Mulay, bring back Washington's birthday, the new financial picture, and Keillor at 69.

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The market mess (5x8 - 8/8/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on August 8, 2011 by Bob Collins (21 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The downgrade debacle, dragon boats, the 78-square-foot apartment, the food truck controversy in St. Paul, and cigarettes and the first 30 minutes of your day.

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There's no news here (5x8 - 8/5/11)

Posted at 6:48 AM on August 5, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

I'm not really here and you're not really reading this, welcome the coming winter, a little zip in Duluth, a moose head in Ellendale, and to be 12 again.

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Art or eyesore? (5x8 - 8/4/11)

Posted at 7:13 AM on August 4, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

When kids paint, talking cake instead of taxes, the power of the Facebook status update, the circus and the Age of Abundance, and the Somalia famine.

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Your message from the great unknown (5x8 - 8/3/11)

Posted at 6:58 AM on August 3, 2011 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The message-in-a-bottle mystery, the retirement crisis, leadership qualities of the mentally ill, forgiveness in Olivia, and the problem with 'Wigger Wednesday'.

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Congressional inspiration (5x8 - 8/2/11)

Posted at 7:45 AM on August 2, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Giffords returns to Congress, Minnesota as an ATM, how to bully a teacher, the inside story of the death of bin Laden, and your dinner shouldn't dance.

Continue reading " Congressional inspiration (5x8 - 8/2/11)"

Kicking the can to the committee (5x8 - 8/1/11)

Posted at 7:02 AM on August 1, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

An old solution surfaces in Washington, Dakota's water world, the mansion by the lake, the blue screen of matrimonial death, and juggling Minnesota.

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The photos of pols past (5x8 - 7/29/11)

Posted at 7:00 AM on July 29, 2011 by Bob Collins (20 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Jerome Liebling's Minnesota, a good paddling, who pays no taxes, people who do good (cont'd), and cellphones, cancer, and kids.

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The end of free (5x8 - 7/28/11)

Posted at 7:32 AM on July 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The end of free TV, the Vikes' new man, the Tea Party illusion, when summer stinks, and how the economy really works.

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Depression (5x8 - 7/27/11)

Posted at 7:07 AM on July 27, 2011 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

People who matter, Westover v. Quimby, for the love of a cougar woman, a fight at the beach, the economy in song, and the worst umpire call this season.

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Treating soldiers with dogs (5x8 - 7/26/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on July 26, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) A DOG SHALL SAVE THEM

Dogs sit in a shelter awaiting their destruction, soldiers sit with cocked guns to their heads. Who would have thought that each would save the other?

A soldier started Pets to Vets after a dog saved his life. "There's 18 veterans that commit suicide every day in this country," he said, "and one animal is put to sleep every eight seconds."

After that piece aired on CBS last night, dozens of people went to the P2V Facebook page and offered to help.

2) TAG, YOU'RE IN U2'S CONCERT

If you went to Saturday's U2 concert in Minneapolis, you can probably find yourself in the picture above. U2's website has posted a panorama picture of the crowd, and is inviting people to find and tag themselves. Go here.

If you didn't go to the concert, you can still have fun finding people in the crowd doing interesting things.

3) FROM THE "THINGS YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T KNOW" FILE

This is usually the beginning of drought season in parts of Minnesota, but the Red River in Fargo is still in flood stage. It hasn't completely receded within its banks since the annual spring flooding started in March.

4) WHAT THE WINEHOUSE REACTION SAYS ABOUT US

Her fans are leaving memorials outside the home of the late singer Amy Winehouse, whose funeral will be held today. Many of them don't really "get it." Like hundreds of people all around us -- people who get no attention and for whom strangers shed few tears -- Winehouse self-medicated a mental health problem.

Judging by some of what people are leaving at the memorial, some of her fans are just fine with that, as long as she left her music behind for them to enjoy.

If she'd died of lung cancer, would people leave a carton of cigarettes?

5) THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON FOOTBALL

NFL training camps are set to open this weekend -- the first Vikings open practice in Mankato will be Monday -- now that the NFL lockout is over.

You may not want to watch this video from The Guardian. You may not want to think about it on Sundays this fall while you applaud the big hit. It's the brain of a former player, who donated his brain to research on what playing football does to it. There are 75 athletes' brains on dry ice in the brain bank outside of Boston.

The Guardian reports on the research into former NFL star Dave Duerson...

On 17 February 2011, aged 50, Duerson killed himself inside his Florida apartment. He did so in a manner that was in keeping with his unimpaired earlier self - meticulously, neatly, and with a thought to others. He had placed his NFL Man of the Year trophy, awarded in 1987, on a table beside the spot at which he fell, along with several notes setting out his financial and other arrangements. One of the notes carried a request that he repeated in a text message earlier that day to his ex-wife, Alicia. "Please, see that my brain is given to the NFL's brain bank," he said.

The request might have been deemed a quirk had it not tallied with the unusual method of Duerson's suicide. He shot himself in the heart.

Bonus A kerfuffle anew has broken out in the NPR firing of Juan Williams. He's got a new book out that tells his side of the story. Today, former NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard pens a column that suggests NPR was pushing Williams out the door long before his "Muslim garb" comment on Fox got him fired, and Williams never got -- or at least, took -- the hint.

"If you are a staff person and all the sudden your employer says that we are going to cut your remuneration and cut your expectation of how many times you can be on the air," said the editor, "how would you interpret that?"

Considering his diminished capacity, I wonder why Williams stayed at NPR. Particularly if he felt frozen out and undervalued, as he writes. I concluded that NPR gave him the credibility among the mainstream media that he enjoyed; while Fox gave him visibility and credibility among conservatives. But then that is my opinion, not a fact.

MPR's Kerri Miller will interview Williams about all of this on Friday night in Saint Paul.

TODAY'S QUESTION

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner addressed the nation last night to give their different views of the debt-ceiling impasse. Today's Question: Do you find Obama or Boehner more persuasive?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: How well are colleges preparing students for today's job market?

Second hour: Internet dating.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: The economics of government default.

Second hour: E.J. Dionne, syndicated columnist with The Washington Post.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: The mechanics, hurdles, purpose and leadership of a viable third party in politics.

Second hour: Why the rich get richer, and what it might mean for America.

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Should the manifesto have been publicized? (5x8 - 7/25/11)

Posted at 6:50 AM on July 25, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

A manifesto manifesto, U2 in the rain, a more perfect Union in St. Paul, Cuddyer in focus, and the land of 10,000 Santas.

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The kid and the baseball (5x8 - 7/22/11)

Posted at 7:32 AM on July 22, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Everything you think you know about kids today may be wrong, shuttle pictures worth oogling, the Red River wins in Moorhead, cigarettes and the Constitution, and landing a plane on a highway.

Continue reading "The kid and the baseball (5x8 - 7/22/11)"

Three by Seven

Posted at 7:00 AM on July 18, 2011 by Eric Ringham (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Listen, kids, when Mr. Collins went away to paint a house, he left us in charge. What's that? You miss Mr. Collins? So do we. When will he be back? When he's finished painting, that's when. Until that time, you're stuck with us. Let's not have any more whining, or Mr. Collins will be angry with you when he gets back.

Now, Mr. Collins told us you like to have a Five by Eight every day, and on Mondays you've gotten used to a Monday Morning Rouser too. Well, well, well. Is that all? Perhaps you'd like a pedicure, as well?

A Five by Eight is not going to happen. We can't really see how Mr. Collins manages to pull that off, day after day. We're lucky to get five by five - p.m., that is. Until Mr. Collins comes back, we'll all just have to make do. Here's a Three by Seven.

1. First up: A Monday Morning Rouser.

That's Susan Tedeschi, who's playing at the Minnesota Zoo later this summer. She may be the missing link between Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt.

2. News Cut almost never gets into deep theological questions, but here's one: The story of the mysterious blood-red communion wafer at a Catholic Church in St. Paul. An article last week in the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported, carefully, on the story of the wafer, which was accidentally dropped on the ground and then disposed of according to a precise procedure. One step of that procedure involved the wafer being left to dissolve in water. It didn't dissolve; instead it ... it ... well, according to the Rev. John Echert of St. Augustine Church, it came to resemble bloody tissue. "It appeared to be like the blood red of tissue," he said in the Pioneer Press story. "If I had not known what it was, I would have thought that there was maybe a small bloody piece of tissue."

The story quotes Catholic officials saying prudent and cautious things, reportedly because they don't want to risk hitting the "miracle" button prematurely. There is some conjecture, for example, that bacteria might be involved, as supposedly happened in a similar case in Texas. "The Church does not presume supernatural causes for things that can have a natural explanation," said Dennis McGrath, spokesman for the archdiocese.

So here's the theological question: If a priest finds a communion wafer that even appears to have become bloody, why isn't that a miracle right there? So what if bacteria are involved - didn't God create the bacteria too? If we start limiting our understanding of miracles to things science can't explain, then the supply of miracles will shrink as scientific knowledge expands. That can't be right. And if a scientist looks through a microscope to discover the bacteria - well, didn't God make the scientist? Discuss.

3. "This theater, right here, is a treasure in your midst," Rainn Wilson said to a friendly crowd Sunday afternoon at the Guthrie. For more than an hour, he had proved the point. Wilson, who has come to terms with the likelihood that his obituary will say, "best known for his portrayal of Dwight Schrute on the TV sitcom, 'The Office,' " performed in several Guthrie productions early in his career. He appeared on stage with Artistic Director Joe Dowling yesterday as part of the Guthrie's "In Conversation" series.

From the moment Wilson emerged from a hatch on the "H.M.S. Pinafore" set, he and Dowling were engaged in a witty, charming dialogue that seemed once or twice to be entirely free of forethought. It may have been the first time on a public stage that anyone, for example, dared compare the Irish-born Dowling to the Lucky Charms leprechaun.

"You're on very thin ice," Dowling observed.

"I really like this theater," replied Wilson. "In fact, I'm thinking of buying it."

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The secret message of the American flag (5x8 - 7/11/11)

Posted at 7:45 AM on July 11, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Monday Morning Rouser....

I'm working a short week this week. Today. Then I'm heading to New England to paint my saintly mother's house, returning in a few weeks. Others will fill-in while I'm gone but I don't believe there are plans for 5x8s during this time.

1) THE FLAG PARTY

You probably won't be seeing a lot of American flags in campaign commercials for Democrat candidates. A University of Chicago study has found that when people see an American flag, their political belief shifts toward the GOP, the Discover blog reports.

Perhaps the volunteers moved towards the dominant party at the time? Carter thinks not. In the spring of 2010, with Obama a year in power, Carter recruited 70 people and asked them to look at four photographs. Half the people saw buildings with flags in front of them; the others saw photos where the flags had been digitally removed. Even though the two groups had the same spectrum of political beliefs beforehand, the flag group shifted towards a Republican worldview after seeing the photos. It doesn't seem to matter who is sitting in the White House at the time.

We like to think that their political beliefs and choices are the result of thoughtful consideration and objective analysis. In truth, several studies have now shown that voting simply isn't that rational. Our choices are affected by unconscious preferences, our reflexes, and even local sports results. We are so predictable that people can guess the victors of elections with a surprising degree of accuracy based only on fleeting glances. In this context, the idea that a powerful national symbol like a flag could affect political preferences is not unreasonable.

2) MUCH ADO ABOUT TWITTER

When used by politicians, Twitter has an amazing ability to distract otherwise intelligent people from the issues.

Sure, there's plenty of hypocrisy involved in Michael Brodkorb's -- the long-time GOP attack man -- tweeting on state time; he made a name for himself railing against such things when he operated the Minnesota Democrats Exposed website. But he's the communications boss now for state Capitol Republicans and partisan communication is hardly limited to one side of this mess. As Tim Pugmire points out in his story today, both sides have taken to Twitter to push positions that enlighten or inform no one.

But this is the theatrical part of any political debate.

The reality of the Brodkorb and his opponents' tweets is that they have virtually no impact on any aspect of the shutdown. Nobody on Twitter turns to Brodkorb -- or any other partisan at the Capitol -- for news at the Capitol. They do so for entertainment. Followers already have an opinion that's firmly rooted on one side of the issue or the other, they're usually insiders -- other politicians, special interests, or the media. No tweet is going to change that.

In other shutdown "news," we got an interesting comment yesterday from one of the state workers who didn't get laid off:

I work for the State of MN and am currently working as my job was deemed critical. I'm fed up w/ the union types leading this story. Your story didn't mention the amount of unemployment these "idled" employees will receive if the shut down continues much longer. We calculated it last week and would receive almost enough UC (unemployment compensation) to make up the net pay we receive. Where is that in your boo-hoo story? I worked during the last shut down as well. I worked for my income while the unions got back pay for those that didn't -- paid vacation without having to use vacation time. Why don't you cover that? But I trust that MPR is only interested in furthering Dayton's and the union's agenda. By the way, I am not Dayton's cook or house keeper, which, as you know, he requested be included in the list of essential employees -- can you say "elitist?"

Elitist. I guess I can.

But back to the issues, MPR's Elizabeth Dunbar has an excellent assessment of what the budget debate is all about.

3) FLIPPED OUT IN SPACE

It's a series of "lasts" for the space shuttle Atlantis, the last manned space mission for the U.S. for a lifetime, for many of us. Over the weekend, it did the "backflip" so a photographer on the space station could check for damage.

The tech editor of ZDnet writes today that the sooner the shuttle is put out to pasture the better:

We don't need no stinking re-useable components. Give us safe, simple systems that work, so we can get our people up there safely and more often, instead of the ridiculous turnaround time that it takes to refurbish and recycle launch systems.

Space trivia: Thirty-two years ago today, the abandoned United States space station Skylab burned up in the atmosphere, showring the Indian Ocean and Australia with debris. Only three Apollo crews went to Skylab before its fiery death. (Wired)

4) THE CURSE OF THE NOAA RADIO

I took the advice of meteorologists a few years ago and bought one of those NOAA Radio/alarm clocks that goes off when there's a weather warning. Over the last two nights, I haven't been able to sleep, but I've been fully informed in knowing there was a line of severe thunderstorms extending from some small town I've never heard of to another small town I've never heard of.

Judging by the damage in my neighborhood this morning -- overturned recycling bins -- the sleep-to-risk ratio was out of whack. I heard the warnings, I ignored them. If I'd met a meteorological fate in my bed, at least I'd know why. But the technology is a flawed one, forcing us to be roused with alerts that might better be aimed for someone 10 or 20 miles away.

But this was all good news for teenager Trevor Cokley, a storm chaser, who caught the weather near New Albany yesterday...

Here's his website.

On the side of my house this morning, incidentally, there are dozens of dead mosquitoes, smooshed against the siding. Is it possible that the wind was heavy enough to slam the poor critters to their demise?

5) CAR RACE BREAKS OUT AT TOUR DE FRANCE

Is this the Tour de France yesterday or rush hour in St. Paul?

TODAY'S QUESTION

Nearly 700 million people use Facebook, but many of them complain about some of its features. Now Google has launched Google Plus as an alternative social network site. Today's Question: What part of your social network experience would you like to change?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: The "war on drugs," officially declared by President Nixon in 1971, has largely been viewed as a failure. 40 years later, we look back at what has been achieved and what changes need to be made in US drug policy.

Second hour: Live coverage of President Obama's news conference.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Former finance commissioners John Gunyou and Jay Kiedrowski explain the budget and tax options available to lawmakers and the governor.

Second hour: From the Aspen Ideas Festival, two speakers address the question, "Are the girls beating the boys?

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: The bottom line on the debt ceiling,

Second hour: The challenges facing the world's newest country, South Sudan.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Keeping prisoners locked up remains a core government function during the shutdown, but the Department of Corrections is minimally staffed and only performing critical functions. For inmates, that means no visits from family or volunteers, and no indoor recreation time. MPR's Sasha Aslanian checks in with the guards, inmates, families and volunteers about the impact during shutdown.

Meg Talbot, the author of "The Princess Diaries," has migrated to vampires. She'll talk vampires, summer reads and how she was copied. MPR's Euan Kerr will have the story.

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Collateral damage of a state shutdown (5x8 - 7/8/11)

Posted at 7:28 AM on July 8, 2011 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Could the shutdown last into January, why are we so fat, where to draw the line on presidential letters, Field of Dreams 2, and there's something about band directors.

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Women lose in economic recovery (5x8 - 7/7/11)

Posted at 7:11 AM on July 7, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

It's a man's recovery, shutdown: win or die trying, paddlers reach Fargo, and a look at Google+, and the human homerun.

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Shutdown: Should the state look the other way? (5x8 - 7/6/11)

Posted at 7:08 AM on July 6, 2011 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Regulating Minnesota, outrage of the day, the future of Cirrus, Tsunami boosts dry casks, the dust that ate Phoenix and the Coon Lake water spout.

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The musical shutdown (5x8 - 7/5/11)

Posted at 7:01 AM on July 5, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Musical interpretations of the shutdown, when people do good, what's it like to be fireworks, the death of the serial comma, and the Milky Way from South Dakota.

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Blogging unemployment (5x8 - 7/4/11)

Posted at 6:52 AM on July 4, 2011 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Monday Morning Rouser...

1) HOW ONE STATE WORKER SPENDS THE SHUTDOWN

"Since I've got plenty of free time on my hands for the near term, I decided to give a try at blogging my experiences and thoughts as we go through the shutdown experience," says Michael Stalberger of Mankato. He's been working for the state of Minnesota for eight years in the Department of Revenue. For now, however, you can find him at The Unemployment Line, his new blog.

Today, since I'm now officially not a state employee, I don't have the state-assigned phone. It's sitting in some file cabinet, collecting messages until the battery drains. Do batteries drain when it's powered off? That's the sort of thing I'm worrying about right now. How quickly will I be able to get it powered up when we return to work? See, I really am a workaholic.

I expect this foolish worrying will be replaced with real concerns the longer the shutdown lasts. Worries such as how will the mortgage be paid? What about groceries and utilities? Gas?

As I mentioned yesterday, I responsibily built an emergency fund, but it seems rather unfair that I have to use it on an emergency resulting from something completely within the control of others.

There's no reason I should have to start worrying about my finances, right? There's definitely no reason I should have to worry about all my co-workers who are in worse situations than me, who have no cushion, who have all the household income coming from state employ, who have just purchased a house, or who are expecting a child.

At the Capitol, Chris Lapakko continues his one-man protest against the shutdown (warning: obscenity)...

Meanwhile, Arnetta Phillips and her husband had a deal with Minnesota. They adopted a difficult-to-adopt child under a state program and Minnesota helped pay for some of the expenses of caring for a child whose brain was badly damaged by the biological mother's use of cocaine and alcohol, the Pioneer Press reports. That deal is now off.

2) BLIND CARPENTER HONORED

A hand grenade claimed Dean Pedersen's sight in the Vietnam War, but it didn't stop him from pursuing a career in carpentry, the Fargo Forum reports. "The more you're around Dean, you don't even think that he can't see," his wife says. This Old House magazine is honoring Pedersen for his work.

3) THE HELMET LAW RECONSIDERED

Philip A. Contos, 55, didn't mean to become a symbol for people who think motorcyclists should be required to wear a helmet. That was before he fell off his bike at a rally against helmet laws in upstate New York over the weekend, hit his head, and died.

New York is one of fewer than two dozen states that require helmets. Most of Contos' colleagues aren't swayed by his death.

The accident apparently happened because Contos' bootlaces got stuck in the bike's chain. Boots are not banned in New York when riding a motorcycle.

4) AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

Whoops! The Star Tribune has an article this morning on the proper way to display and handle the American flag, and violates the U.S. Flag Code with this graphic:

This is the section of the U.S. Flag Code (36 U.S.C. 176) that's violated:

(g) The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.

This should get people talking at the Albert Lea July 4th parade...

5) WE THE PURPLE

Tradition is tradition at NewsCut.

Bonus: Allen Mullins of Dalton, GA., has been walking America (as Captain America) to raise awareness of the plight of some soldiers returning from war. This weekend he was in Fairfax, Minnesota...

Mullens previously walked 5,000 miles around the country dressed as Superman to raise awareness for homeless veterans, the Chaska Herald says.

TODAY'S QUESTION

John Adams thought that Independence Day ought to be observed with "acts of devotion to God" and "with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations." Today's Question: How will you celebrate the Fourth of July?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Summer home repair.

Second hour: Historian H.W. Brands writes in his book "American Dreams" that the act of dreaming has been encoded in Americans' DNA from the very beginning. He joins Midmorning to discuss how that dream has changed over the past 65 years.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Are we getting the representation and leadership we want?

Second hour: TBA

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: The politics of the Constitution.

Second hour: Jim Axelrod, CBS national correspondent, author of "In The Long Run: A Father, a Son, and Unintentional Lessons in Happiness"

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The shutdown in three tweets (5x8 - 7/1/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on July 1, 2011 by Bob Collins (24 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) HOW DID WE GET HERE?

There's not a lot left to say about the government shutdown that hasn't already been said -- or is being said better elsewhere -- so let me focus on 140 characters saying it.

It's true that people may not consciously have said "I'll vote for this person because he wants to raise taxes and I'll vote for that person because he doesn't," but that was the net effect because enough people did. And that's what happens when people vote on things other than issues (a problem with the way the media covers elections, but that's another story for another day).

Here's the legislative results (House) in the 2010 election. The deeper the shade, the more support for the particular party (red for GOP, blue for DFL).

Here's the support map for the governor's race.

It doesn't matter that the general colors don't change much, the shades do and in close elections, that was enough to create the split government with each side insisting that you gave them a mandate.

In his MPR commentary today, John Wodele blames the insiders who dictate the choices you get on Election Day:

But in the general election a funny thing happened. Voters chose both. They elected a "no new taxes" legislature and a "tax the rich" governor, solutions that by themselves - as nearly every nonpartisan economic expert tells us -- are no solutions at all.

But woe to the elected official in either party who would compromise for the good of the people. Or, for that matter, go against party leaders and propose a more substantive solution -- a comprehensive and balanced solution that would include spending cuts, increased revenue from consumption taxes, a short-term surtax tilted toward the highest earners (but also middle to high earners), and the always promised but never quite achieved reform of government services.

You can't go to a state park? You can't pee between Hudson and Fargo? That's an inconvenience; an unhappy inconvenience, to be sure, but an inconvenience it is. They're also the most telegenic aspect of covering the story and -- for the most part -- the people inconvenienced may more closely mirror the readership/viewership/listenership of the news organizations telling those legitimate stories.

But it's important for us to note that even with the judge's order the other day requiring "essential services" to stay open, there are more essential services -- life and death -- that aren't

Tweet #3:

The shutdown is now in the hands of the professional spinmeisters. In three extraordinary news conferences last night, both sides tried to limit the amount of insight into the negotiations. One side said they were close to a deal, another side said they weren't.

So it fell to the Capitol reporters to challenge them to answer questions with facts and they shrank from the challenge in order to stay on the message.

It started around 9:30 last night with this news conference. Note the question-and-answer portion (paying particular attention to the one at 3:36) that was cut short even though there were more answers being sought.

Not much was working right up at the Capitol last night; the exception was the Capitol press corps.

We in the media spent hours and hours trying to explain what was behind the initial budget stalemate at the Capitol. MPR's Curtis Gilbert and Molly Bloom then did it well in a little under three minutes.

And finally, for now, colleague Jeff Jones offers this historical note:

Looks like the Governor gave his speech last night in the Governor's Reception Room underneath the huge mural of the Battle of Gettysburg, which -- as it happens -- began exactly 148 years ago today (July 1-3, 1863). It's a seriously creepy piece of artwork, but the reason it's there is to honor the 1st Minnesota Volunteers who, in that battle, suffered the highest casualty rate of any regiment in U.S. military history...before or since. 83% of the troops who charged Confederate lines were killed or wounded. Only 47 men came back.

Continue reading "The shutdown in three tweets (5x8 - 7/1/11)"

Shutdown Cinema (5x8 - 6/30/11)

Posted at 6:55 AM on June 30, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Seven scenes about Minnesota government, the stadium deal, a special place for the jerks who prey on us, Blyleven trivia, and Gollub sings.

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What are you ready to do without? (5x8 - 6/29/11)

Posted at 7:19 AM on June 29, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE TICK-TOCK STATE

This is, you may have heard, the last day that legislators can reach a deal and still avert a shutdown of state government tomorrow night. Most news organizations have spent the last few weeks running stories about what the effects of the shutdown will be.

"So if medical assistance shuts down, we lose our clients, and those people are without services," social worker Julia Pawlenty, a distant relative of the man who would be president, said yesterday. "They're without the therapy; they're without the chemical dependency services that they receive each day. They're kind of left in the dust."

Suffice it to say: the negotiators know that. They've known that since January when the budget process started. Just a few days into the session, a committee that handles the mental health budget was already holding a hearing into the effects of a shutdown.

We don't know what's happening in the negotiations -- who's holding out for an expansion of gambling, for example -- because both sides have imposed a "cone of silence," to prevent the dastardly media from gumming up the non-works.

GOP Rep. King Banaian, at a town-hall meeting in St. Cloud, predicted an agreement will avert the shutdown. "I'm optimistic." Banaian said. "I'm hoping we're going to have a solution, and I really feel like it's going to happen."

But Banaian acknowledged he doesn't have any inside information; legislative leaders aren't telling the lawmakers what's going on, either. He says he's going off what's being reported in the media, and there's very little being reported in the media that hints at anything but a suspension of services tomorrow night.

Things will likely move -- or not -- today when/if a court rules on what services must continue in the event of a shutdown. That's when the negotiators will have a better idea exactly how much a shutdown will hurt their constituencies.

The various letters to the editor sections of newspapers and talk-radio shows have called for "compromise," but a week or so after the beginning of all of these stories of the effects of a shutdown, we still don't have a clear picture what services people are willing to give up in a deal.

Here's your chance.

Continue reading "What are you ready to do without? (5x8 - 6/29/11)"

Five ways to ignore the 'real' news (5x8 - 6/28/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on June 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

I'm paid to write about the news, mostly the news that leaves you hopeless. That's what serious news does; it leaves you with a sense of despair. That's how we know it's important to you. You've probably heard that we're going to have a state shutdown, the economy stinks, little kids are turning their drunk mothers in, and the rivers are flooding homes all over the Upper Midwest. Uplifting stuff.

What more is there to say about any of those things except to wonder aloud whether there's more to life than this? I say there is and today's 5x8 gives you five ideas for coping with the day's events, which you can read about elsewhere if you need a fix.

The weather experts say today will be one of the 10 best days of the year. Wouldn't it be grand if the news matched it?

1) WATCH OTHER PEOPLE WORK

Sometimes, you just have to stop and smell the demolition.

There was a time in the distant past that a good building demolition would attract a crowd. The blow-them-up days killed the "sidewalk supervisor," who watched the orderly and traditional dismantling of something someone was once proud to create. Downtown Saint Paul these days offers infinite possibilities for the super but we noted yesterday that nobody was much interested in the death of this building on Sixth Street between Cedar and Minnesota.

It's all glass and begging for a whack with the giant steel ball attached to the crane. The wrecking crane once spoke for all of us, we'd watch from the sidewalk and dream that the building would represent, say, a bad day of work. Wham! "Do it again! This next one's for you, politicians!" Even the word dripped with satisfying retribution: "Demolished."

But, alas, they're not taking buildings down that way, anymore. There's no wrecking ball. Only bobcats operating on each floor, dismantling each piece. It's all so very neat and unsatisfying, a fact you can only surmise by stopping on your walk to somewhere and investigating.

The building, by the way, is being demolished to make way for a new transportation center for light-rail, which will make the turn here from its southern route to the east.

Continue reading "Five ways to ignore the 'real' news (5x8 - 6/28/11)"

Celebrating Minnesota (5x8 - 6/27/11)

Posted at 7:29 AM on June 27, 2011 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Monday Morning Rouser:

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Working 9 to 9 (5x8 - 6/23/11)

Posted at 7:51 AM on June 23, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE PEOPLE LEFT WORKING

Millions of people have lost their jobs in the economic collapse of the United States, but what about the people who didn't? What about the people left behind?

They're working harder, often for less, trying to pick up the additional work created by downsizing.

Mother Jones magazine considers the plight of the worker still working...

"I am exhausted," said a "part time" college instructor in Illinois. "I can't help my son with his homework because I am grading papers until late into the night. I get up very early during the week, skip lunch to save not money but time, and the workload never lets up. My employer uses and abuses full-time employees even more so than those of us that are hourly. My supervisor, for example, runs a large department. He was just promoted to a new, even more demanding position, but his position running the department will not be filled. He will now be doing what is a 60-to-70-hour job 'on the side.' I can't complain of overwork, because everyone is competing to get enough classes to pay the bills. If you lose a class, you lose a chunk of your paycheck. If we can't handle it, the class can always be given to another teacher who will be desperate for the work or money."

The magazine also says while men are picking up a greater share of at-home functions, it's still women who are doing most of it ...

Twenty-two percent of those surveyed say they're expected to respond to work-related e-mails when they're not working. A third check their work e-mail while on vacation.

What's happening here? Let's talk. What's your experience in the workplace? And how are you squaring it with your non-work hours in which you find yourself working? And how much of your increased non-working-hours workload are the result of actual employer pressure and how much is self-imposed?

2) BEAUTY AND THE BRIDGE

The "new" I-35W is all Minnesota. It's not particularly flashy, it gets the job done, but it's beautiful, especially at night. The bridge could be Minneapolis' Empire State Building, which uses its lighting for themes. New Year's Eve? It's all white (snow). Valentine's Day? Red, of course. And when a visiting foreign dignitary is in the city, the colors are often based on that country's flag.

When the I-35W bridge was built, designers gave it this capability and on Friday, the city -- thanks to MnDOT -- will get around to using it. It'll be lit in a rainbow to mark this weekend's Pride Festival in the city. John Weeks, who wrote a fine article on the bridge lighting, reports it was lit in pink at least once to promote breast cancer awareness.

Our friend, Paul Weimer, has some of the few images of the bridge in a color other than its traditional blue, taken in 2008 when the lightning system was being tested.

(Image from Paul Weimer via Flickr)

September 1978

It was a good move by Pride organizers to ask that the bridge be lit appropriately this weekend. What do you say we do it more often, Minneapolis?

3) SURGING TOWARD MINOT

Water broke through the dikes in Minot overnight and the heartbreak is on. It's already a record flood on the Souris River and it's going to get 7 feet higher soon. For many people, there'll be nothing left when -- if -- they return.

Here's the Fargo Forum's collection ...

Flood water is being released by the Army Corps of Engineers from Lake Darling upstream. A surge will hit Minot today. "It will be dramatic," an Army official said.

We should be getting into the dry season now when water tables begin to drop, accommodating rain later in the year and snowmelt next spring. That obviously isn't happening and one wonders what the impact will be on next spring's flood season in the Upper Midwest.

Kathryn Draeger notices the difference in the way things are around her farm this year, in the area of Minnesota once known as "The Dismal Swamp," she says:

I don't have much of a historical perspective, as our first field season on the farm was 2008. But this land looks different than I've ever seen it. It is soaking wet lushness of grasses and tress. Different flowers growing in the roadsides than I've seen.

Overheard at a watershed meeting in Big Stone County this week. The ditches are running full (engineered estimated flows supposed to be 10 inches, currently running for the past month at 44 inches), backing up onto farmland. Crops unplanted-- those planted underwater. When the guest farmer sitting at the table was asked what he's doing about it, he put his hand over his heart, head downcast, and says 'it makes a man go numb.' It's just too much to take in. Too overwhelming to rally a response.

He spoke for many farmers and others. For those who's very being is linked to the land and the water. For those who know what mercy- being at mercy really means.

4) MOBILE PHONE DANGERS BY THE NUMBERS

"If we are going to worry about uncertain risks, there's a lot to worry about," Michael Blastland says. He writes the Go Figure column for the BBC and today he's taking on those warnings that cellphone use may increase the risk of health probems.

There are 5 million known chemicals in the world, he says, and 30 have been definitely linked to cancer in humans. Seven thousand have been tested. "The rest is darkness," he says. And that's where your attitude toward the unknown comes in:

We'd probably have an idea by now if any risk attached to mobile phones was big (unless the damage waits for old age). We haven't found it despite looking pretty hard.

Brain cancer is rare, about 10 cases in every 100,000 people. Let's say heavy mobile phone use doubles that risk over 20 years. Not true, so far as we know, but let's run with it. That would mean that among 100,000 heavy phone users, the number of brain cancers would rise from 10 in 100,000 to 20 in 100,000.

Does that reassure you? Or by failing to rule out a risk of unknown size, has it simply raised your suspicions?

5) QUOTH THE RAVEN: "POTTERMORE"

The big story today is Pottermore. J.K. Rowling took to the Web today to announce an "online reading experience..."

Business Insider parses the statement and says the real story is Rowling is cutting out Amazon and other booksellers by being the exclusive seller of Harry Potter books.

Bonus: Shooting bears. File this under "cool."

Worth considering? Dale Connelly wonders what would happen if the state's politicians actually were locked in a room until they reached an agreement?

TODAY'S QUESTION

Last night, President Obama announced an Afghanistan strategy that reduces troop strength faster than some in his administration would like. Today's Question: What do you think of the president's plan for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Deconstructing last night's Afghanistan speech from President Obama.

Second hour: The science, and the secrets contained, by the world's most famous mummies.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: DFL legislative leaders Tom Bakk and Paul Thissen discuss the state's budget mess.

Second hour: Former President Jimmy Carter talks to Ray Suarez of PBS about his book, "White House Diary."

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Rethinking the rules of commercial fishing.

Second hour: The cost of sex trafficking and the price of sex.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Every day, supermarkets cull their shelves, tossing out expired food. That's part of why Americans waste about 150 billion pounds of food each year. But not all of that food is spoiled. NPR will report on a new initiative from Wal-Mart and Feeding America to take food that might otherwise be wasted and give it to the hungry.

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Shutdown stress (5x8 - 6/22/11)

Posted at 7:53 AM on June 22, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) PREPARING FOR THE PAIN

Lawmakers and the governor may well be trying to end a budget stalemate that could shut down Minnesota government at the end of the month, but yesterday they didn't even meet. Both sides might be trying to win when it comes to public opinion, but increasingly some real Minnesotans don't have the luxury of playing political pundit. They're trying to survive.

Here's the story of a woman in North St. Paul, who sent us this last evening:

I have broken down sobbing twice so far at the news about the Minnesota government shutdown. I am a single mother of three young children, one with autism and receiving services and therapies through Medical Assistance and Waivered Services. I have a masters degree in Experiential Education, which is "hands-on learning" and I am going through bankruptcy and on the brink of foreclosure. It's not like I WANT to be on assistance, it's my situation, and this housing economy, and my soon-to-be ex husband also receiving a "disability" diagnosis of autism, which is a social and communication disorder.

I have received two letters from Ramsey County Social Services saying that my daycare assistance will be shut down, and I've heard from my public health nurse that the Maxis system (welfare, food stamps, etc) and Child Support data base will be turned off during the state shutdown. Which means I will lose my income (through Community Involvement Programs, the fiscal entity which helps pay for my son's disability services) and I will lose my child support payments.

How am I going to keep the bank from foreclosing on my house? And then where are we going to go? How am I going to afford the late fees and legal fees involved in fighting the bank? When I have struggled SO HARD to be the best advocate for my child with a disability as I can.

This "disruption" is impacting the "needy" people of Minnesota the most. We are the people who LEAST deserve to have the rug yanked out from under us. We are the ones who are PRO education, and advocate for the people who don't have a voice: our kids with disabilities.

Who gets to decide which services are "critical" and "essential"? They are essential to my family's well being and to our entire future. We, like so many others with upside-down mortgages, are going to be pushed over the edge in this political impasse and it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to "clean up" the damage that will be caused if and when our sources of funding get cut off.

I can substitute teach to make up for things like this, however, not in the summer time when school is out!

I feel really stuck between a rock and a hard place, and it's very, very scary. Like receiving a diagnosis of terminal cancer. I've lived through the diagnosis of autism in my son and in my husband, and now, because services are threatened, it really feels "terminal".

Meanwhile, Minnesota state employees are poised to make it more affordable for the state to lay them off during the shutdown. Under the proposed deal, they'd give up severance payments in exchange for keeping health care benefits. "They are broke, so they don't have any money to pay that," Keri Nelson, director of collective bargaining for the Minnesota Nurses Association, told the Star Tribune.

In an editorial today, the Duluth News Tribune says lawmakers grabbing extra pay during the shutdown merely twist the knife they've inserted into the state...

When told that House members could refuse their pay during the hiatus -- which would be a welcome, even if symbolic, gesture to taxpayers who'll be on the hook for millions because elected leaders failed to do their jobs, opting instead to play politics -- House Majority Leader Matt Dean said he hadn't even considered that. He may be the only Minnesotan who hasn't.

"We can't get the government going again unless we pass bills," argued Dean, R-Dellwood. He seemed not to grasp that the suggestion wasn't that he and other lawmakers stop working, only that they stop getting paid -- at least until they earn the checks.

And that's something few did this year in St. Paul.

Minnesotans expect better of their elected leaders than the five months just passed of little more than political gamesmanship; polarized, hard-line, gets-us-nowhere stands; and insincere, buzz phrase-filled negotiations.

We've said it before: In the real world, job performance like theirs would be grounds for firing -- not a justification to continue getting paid while the rest of the state suffers from their failures.

California is in much the same boat as Minnesota. The state's comptroller, however, has ruled lawmakers won't be paid until they balance the budget. He's become a Facebook hero because of the ruling.

2) THE WATER WINS

Eleven thousand people have now fled Minot, ND, where the Souros River is expected to swallow North Dakota's fourth-largest city in a few days. "We won't have nothing to come back to this time," an elderly woman said as she looked at the flowers in her yard and prepared to race for higher ground.

Here's a live video feed from Minot...

Free video chat by Ustream

With all of the rain in the last few days, other rivers are flooding. The Red River in the Fargo Moorhead area jumped about a foot in the last 24 hours and is now flooding. The Minnesota River in Shakopee is already flooding again, too.

This can't be what Ann Raiho and Natalie Warren expected when they set out to be the first women to paddle their canoe all the way from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay a few weeks ago. They reached Montevideo on the swollen Minnesota River on the weekend and, according to a tracking map on their Web site, are about to hit the lakes area of Lac Qui Parle near Milan.

"The rain has been a doozy this past week but we knew this trip wasn't going to be all sunshine and daisies," they wrote on their blog.

They seem to be doing fine...

3) THE INFLUENCE IN YOUR INBOX

Inbox Influence, a new tool from the Sunlight Foundation, allows you to see the political contributions of the people and organizations that are mentioned in emails you receive.

The organization says the tool , which you can find here, "can be used for researching influence background on corporate correspondence, adding context to newspaper headlines or discovering who is behind political fundraising solicitations."

The group also admits that in order for it to work, the entire contents of the message are sent to the Sunlight Foundation. Your network administrator is going to love this.

(h/t: Julia Schrenkler)

4) MOVE OVER

Why are there laws in Minnesota and Wisconsin to move over -- or slow down -- for emergency vehicles pulled over to the side of the road. Here's why...

The video was captured by dash cam from a Wisconsin State Patrol car on June 1, according to the YouTube poster. An officer had pulled over a motor coach bus on I-94 near Elk Mound. A passing car missed the squad car, and slammed into the back of the bus. The driver of the car suffered minor injuries, and the driver's wife died at the scene.

5) MYSTERY OF NAZI PHOTO ALBUM SOLVED IN TWO HOURS

An anonymous photo album by a Nazi photographer had the New York Times' Lens blog stumped at this time yesterday.

There are certainly many photo albums of Nazi leaders and many photo albums of the Nazis' victims. But it's hard to imagine many albums depicting both, just a few pages apart.

At least one does, however, and it has surfaced in New York City. Its creator was able -- apparently within weeks -- to photograph Hitler as he warred on Russia and also to photograph some of the earliest victims of that brutal campaign, known as Operation Barbarossa, which began 70 years ago Wednesday.

Enter the power of the Internet. The blog, and another publication, asked readers for help uncovering the mysterious owner of the album and the story behind it. It took two hours:

Before lunchtime in New York, Harriet Scharnberg had written from Hamburg, Germany, to say:

The photographs, at least a lot of them, were taken by the photographer Franz Krieger (1914-1993). Krieger worked as a photojournalist in Salzburg, Austria. In the summer of 1941, he went to Minsk as a member of the Reichs-Autozug Deutschland. In Minsk, he took pictures of Soviet prisoners of war and he also visited the Jewish ghetto and photographed the poor people there. On his way back to Berlin, he took the pictures of Hitler meeting [Adm. Miklos] Horthy in Marienburg.

And the blog details the compelling story of how a man who wanted to be a photographer, became a Nazi...

After graduating with a business degree from the University of Vienna, Krieger opened a business in Salzburg. But he wanted to be a photojournalist. Between 1935 and 1937, he photographed the Salzburg Festival -- and stars like Marlene Dietrich. Following the German annexation of Austria, Krieger went to work for the Salzburg reichsgau, a Nazi administrative subdivision. In that capacity, Dr. Kramml said, "he took most of the important pictures in Salzburg from 1938 until 1941."

Bonus: Someone stole Larry Ross' bike. He's studying to be a director of Christian outreach at Concordia College. He was born without legs and depends on handcycle. He says it taken from his home overnight, near Snelling and Taylor Avenue across from Hamline University, WCCO reports.

TODAY'S QUESTION

The federal government has released nine graphic warning labels it will require on packages of cigarettes beginning next year. The labels include images of damaged lungs and a dead body. Today's Question: What's the best way to discourage smoking?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Former state representatives Dee Long and Marty Seifert discuss the state's budget woes.

Second hour: Darin Strauss, novelist and author of the memoir "Half A Life."

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: MIT security studies professor Steven VanEvera previews President Obama's address to the nation about the war in Afghanistan.

Second hour: Former U.S ambassador to both Egypt and Israel, Daniel Kurtzer.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: NPR political editor Ken Rudin.

Second hour: Will the new cigarette warnings make any difference?

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - A dying craft is being preserved in a small northern Minnesota town. Black Swan barrels is one of only a few remaining wooden barrel makers in the country. Coopers use a traditional approach involving wood, steel and fire to make wooden barrels used for, among other things, aging whiskey. The old craft with a new twist creates barrels used by a growing number of small distillers use to age whiskey. MPR's Dan Gunderson will have the story.

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Scenes from health care reality (5x8 - 6/21/11)

Posted at 7:18 AM on June 21, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) NEED HEALTH CARE? ROB A BANK

James Verone is about to become the face of the ongoing health care debate in this country. The 59-year old man with a bad back, a sore foot and a lump on his chest, dragged himself into a bank in North Carolina this month and robbed it. He intended to get arrested because jail is where you can get some health care.

After he handed the teller the note, he sat down on a couch in the bank and waited for the police. But there was a flaw in his plan. His note demanded only $1, which is larceny from a person and it won't get him much jail time or health care.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Kevin McClain was living in his car in a WalMart parking lot when paramedics found him unconscious. He had lung cancer. He couldn't take care of himself, but he was able to take care of his dog, Yurt. They were split up when McClain was taken to the hospital, but a paramedic reunited them just before he died. Then, the paramedic saw to his dying wish: That Yurt end up with a good home.

Here. Here's a tissue...

MPR's Ground Level project is assessing the state of health care in rural Minnesota. Rural people tend to be older and poorer, are less likely to have insurance and suffer more chronic illness. And the doctor shortage has gotten harder to deal with. Sections of the state are dealing with the problem in different ways.

2) TAKING THE PEOPLE'S TEMPERATURE ON THE STATE SHUTDOWN

We might've gotten one of our first indications how the idea of a shutdown is going to play with the voters in districts that elected Republicans to the Legislature. "You're not in office to hold your ground and die standing," resident Dave Bechtold told St. Cloud Republican legislators in the Haven Township Hall last night. "You're here to compromise."

One lawmaker told the St. Cloud Times after the session it described as "feisty," that he might support fee increases. No tax increases, he said, but fee increases might be OK.

One commenter on the paper's Web site said the paper didn't capture "the mood of the room."

"It was packed with citizens who are angry about Republican unwillingness to compromise. I heard only one speaker who supported the GOP trio, and three people who applauded that one speaker. The rest of the hundred or more attendees were disgusted with the legislators. Many left shaking their heads in disbelief at what they had heard."

Real compromise means you give up on some of what you want in order to reach an agreement. These three offered no shred of concession. They were still stuck on protecting the richest Minnesotans from any tax increase. Representative Gottwald went to far as to claim that Dayton's $1.8 billion offer wasn't a compromise. Surreal."

But MPR's Matt Sepic reports that most of the people who showed up were state workers, university employees, and union members.

Ruth Wollum, an unemployed woman who said she sympathizes with state workers, nonetheless was on the Republicans' side.

"I really do think the Democrats have driven us to these $5 billion deficits," she said. "And if Dayton doesn't find this out, and realize that they are thinking it through clearer than he is, it's not going to help the state at all."

Bruce Bartlett, of the Economix blog, tackles the central question in the state budget debate, and any other debate involving taxes: Are they too high. He looks at the federal revenue and finds the more you make, the less you pay...

As one can see, average tax rates on the working poor have never been lower; in fact, they pay neither income taxes nor the employee's share of the payroll tax, because the earned income tax credit offsets both and even gives them a small refund on top.

However, the tax credit is phased out at a rate of 21.06 percent for families with two children after their earned income reaches $16,690. The loss of a refundable credit is exactly the same, economically, as paying more taxes, and this is what imposes such high marginal rates on the working poor.

A typical middle-class family, on the other hand, is paying less in federal taxes than it has since 1967. Its marginal rate is also down substantially since it peaked in 1982 at 31.7 percent. The well-to-do family, too, has seen its average and marginal tax rates decline substantially.

3) COMMUNITY AND THE WISCONSIN SUPPER CLUB

Few institutions have been able to survive time the way the Wisconsin supper club has.

"The supper club is a gathering place where people can see their neighbors, families, and friends and meet new ones--in that way, it's like a church," one owner told supper club expert Brenda Bredahl who writes about the clubs in the Hudson Patch.

Now, there's a documentary in the works

Speaking of community: Jesus Estrada of Willmar is in the military and stationed in Georgia. His wife, Laura, would like to join him, but they need to sell their house and their house needs some sprucing up before they can sell it. No problem. Volunteers showed up Saturday to paint the home and get it ready for sale.

4) IF ART IMITATED LIFE

If art imitated life, you'd never get to hear this collaboration of musicians in Jerusalem. They didn't actually get together, however. Film producer Kutiman wandered the streets, filming and recording individual musicians, then created the composition.

5) 360-DEGREE RIOTING

Couldn't get enough of Vancouver's hockey riots last week? Ryan Whitehead of northSudio 360 yesterday took the wraps off a four-minute long, 360-degree experience. You can rotate the film for additional "these people are crazy" experiences. Find the movie here. Here's a non-interactive version.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that is the "kissing couple," who were the subjects of an iconic photograph cuddling in the middle of the rioting (it was later reported one of them had been injured). The New York Times' Brian Stelter says the fact it took only hours to identify them is an example of how the Internet has become the place where anonymity goes to die.

This erosion of anonymity is a product of pervasive social media services, cheap cellphone cameras, free photo and video Web hosts, and perhaps most important of all, a change in people's views about what ought to be public and what ought to be private. Experts say that Web sites like Facebook, which require real identities and encourage the sharing of photographs and videos, have hastened this change.

Bonus: How'd you spend your day?

More? Sure.

A new survey suggests more people are unhappy with their jobs. About a third of those surveyed say they are considering leaving. One in five says he/she is not engaged while at work.

TODAY'S QUESTION

A two-year project to promote telecommuting and other flexible work environments has found substantial benefits from such arrangements. Today's Question: What are the pros and cons of working from home?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: From Prius to Ben and Jerry's, companies are embracing social responsibility. But is there a risk for luxury brands when they try to "do good" for society?

Second hour: Charles Wheelan, lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and author of "Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science."

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch discuss their call for the special session to begin, so they can balance the budget by July 1.

Second hour: Best-selling author Richard Louv, speaking at the U of M Landscape Arboretum about his new book, "The Nature Principle."

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Horse whisperer buck Brannaman

Second hour: Retiring MPR president Bill Kling on the future of public media.

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Why strippers strip (5x8 - 6/20/11)

Posted at 6:54 AM on June 20, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Elizabeth Mills has suggested today's Monday Morning Rouser. She knows her Rousers!

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Government: What is it good for? (5X8 - 6/17/11)

Posted at 7:24 AM on June 17, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) SMALLER GOVERNMENT AND THE SAFETY OF YOUR FOOD

We're going to have a good discussion over the next few weeks over what the role of government should be because nobody seems to have a clue at the moment. A judge next week will consider Gov. Mark Dayton's definition of "essential services" in the coming state shutdown. Lawmakers who won last November campaigned on cutting government and cutting taxes, two generic stump speeches that voters rarely translate into programs that affect them.

Case in point: Did anyone run TV ads that said "we shouldn't be so sure that the food we eat is safe"? In Washington, yesterday, the House approved an agriculture appropriations bill that cut emergency food for poor mothers and children. But it also cut the food safety inspection service, which oversees meat, poultry and some egg products.

Why? Because the food supply is "99.99 percent safe," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), chairman of the House subcommittee that wrote the agriculture appropriations bill. He said companies like McDonald's police themselves because they don't want people getting sick.

99.5%? If true, it's the the .5% that ruins people's lives.

Continue reading "Government: What is it good for? (5X8 - 6/17/11)"

The unnecessary death of a B-17 (5x8 - 6/16/11)

Posted at 7:17 AM on June 16, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE EVEN SADDER END OF THE LIBERTY BELLE

The Liberty Belle, the B-17 that burned in a field outside of Chicago this week, did not crash, new evidence shows. A picture from the ground as the engine burned shows the B-17, which had visited St. Paul a week earlier, had landed successfully. But its chief pilot says firefighters couldn't do anything to save the historical airplane because they didn't want to get stuck in a wet field (note that the field supported the weight of a landing B-17. A B-17 weighs about 36,000 pounds. A fully-loaded fire truck can weigh 50,000 pounds, but didn't the fire department have a fire extinguisher or two?).

It's chief pilot has released a statement about what really happened on Monday:

Directly below the B-17 was a farmer's field and the decision was made to land immediately. Approximately 1 minute and 40 seconds from the radio report of the fire, the B-17 was down safely on the field. Within that 1:40 time frame, the crew shutdown and feathered the number 2 engine, activated the engine's fire suppression system, lowered the landing gear and performed an on-speed landing. Bringing the B-17 to a quick stop, the crew and passengers quickly and safely exited the aircraft. Overhead in the T-6, Cullen professionally coordinated and directed the firefighting equipment which was dispatched by Aurora Tower to the landing location.

Unlike the sensational photos that you have all seen of the completely burned B-17 on the news, you will see from photos taken by our crew that our Liberty Belle was undamaged by the forced landing and at the time of landing, the wing fire damage was relatively small. The crew actually unloaded bags, then had the horrible task of watching the aircraft slowly burn while waiting for the fire trucks to arrive. There were high hopes that the fire would be extinguished quickly and the damage would be repairable. Those hopes were diminished as the fire trucks deemed the field too soft to cross due to the area's recent rainfall. So while standing by our burning B-17 and watching the fire trucks parked at the field's edge, they sadly watched the wing fire spread to the aircraft's fuel cells and of course, you all have seen the end result. There is no doubt that had the fire equipment been able to reach our aircraft, the fire would have been quickly extinguished and our Liberty Belle would have been repaired to continue her worthwhile mission.

The full statement can be found here.

The pilot who made the emergency landing in the B-17 was John Hess of Georgia. He flies for Delta Airlines.

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Lake Whatshisname (5x8 - 6/15/11)

Posted at 7:20 AM on June 15, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE CALHOUN KERFUFFLE

The dispute over whether to rename Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis is heating up. The person who's pushing to rescind the honor once bestowed on John C. Calhoun -- John Winters -- writes a rebuttal in today's Star Tribune to some history professors who rejected the notion.

Rewriting history is still popular in the South. I can see how losing a war can be painful and that people want to do something to ease the pain. But please, stop the lying.

A few years ago, my wife and I rented "Gone With The Wind" because she had never seen it. My wife enjoyed the movie. Although the movie was well done, I had trouble getting around the outrageous stream of Confederate propaganda.

Why has the Confederate message dominated the popular culture?

I was upset to see a picture of South Carolinians going to a ball to celebrate the 150th anniversary of secession dressed in their finery. They apparently imagine that if the South had won its "war for Southern independence," some great and elegant culture would have been preserved.

The professors from Alabama call the move "political correctness."

His persistent fear was that unpatriotic sectionalism would lead to civil war and a dissolution of the union. His last years were spent attempting to unify the country. On March 31, 1850, Calhoun died in Washington, D.C.

In Calhoun's interpretation, America's greatest hope lay in the interposing and amending power of the states, which was implicit in the Constitution. This alone could save the country by allowing for a greater diffusion of authority and undermining the cause of sectional conflict.

Perhaps you can detect a hint of where this debate is likely to end: It may not be a debate over John Calhoun in the 1800s, but a debate over the role of government in 2011.

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Time traveling (5x8 - 6/14/11)

Posted at 7:22 AM on June 14, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) LESSONS FROM A DOT IN THE SKY

We had a great time last night on Twitter as we waited for the International Space Station to fly directly overhead. Twitter friends from all over searched for it -- and most of them spied it -- around the same time. One friend was watching on her rooftop in Chicago, seeing it and tweeting as we stood in our driveways here. A shared experience, indeed.

It's been in orbit for 4,589 days now. There was no Twitter then. The hot start-ups were Yahoo and America Online when it was born. We hadn't reached the millennium yet. But this thing -- this old thing that's been going around and around since the late '90s -- occasionally captures our wonder when we stop to notice that it's up there.

I tweeted 12 minutes before it was to arrive overhead, that in the time it takes a landing jet at MSP to taxi to the gate, the space station will travel from Hawaii to Minnesota. To which Eric Hall provided a wonderful gift: The invitation to learn something new:

Time dilation? You mean Twitter isn't just for telling everyone what you had for breakfast? So I went back in time -- again with the help of technology -- and found a teacher who isn't even alive anymore:

It was just a bright light in the sky, and it allowed us to travel through time in a way not imaginable just a few years ago. We were together, even though most of us have never met.

Ain't life and science grand?

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If you had time to achieve your dreams... (5/8 - 6/13/11)

Posted at 7:06 AM on June 13, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Monday Morning Rouser....

1) FROM MINNESOTA TO HUDSON BAY

Ann Raiho, from Inver Grove Heights, and Natalie Warren, of Florida, are trying to become the first women to paddle from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. They left Fort Snelling earlier this month and are on their journey via the Minnesota River. According to their blog, they made it to New Ulm, and they say they're on schedule.

Next, we're off to a  part of the Minnesota River that has fewer cities, so sorry if we are hard to reach for the next week. We will hopefully be in Montevideo by next weekend thus ending most of the upstream portion of our trip. Hooray!

We want everyone to know that the Minnesota River is a hidden gem. Even with the flooding and heat and wind, we have really enjoyed the Minnesota. We've seen otters and eagles and jumping fish and felt like we were totally in the wilderness at times. I think we've only seen about 10 boats on the 150 miles of the river we've traveled. Get out there and paddle!

Since Patrick Plys was young, he wanted to ride a bicycle around Lake Superior, the Duluth News Tribune reports. "It was one of those things that were always on his bucket list. He was just too busy with running a business and raising five kids," his wife said. Then doctors found a tumor in his brain. He's just finished his cycling dream.

Today's discussion: If you had the time, what adventure would you embark on?

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The summer shutdown (5x8 - 6/10/11)

Posted at 7:40 AM on June 10, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) SLOWLY SHUTTING DOWN

There's little indication politicians at the Capitol are capable of avoiding a state shutdown, the net effect of which is difficult to say for certain because the parameters for shutting it down haven't been set yet (although I took a shot at it here)

MPR's Tom Scheck visits with some of the state workers who will be asked to pay the price for the Legislature and governor's apparent failures. A woman who works at the security hospital in St. Peter says it'll cost $1,300 a month for health insurance, an important thing for her because her husband is recovering from cancer.

They might be able to get severance pay, the Star Tribune says. That'll cost the state a few million. Thirty-six thousand layoff notices will arrive in the mailboxes today.

The state workers will get the bulk of the news coverage during the shutdown because they're the most visible -- and easily found -- victims. But we should -- and will -- get an opportunity to hear from the people the workers serve through what they do. Is that you? Tell us about it below .

Meanwhile, City Pages assesses who's to blame for the mess.

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Tales from the trail (5x8 - 6/9/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on June 9, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) BIKING TO WORK

It's Bike to Work Day, so named because Bike Back Home After Work Day doesn't sound so noble and exciting. And exciting bicycling can be, given the hazards presented by the people who, well, you know.

In New York, Casey Neistat got a citation for riding outside of a designated bike lane. He tried to tell the cop that riding in a bike lane isn't safe because there are so many obstructions. The cop didn't listen.

So Neistat made this video this week. Bicyclists make better videos than drivers, by the way.

Here are a few more events this week for bike week in Minnesota.

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Carpe per diem (5x8 - 6/8/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on June 8, 2011 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) CASH AND THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATOR

"GOP leaders move to trim lawmakers' expense payments," the headline on an MPR story said when the Legislature began its work in January. How did that leading-by-example thing work out? Not so well, MPR's Tom Scheck reports today. The move in the Senate was supposed to cut $100,000 out of the budget; it saved $50,000 over 2009. That was more than offset by the increase in per diem payments in the House, Scheck reports.

Taking the maximum amount of per diem -- about $12,000 -- was a bipartisan effort.

Sen. Mike Parry said he would be willing to take less per diem if he were paid more. One legislator who took no per diem said the private sector doesn't pay people this way, so neither should the government.

In 2009, the Minnesota Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to per diem payments when it ruled an increase in per diem payments is not an unconstitutional salary increase. The last time the Senate voted to increase per diem, the vote wasn't close.

More politics: Tim Pawlenty made enough bold assertions in his economic plan's release yesterday to allow fact-checkers to easily see if his assumptions were correct. The Washington Post did, finding many of the underpinnings of his plan are faulty.

Pawlenty blamed "Obamacare" for spiraling health costs. But, the Post noted, the law doesn't full take effect for three years and the report his campaign cited doesn't attribute costs to the health care reform law.

Pawlenty also said, "Five percent economic growth over 10 years would generate $3.8 trillion in new tax revenues. With that, we would reduce projected deficits by 40 percent. All before we made a single budget cut."

Cool. And probably wrong, the fact-checker said, because the former governor based his math on assuming 5 percent annual growth, which doesn't happen anymore. The last time it did was about 50 years ago.

But the paper reserves its biggest blow for Pawlenty's assertion that cutting 1 percent of the budget for six years would balance it by 2017.

The projected deficit in 2017 is $890 billion. In other words, Pawlenty is proposing so much deficit reduction that he cannot meet his goal even by eliminating ALL spending on nondefense discretionary programs ($462 billion). The military would need to be decimated, or Social Security or Medicare slashed.

The Post gave Pawlenty "two Pinocchios" for his effort.

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Liars in the news (5x8 - 6/7/11)

Posted at 7:15 AM on June 7, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE WIDE WHACKY WORLD OF LIARS

Liars. It's a word that once stung, at least before everyone -- or so it seems -- started lying. The big story yesterday, of course, was Rep. Anthony Weiner admitting that he lied in his many, many denials that he didn't send sexually suggestive images. He also vowed not to resign, apparently showing little shame.

But that wasn't the only story about liars in the news. The owners of the Fukushima nuclear power plants in Japan have finally admitted -- sort of --that they lied, too. For months, they've denied a meltdown after the earthquake and tsunami. Then they admitted there might have been partial meltdowns. And yesterday the officials finally admitted there were meltdowns at all three reactors. They also said the release of radiation was much greater than they let on.

Arnold Schwarzenegger? Liar. John Edwards? Liar.

Lying isn't a new thing -- especially for politicians and businesses with a lot at stake. What has changed, perhaps, is our collective shoulder shrug.

We are, a 2009 NewsWeek story on the subject suggested, a culture of liars.

Research has linked socially successful people to those who are good liars. Students who succeed academically get picked for the best colleges, despite the fact that, as one recent Duke University study found, as many as 90 percent of high-schoolers admit to cheating. Even lying adolescents are more popular among their peers.

And all it takes is a quick flip of the remote to see how our public figures fare when they get caught in a lie: Clinton keeps his wife and goes on to become a national hero. Fabricating author James Frey gets a million-dollar book deal. Eliot Spitzer's wife stands by his side, while "Appalachian hiker" Mark Sanford still gets to keep his post. If everyone else is being rewarded for lying, don't we need to lie, too, just to keep up?

Discussion point: When is it OK to lie? At what point do you hold people responsible for lies. One more: Is lying primarily a "guy thing?"

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Tornado tales (5x8 - 6/6/11)

Posted at 7:25 AM on June 6, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Monday Morning Rouser....

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People lead way in NoMi tornado recovery (5X8 - 6/3/11)

Posted at 7:55 AM on June 3, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) WHEN PEOPLE DO GOOD (Cont'd)

More stars have been added to a benefit to raise some money for tornado victims in north Minneapolis. Tickets go on sale today. MPR's Brandt Williams reports the General Mills Foundation has pledged $125,000 to tornado relief efforts in north Minneapolis. The city's effort to recruit some volunteers for a cleanup effort this weekend signed up the needed 2,000 people quickly. People respond to people. Period.

Mayor R.T. Rybak provided yesterday's cringe-worthy quote. "There's no other part of the country that I know of where a tornado could have come and there could have been a better coming together of community response."

We get it. A pat on the back well deserved. But people aren't any better or worse here than anywhere else, and it's not about comparing us to other people, anyway. Good people do good things. For the record, it was a private organization -- not the city -- that organized volunteers to move into north Minneapolis within minutes of the tornado nearly two weeks ago. It was a private citizen -- in New York, no less -- who created a Facebook page and Twitter account that became the go-to places for information. It was a group of nurses who went door to door this week looking for people who needed help with anxiety.

But it's not just here that people rise up. In New Jersey, for example, a woman realized disaster victims are getting lost in the news about stupid things, so she's set up a tent in her yard and is raising money for people she doesn't know. "I did it because I wanted to make a statement that I can choose to go camping for a couple of days in my yard," Berit Ollestad said. "But then when that's up, I have the choice to go back to my home -- and so many people don't have that choice."

In Joplin, a group of volunteers from Cedar Falls, Iowa has just shown up to pitch in. It's churches leading the way, a newspaper editor says.

In times of disaster, people will usually show politicians how compassion works. It's not as if they expect something for nothing. They just want the pols to lead, follow, or get out of the way...

Yesterday, Republican Sen. Scott Brown toured Springfield, Massachusetts, where a tornado struck on Wednesday. What did he think? "We need some federal disaster assistance," he said.

Continue reading "People lead way in NoMi tornado recovery (5X8 - 6/3/11)"

How NPR can improve (5X8 - 6/2/11)

Posted at 7:45 AM on June 2, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) A PUBLIC RADIO REPORT CARD

Alicia Shepard, the longtime ombudsman for NPR, has turned in her pass card and left the network she spent years questioning. It was her job to publicly question her employer (the world would be a better place with more ombudsmen). She reveals a few secrets in her final column, including a revelation that now-ousted boss Vivian Schiller accused her of "piling on" when she wrote a second column about NPR's botched report that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords died in January's shooting in Tucson.

But in her final column, she whacks her employer -- former employer -- on a fact that gets lost in the usual debate over whether NPR has a political agenda: It's an awfully white news organization:

But the invitation list is still pretty much limited to highly educated white folks with money. Why would Hispanics or African Americans (each only about 8 percent of the audience) listen to NPR if they don't hear themselves represented on the air? It frustrates me to hear endless white males quoted in stories and not more women in positions of authority.

She has more suggestions in today's final column.

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Driving kids (5x8 - 6/1/11)

Posted at 7:21 AM on June 1, 2011 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE GREAT DRIVING DEBATE

Out in my neck of the woods -- Woodbury -- the Bielenberg Sports Center is the crown jewel of the city's athletic fields. It's also killed the neighborhood ballfield as most of the organized sports -- kids don't play unorganized sports anymore -- take place there. Soccer, football, baseball, hockey, lacrosse, it's all there. Driving home last night, the line of cars driving into the facility from the corners of the city stretched for more than a mile in each direction: SUV and mini-van after SUV and mini-van waited to get to the joint to disgorge its passenger, already in uniform and ready for organized fun.

Why did all those parents drive their little ones? In today's MPR commentary, Charles Marohn says parents are doing their kids no favor.

The best thing we can do for the safety of our children is to get them out of the car. The most effective way to do that is to allow the construction of mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods that reduce the demand for auto trips by providing alternatives.

Let's test this premise. In Woodbury, the city is highly regarded for its bike trails. And, in the case of Bielenberg, it sits within a 10-minute bike ride of most neighborhoods. The city also has neighborhood schools. Check the lineup of cars in the morning and afternoon, driven by parents who won't let junior take a hike.

Disclaimer: We live two blocks from the elementary and junior high schools. We often drove them to school. What were we thinking?

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A flight in a B-17 (5x8 - 5/31/11)

Posted at 7:15 AM on May 31, 2011 by Bob Collins (16 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The Monday Morning Rouser, special there-are-only-four-days-left-in-the-workweek edition...

1) FLYING THE LIBERTY BELLE

Residents of the St. Paul area might have seen the B-17 flying around downtown on Monday afternoon; it's a hard aircraft to miss. The Liberty Foundation tours the country with Liberty Belle; it spends very little time at its home base in Georgia because it has to earn its keep by giving rides. Next weekend, it will provide those out of the downtown airport. Yesterday, it took media people for a flight.

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Your electronic footprint (5x8 - 5/27/11)

Posted at 6:54 AM on May 27, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Should government stay out of your smartphone; ready, set, help; why the low turnout at Killebrew's celebration; self defense or murder; and were voters hoodwinked on Legacy Amendment?

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Exploring gas price mysteries (5x8 - 5/25/11)

Posted at 7:26 AM on May 25, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

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In 2011, tornadoes target cities (5x8 - 5/24/11)

Posted at 7:23 AM on May 24, 2011 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) PILING ON

As long as they're not hitting major cities, deaths by tornado are still relatively light in the U.S. That, of course has changed this year because the tornadoes have hit fairly major cities. The New York Times has put together this adjustable map (this is just an image of it, you'll have to go here to actually play with it) that shows the number of tornadoes in the U.S. each year, and the number of deaths overall.

The tornado season has just started, and already it's the worst year since 1953, when tornadoes struck the heavily populated areas of Texas, Michigan, and Massachusetts.

One other interesting aspect of this -- at least so far: Last year there was speculation that tornado alley was moving north. There were many tornadoes in Minnesota, but not as many in the south and southeast. Was 2010 a fluke? It's too early to say. June is the month here that features the most tornadoes.

Of course, we humans have been trying to capture the power of tornadoes with our photographs. Storm chasing is not something new. Slate has a slideshow of tornadoes through the decades.

But the ones from 2011, taken in Joplin, are absolutely devastating. Last night, two people working to rescue people in Joplin were struck by lightning.

A Facebook page has been set up to find Will Norton. He was a passenger in a car driven by his dad in Joplin on Sunday. The tornado ripped him out of his seat belts and sucked him through the car's sun roof.

Tornadoes have dealt north Minneapolis a bad hand, MPR's Laura Yuen rightly reports. When a tornado hits the suburbs, people rebuild their homes. In north Minneapolis, however, there are lots of renters and it's not up to them; it's up to their landlords.

Making it more complicated is the fact that north Minneapolis was already struggling with a housing crisis. In the four-square mile area that the city deems hardest hit, more than 270 homes were foreclosed in the past year.

Despite all of its challenges, the north side is home to plenty of strong churches, nonprofits, and neighborhoods. They've all come out in force to help with the recovery.

"The general attitude was, 'Who can we help? What can we do?' A lot of people's minds were on kids, their neighbors, who needed help, how can we move trees? Strong guys pulling things out of the way, helping old ladies, helping kids, helping moms. That's what goes on in our neighborhoods, too. We're not absent of that," former resident Michele Livingston told Yuen.

Sen. Linda Higgins has put together everything you need to know here.

What is it about tornadoes that brings out the worst in some of us? In Alabama, which still very much a disaster zone from tornadoes earlier this month, looting has victimized people who've lost almost everything...

2) THE MYTH OF THE RECYCLING BOX

In Duluth, some green boxes have sprouted, urging people to donate clothing. But they're not local, Perfect Duluth Day reports:

As a member of the City of Duluth Commission on Disabilities, I became aware that these boxes -- of which there are now at least 57 in Duluth and the surrounding communities -- have been placed here by a private for-profit business from the Twin Cities. Triangle Recycling owns the boxes and they sell the clothing collected in these boxes. They ship these clothes out of state to places like Texas and Mexico and keep 95% of the profits. According to the company's president, they donate 5% of their annual profits to the UCP, which is based in St. Cloud.

That is all good and fine, except these boxes are misleading and they are harming area nonprofits, such as Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and Savers, who depend on local donations to fund their programs, which provide jobs to people with disabilities, services to disabled vets, and other much needed services to people in our community who truly need them. All of these green boxes are on private property, mostly of local business owners, who were not given all of the facts by Triangle Recycling. Having spoken to several of these area business people, they were shocked and dismayed to hear the full story behind the green boxes.

This is big business. The Chicago Tribune investigated the industry and found it's being taken over by for-profit companies, many of whom pretend to be charitable, but aren't:

One of the biggest players, Gaia, falls in the first category. Over the last several years it has been criticized for characterizing itself as an environmental charity with projects around the world, when most of its environmental work remains collecting clothes for sale. Along with the related organizations Planet Aid and USAgain, Gaia has expanded in the last decade despite its connection to the controversial Danish organization Tvind, whose leader was acquitted of charges of money laundering and embezzlement in 2006.

3) FOREVER 70?

Seventy? How is that possible? Today is Bob Dylan's 70th birthday, a fact you were unlikely to miss if you're within a stone's throw of any place that documents pop culture. MPR is presenting a documentary on his life and music today. But why wait when you can find it here?

The Duluth News Tribune does its part, trotting out some old interviews with Dylan and some great pictures.

Do you ever listen to Garrison Keillor?

"A few years ago I used to listen to him. I like his show, I've always liked it."

Does it ever make you homesick for Minnesota?

"Well, ah... yeah, it does. Well, I don't get homesick for those kind of things he talkin' about because, ah, I don't know if my upbringing was like that. But I get homesick for where it all happened."

Everyone says it was a very warm home you and your brother, David, were brought up in.

"Well, we had a big family, like a big extended family. My grandmother had about 17 kids on the one side, and on the other side about 13 kids. So there was always a lot of family-type people around.

4) WHEN DREAMS GO TILT

Who could possibly have seen this coming? The National Pinball Hall of Fame is closing after just five months in operation. A guy put up $300,000 of his own money to open it. Silly? Maybe. But David Silverman says it's a dream he's had for a long time. He says he's not giving up, even though he's lost his lease. "This is America, and we're losing more and more of our history," he said. "We need a place where we can keep [pinball] as a permanent record."

You have to root for people chasing dreams. What's yours?

5) THE YAWN

Things are getting worse for the Twins. They lost again last night and have fallen 16 games behind the Cleveland Indians in the American League Central. That's the farthest they've been behind all year.

But is Kevin Slowey yawning really a problem?

Keeping you up, are we, Kevin? That's Twins Baseball notes that lots of people yawn, it's just that Slowey picked a bad time.

Bonus: This is a champion glider pilot in Italy doing his glider thing this week. Remember: No engine. Hang on.

TODAY'S QUESTION

President Obama says he wants to resume work on a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. He favors a two-state solution drawn roughly along the lines of Israel's 1967 borders. Today's Question: What's the best way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Political reporters and analysts assess the legislative stalemate.

Second hour: Facts are often in dispute these days. And from the conspiracy over where the President born was to those who believe that 9/11 was an "inside job," there remains polarization over matters where the evidence seems unequivocal. Why do many people remain unconvinced by facts?

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: The post-legislative session fallout.

Second hour: Bob Dylan's 70th birthday.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: The politics of voter ID

Second hour: The role of the political spouse.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - - The U.S. Postal Service is hemorrhaging money, and talking about closing post offices. For small rural towns that lose a post office it's just another in a long series of losses as populations decline. MPR's Mark Steil will visit a few

MPR's Tom Weber will review the results the MCA standardized test, which are being released today. State officials are only releasing scores from the 10th grade reading and 11th grade math test. Included will be results from the GRAD, which is part of the MCA test.

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When tornadoes hit cities (5x8 - 5/23/11)

Posted at 7:04 AM on May 23, 2011 by Bob Collins (17 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

How to help with the cleanup in north Minneapolis, Minnesota is caught in the middle of a presidential race, muskrat hate in Grand Forks, Sandra Bernhard on Wits, and Kate Couric on Katie Couric.

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The Maine of the Midwest? (5x8 - 5/20/11)

Posted at 7:12 AM on May 20, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
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Getting ready for the same-sex marriage debate, a lesson for hotshots, embracing spring, a goodbye to Harmon, and homeowners vs. the power line.

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A finished quilt; an ongoing war (5x8 - 5/19/11)

Posted at 7:14 AM on May 19, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Caron's tour of duty, an eye on Iowa's pigs, the Vikes' stadium from the outside in, measuring up to Harmon, and long-lasting marriages are increasing.

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Plans for Sunday? (5x8 - 5/18/11)

Posted at 7:20 AM on May 18, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
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Waiting for the end of days, dumping glitter on Gingrich, thin is in at a younger age than you imagined, the dancing Jeffersonians, and Aberdeen's secret.

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Which comes first: Bullying, or talking about bullying? (5x8 - 5/17/11)

Posted at 7:28 AM on May 17, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
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On speaking up, GOP vs. GOP on health care in Minnesota, what your computer desktop says about you, loose politicians sink ships, and the Freedom Riders 50 years on.

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A shortage of skills (5x8 - 5/16/11)

Posted at 7:25 AM on May 16, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
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Who wants to get dirty, Duluth's honor flight, end of the Memphis hub, the cow retirement home, and Hawking on heaven.

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Judging the Vikings stadium deal (5x8 - 5/11/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on May 11, 2011 by Bob Collins (26 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1)THE REVIEWS ARE IN

The Star Tribune hates the idea of a suburb getting the Minnesota Vikings. Didn't a suburb have the Vikings before Minneapolis? In its editorial today, the Strib defends its city...

In return for the more reasonable Minneapolis investment, taxpayers would have a new downtown stadium that would boost the region's most important central business district, and the city would complete the much-needed renovation of Target Center while paying off the arena's debt and reducing property taxes 2 percent in the process.

The Arden Hills math should be a deal-breaker for the state Legislature. In many cases, suburban NFL stadium locations are less expensive than downtown alternatives -- not several hundred million dollars more costly

It may be a fair point. But everyone has known for nearly a decade that the Vikings' lease was up this year at the Metrodome. By waiting until the last minute, the odds grew that whatever stadium deal came out was going to reflect who was in the driver's seat. Mayor R.T. Rybak had plenty of time to put together a proposal for the team, but he went with his two-minute offense and only trotted out his plan a few weeks before the end of a legislative session that's been going since the beginning of the year.

Ramsey County authorities have certainly stuck their necks out there with a plan that soaks people who may have no interest in football. But they stuck them out there, courted the team, made the deal, and now will have to live with the political consequences, if there are any.

Nothing prevented Minneapolis, the Star Tribune's owners (who own property that likely would've been part of a stadium deal) from doing the same thing.

Who knows, maybe they still will. Anoka County thought it once had a deal with the Vikings, only to see the team wooed instead by the bright lights of the big city.

In its editorial today, the Pioneer Press suggests Arden Hills could be playing the sucker's role in a dance with Minneapolis...

We agreed with Bennett and Ortega and the board in February that the county should explore the TCAAP site as a possible location. It is the last large piece of undeveloped land in Ramsey County and it's time the site turned the page. It appears that the Hennepin County board is not willing to raise a tax for a second stadium. That could put the TCAAP site in the spotlight as stadium negotiations and the legislative session approach a climax.

We don't see the harm if the Arden Hills option turns out to have been a bargaining chip to improve the deal in Minneapolis. We are concerned that a "deal" may be dropped in our laps without sufficient time to analyze it. Ramsey County could be an excellent home for the Minnesota Vikings. Such a project could help the region by redeveloping a once-polluted site and improving our highway system.

That's an odd new take on the value of publicly financed football stadiums -- a mechanism to improve highways.

2) THIS IS WHAT FREE SPEECH LOOKS LIKE

Freedom of speech doesn't mean a lot if all it does is protect the popular expression. This is what it looks like near Buffalo, New York, where man objects to a mosque next door. He doesn't object to the religion per se. He objects to its bright lights and the mosque's refusal to put up a six-foot-high fence to screen its property.

"I would really think it's an incitement of hatred against Muslims," a member of the mosque's board said.

"The place is too close. I don't care what people think. It doesn't matter what people think," the homeowner told the Buffalo News. "This is a way to get answers now. I get none from the town. The intent was to catch the eye of the people who I have a problem with."

3) THE GRAND CANYON TOUR

Rocketman Yves Rossy has made his first flight in the U.S., flying over the Grand Canyon strapped to wings and a rocket motor.

4) THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP UP CLOSE

Tim Gihring, a volunteer in a public school in an impoverished Minneapolis neighborhood, couldn't possibly have penned a more depressing commentary on the reality of public schools. Kids don't care. Parents don't care. And people are doing everything they can to pretend the only thing poor students lack is better teachers.

I had other students like him -- boys who wrote poems to fathers who had died of bullets or drugs. They would often want me to write out their work for them, as they recited, since they were terrible at spelling. If I refused, they'd refuse to talk, as though I was being petty. They had nothing; couldn't I, who had everything, do them this one thing?

When I asked them about their future, many would say they wanted to be millionaires, as if that was a career. One asked how much money I made as a journalist and laughed when I told him; he never took me seriously again.

In a sense, the reformers are right: Teachers are often the most important people in these kids' lives -- no one else is helping. But I felt these kids slipping from my grasp one by one, even when they were sitting right in front of me. Stronger forces were pulling us apart: homelessness, depression, in utero setbacks, lack of parents or computers or transportation. Everything that had nothing to do with school had everything to do with school. When we did make progress, when our eyes would meet and we would acknowledge a moment of achievement, it always felt ephemeral, in passing, as though we were glimpsing each other across a great and growing chasm.

It's unlikely you'll see Gihring in ads that've been unveiled to recruit teachers to replace the baby boomer teachers who are expected to retire soon. The Fargo Forum reports the ads are intended to show that one teacher can make a difference.

5) BRUSSEL-SPROUT-SIZE HAIL

Judging by last night's coverage of the storms, my suggestion to use vegetables to characterize the size of hail -- asparagus tips, for example -- has not yet taken root. It's always the same, golfballs and baseballs. Dale Connelly wonders why other sports are left out...

But I wonder - is that our entire athletico-spherical vocabulary? What about handballs? Raquetballs? I've never heard a weather forecaster try to parse relative hardness of hail, though it does vary. If your job is to encourage people to take cover, you would naturally go with the most impressive choice and baseballs and billiard balls are more motivational than tennis balls.

A lacrosse ball is smaller around (7.5 inches) than a baseball (9 inches), could offer a useful distinction, but you never hear meteorologists talk about "lacrosse ball sized hail'. I assume In England and India a handy frame of reference would be "Hail the size of cricket balls." Try that over here and people would be confused. Cricket balls? Aren't they very, very tiny?

The storm chasers, of course, were out...

TODAY'S QUESTION

A survey by Consumer Reports finds that 7.5 million Facebook users are under the network's minimum age of 13. More than 5 million are under age 10. The survey also finds that millions of Americans have been victimized in some way via social networks. Today's Question: What can be done to ensure the safety of young people online?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

This is the last 5x8 of the week. I'm burning up some vacation time tomorrow and Friday.

Meanwhile, we're still in a membership drive so some of this programming has been previously broadcast. The uninterrupted versions can be found online.

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Excerpts from conversations with three well-known musicians who have also written books.

Second hour: Revisiting Jane Eyre.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - Both hours: Garrison Keillor, speaking Tuesday night at the annual University of Minnesota Libraries Annual Dinner.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Political chatter with NPR's political editor.

Second hour: Trans-racial adoption.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - According to the latest jobs report, the number of people in the U.S. who have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks is still quite high-- 5.8 million. They make up about 43 percent of the country's unemployed. Economists say that it used to be that the long term unemployed were people who could afford to stay out of work without grabbing the first thing offered. But with so many people hit by layoffs, there are lots of people in that boat for reasons beyond their control. Still, there are a few groups that are most likely to be unemployed long term: minorities, older workers, and people with low education levels. Baxter looks at some of the negative implications of long term unemployment for the individual and the broader economy. MPR's Annie Baxter will report.

Pillsbury House Theater mounts a production of "In the Red And Brown Water" at the Guthrie. Actors say the play about a young female athlete caught on Katrina breaks theatrical stereotypes about African Americans. MPR's Euan Kerr will report.

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Are guns a health issue? (5x8 - 5/10/11)

Posted at 7:07 AM on May 10, 2011 by Bob Collins (20 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Should doctors be banned about asking about guns, the Bachmann story, the story of stuff, school counselors as luxuries, the band kids and the jocks, and Minneapolis is the new gay.

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Transplant tales (5X8 -5/9/11)

Posted at 7:13 AM on May 9, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
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Survival and death in the transplant game, a pencil-neck auction, why the small crowds at anti-tax rallies, the graying of the president, and video captures the beauty of night in the city.

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Pump relief? (5x8 - 5/6/11)

Posted at 7:20 AM on May 6, 2011 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
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If oil is dropping in price, how come gas is still $3.99? Also: Distracted dining, where airlines fly, the new Wild coach, and a caption contest.

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Why Scott Simon is wrong (5x8 - 5/5/11)

Posted at 8:05 AM on May 5, 2011 by Bob Collins (19 Comments)
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The real history of radio and why it matters, is getting kids excited in school a waste of time, catching up with the Kochs, the new reality in Bemidji, on Jackie Cooper, and pothole poetry.

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The Indian as enemy (5x8 - 5/4/11)

Posted at 7:49 AM on May 4, 2011 by Bob Collins (24 Comments)
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Why 'Geronimo,' the war on pencil-necks, proof baseball hates the Twins, the new Dust Bowl, and I dare you not to click this link.

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The day after the day after ( 5x8 - 5/3/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on May 3, 2011 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
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Celebrating death, dementia and the tubby person, can we call them the 'Stinkies', the top and bottom Minnesota companies, and duck cam returns.

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Saving history (5x8 - 5/2/11)

Posted at 7:18 AM on May 2, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

When newspapers die, what will we save on historic days? Another Saturday night, Egypt's shame, when people do good, and we're all going to be OK.

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The look (5x8 - 4/29/11)

Posted at 7:08 AM on April 29, 2011 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
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Faces of war, tornadoes and climate change, when people do good, the kissing case, and Superman snubs the U.S.

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Tornado video (5x8 - 4/28/11)

Posted at 7:08 AM on April 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Images from the Southeast storms, the seven sisters of Loyola, sun of Art Crawl, the walleye matchmaker, and the best baseball fan.

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On persistence (5x8 - 4/27/11)

Posted at 7:15 AM on April 27, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Just keep going, Congress' insult to the 9/11 rescuers, does time slow down when you're scared, what can you do about the PlayStation hack, and an end to the search for intelligence life in the universe.

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The only life they knew (5X8 - 4/26/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on April 26, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
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Two roads back, LRT street art, tune out and turn off in college, Ron Paul jumps in, and how to escape a disaster you just made.

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Derriere diaries (5x8 - 4/25/11)

Posted at 7:03 AM on April 25, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
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Time to stand up, the chess race, five myths about religion, Eichten on the tube, and the end of the small medical practice.

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Baseball's babies (5x8 - 4/22/11)

Posted at 7:08 AM on April 22, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
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The testosterone tales, the solution to the problem of sleepy controllers, walking away from the green products, the price of killing an endangered bird; and frack, baby, frack!

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What war really looks like (5x8 - 4/21/11)

Posted at 6:57 AM on April 21, 2011 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
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The people who won't let us turn away, Oslo flooding by air, when will drivers start slowing down, the pop-top-powered car, and Kevin Love's big day.

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The crash tax (5x8 - 4/20/11)

Posted at 6:50 AM on April 20, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
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Charging out-of-towners for accidents, computers in cars, the law of orbital coincidences, the Starburst prom dress, and when people do good.

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Minnesota's suicide epidemic (5x8 - 4/19/11)

Posted at 7:06 AM on April 19, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
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Minnesota has a problem, should drop-outs drive, struggles on both ends of stadium picture, the official state pipe band, and bicycle polo.

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A one-newspaper town? (5x8 - 4/18/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on April 18, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
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Can the Twin Cities support two papers, Nick's autism, disasters up close, the beauty of the mountain, and evaporating clouds of video.

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Prom controversy season begins (5x8 - 4/15/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on April 15, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
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Too old for the prom, the life of Walter, the lasting injury of child abuse, nothing can save a kid like a pony, and the curse of the long-distance runner.

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Year of the water balloon (5x8 - 4/14/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on April 14, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
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A day to Thai one on, defending Dylan, the creative process explored, slave trade in the classroom, and Patton Oswalt Radio.

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Nobility and the foul ball (5x8 - 4/13/11)

Posted at 7:12 AM on April 13, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
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The kid and the ball, Band Aid art, you are the jury, whose flood is it, and what happens on the farm stays on the farm.

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Should the small town be saved? (5x8 - 4/12/11)

Posted at 7:13 AM on April 12, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
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When is it time to give up, the Civil War 150, pulling Planned Parenthood, Iman's rape, and misunderstood melodies.

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Whack-a-flood (5x8 - 4/11/11)

Posted at 6:52 AM on April 11, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
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Whack-a-flood, a cost-benefit analysis of religion, life on a string, the final haircut, and saving the world with video games.

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In search of our character (5x8 - 4/7/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on April 7, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
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1) HAVE WE CHANGED? THE FLOODS WILL TELL US

I'm heading to Moorhead today to help MPR cover the flooding of the Red River. So posting here today will be a little light and there won't be a 5x8 tomorrow. What there will be, hopefully, is some dispatches from flood country.

I'm anxious to get a feel for this creeping "complacency" mentioned in Dan Gunderson's story. I checked with the neighborhood that I usually follow during the floods and the sandbag dikes were completed in two days. That's hard work considering volunteers have been hard to come by, apparently. And that strikes me as the story. Where are the volunteers? Has it not been dramatic enough? Are there other things to do? Is there just too much need?

Many of the volunteers I encountered in 2009 were from the Twin Cities, and many of the agencies that responded were metro area fire departments and sheriff departments. But times have changed in two years. Minnesota has been in "every man for himself" mode, and the legislative session has certainly set the agenda for this new Minnesota. "You've got problems? Hey, I've got problems, buddy!"

You know the best part of covering flooding in the Red River? Getting away from that mentality.

The Fargo Forum provides a little hope again with a story today that it's the kids -- you know, the lazy, video-gaming, short-attention-span kids that never leave their computers? -- who are showing the way. About 1,500 high schoolers fanned out in the area to help yesterday. They'll be back today.

Untitled from FCC Interactive on Vimeo.

This video from the Army Corps of Engineers is a good example of the intricacies of foiling a flood. We see lots of people with sandbags around homes and neighborhoods, but that's the most obvious effect. More often than not, however, a river's pathways into neighborhoods and into homes is fairly sneaky.

And, of course, when the floods are done, all of this will have to be undone.

2) MONEY TO SPARE? GO BY AIR

You can catch a plane, but you can't catch a break, Minneapolis St. Paul. Statistics guru Nate Silver has been studying which airports have the most unfair fares. Minneapolis-St. Paul is 4th.Silver said part of the reason, of course, is that Delta has such a large market share. But, surprisingly, he says when Southwest Airlines -- they were supposed to lead to substantially cheaper fares here -- operates at an airport like ours, it supresses competition from other cheaper airlines.

The most overpriced small airport in the country, by the way, is La Crosse.

3) THE STATUE CONTROVERSY

The St. Paul City Council ordered Tuan J. Pham to move his 7-foot-tall white-marble Jesus from his backyard, the Star Tribune reports today. The crime? It's within 10 feet of the Mississippi River bluff.

Rules are rules, of course, so the City Council ordered it removed.

Mitch Berg, at Shot In The Dark, says the man wasn't asking for much -- just a variance, which are granted all the time.

Mind you, it's a variance. Not a change in the law. A variance. For a statue. In a private garden.

4) COMICAL JAZZ

Some jazz musicians are known as much for their wit as for their chops. It's National Humor Month, apparently, so NPR has assembled five jazz songs "that are designed to make you laugh."

More seriously, it's worth pointing out that today is Billie Holiday's birthday, Dale Connelly reminds us.

What strikes me is how casually the world would have overlooked her, as countless millions born into similar circumstances have been. It is completely whimsical that we got to hear her voice at all - it could so easily have gone another way. Jazz impresario John Hammond went to a club to listen to a different singer but heard Billie Holiday instead. She caught a break and made a lasting impression, and as a result people will be listening to Billie Holiday long after the rest of us are forgotten.

5) BIG WHEEL BIKE VS. BUS

I'm looking for volunteers to try this in the Twin Cities. It won't be close, but it will be dangerous.

(h/t: Ken Paulman)

Bonus: All of those ideas you may have had to get out of jury duty? Don't use them.

Viral video of the day

It's the little things that give you a clue that everything is going to fall into place today.

TODAY'S QUESTION

Unless negotiators can reach a deal to extend the government's authority to spend money, the federal government could shut down this weekend. How would a federal government shutdown affect you?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: What's the future of renewable energy?

Second hour: Will Rogers- cowboy comic to political insider.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Former Sen. Dave Durenberger on the GOP proposal to eventually eliminate the Medicare program for seniors.

Second hour: Baseball analyst Howard Sinker previews the Twins home opener on Friday afternoon.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Solutions to the debt crisis.

Second hour: Remembering Manning Marable and considering his life work -- a biography of Malcolm X.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - New data from the Census Bureau show much of the metro region's growth has been in the second- and third-ring suburbs, where five cities alone added more than 68,000 people - that's nearly one-third of the growth in the last decade. The suburbs are also becoming more ethnically diverse. How are the suburbs handling the growth and the challenges brought by diversity?
MPR's Jess Mador will have the story.

There are some devices that aren't well known, playing an important role along the Red River. Gravel Blisters, Trapbag Levees, Aqua Dam Levees, Hesco Levee, Aqua Fences and Big Bags. Tom Robertson will report.

MPR's Euan Kerr says minimalist composer Philip Glass collaborates with choreographer Lucinda Childs to remount a dance piece at the Walker Art Center which was booed in Minneapolis when first performed in the 1970s.

NPR takes a closer look at Brett Baier, an emerging player at Fox News.

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The vaccine crisis (5x8 - 4/6/11)

Posted at 7:02 AM on April 6, 2011 by Bob Collins (16 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Why are diseases once thought eradicated making a comeback, PBS vs. NPR, city turkeys, complacency on the Red River, and Rickrolling Oregon

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Memories from the mountain top (5x8 - 4/5/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on April 5, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Another listen to 'the speech,' the airport cart capital of the world, the presidential intersect, the music man of Grand Rapids, and can boomers retire?

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Pillowless in the Twin Cities (5x8 - 4/4/11)

Posted at 6:55 AM on April 4, 2011 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

How did we miss International Pillow Fight Day, the housing debate three years later, flooding: second verse, worse than the first; men vs. women in Bangladesh, and Porky's last burnout.

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Kids today (5x8 - 4/1/11)

Posted at 7:06 AM on April 1, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

No baby, the love is on for Rachel, the nuns of summer, the nearly naked run, and watering plants made hard.

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The joy of watching water (5x8 - 3/31/11)

Posted at 7:22 AM on March 31, 2011 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Pondering Minnesota, stadium proponents hit the line, when people do good, the great abandoned bike mystery, the new American dream, and wearing a hijab for a day.

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Which state parks should close? (5x8 - 3/30/11)

Posted at 7:20 AM on March 30, 2011 by Bob Collins (32 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Pick a park, vulnerability and joy, reporters standing in water, are WWII aircraft leaving Minnesota, and March sadness.

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Who's ready for a little sacrifice? (5x8 - 3/29/11)

Posted at 7:01 AM on March 29, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Will everyone share, reporters standing in water, Car Talk in three acts, a man and his goose, and marrying your iPad.

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Predicting floods (5x8 - 3/28/11)

Posted at 7:26 AM on March 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

How accurate are flood predictions, the kill team that targeted kids in Afghanistan, sleepless for a cause, the hour of darkness, and the beer can chewer.

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All things taxes (5x8 - 3/25/11)

Posted at 7:04 AM on March 25, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

A tax-free GE, how to make a million bucks in Minnesota, the longevity game, end of the line for Porky's, and likin' Minnesota.

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Steve Inskeep fights back (5x8 - 3/24/11)

Posted at 7:23 AM on March 24, 2011 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

A newsperson shall lead them, end of the town cafe, the most powerful video you'll see today, what's the story here, and the Zumbro flood set to music.

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Where does your tax money go? (5x8 - 3/23/11)

Posted at 7:02 AM on March 23, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Calculating how your money is spent, the martyr of citizen journalism, the case of the Muslim teacher, they don't call it Superior for nothing, and South Fargo's bad idea gone worse. Also: Mysteries of the Wiffle Ball.

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Your fancy book learnin' (5x8 - 3/22/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on March 22, 2011 by Bob Collins (17 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

What's so bad about being smart, a river -- or two -- runs through us, remains of the winter day, how the world changed in a week, and Apple's gay cure.

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One leg at a time (5x8 - 3/21/11)

Posted at 7:42 AM on March 21, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Monday inspiration, the war in Libya, uttering the 'N word,' the 140-character war, and tears for a polar bear.

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Stuck in red tape in Japan (5x8 - 3/18/11)

Posted at 7:30 AM on March 18, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

A Minnesotan wants to come home, a flood on top of a flood, dangers of the legal drugs,

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How can Japan be put back together? (5x8 - 3/17/11)

Posted at 7:31 AM on March 17, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

(Correction appended)

1) WHERE TO START?

After almost a week, this is the image I still can't process.

Where do you start to put your life back together? How do you not give up?

We have a few inches of snow in the winter, and we treat it like a tragedy. But this, of course, really is a tragedy -- three of them.

There have been some interesting conversations I've been having on some of the social networking sites about how we -- Americans -- would respond to this and it's against the backdrop of that hypothetical that we hear the stories of how the Japanese are approaching this.

NPR's Rob Gifford, in his report last evening, talked to a teacher. Many of his students are missing. "I'm very, very sad," he said, pausing and then adding, "but thank you very much for coming."

How do we honor that?

Today, all evidence points to a worsening nuclear meltdown in Japan and more media are focusing on what it means for us (it's all about us). According to the Center for Global Research.

The Pacific jetstream is currently flowing due east directly toward the United States. In the event of a major meltdown and continuous large-volume radioactive release, airborne particles will be carried across the ocean in bands that will cross over the southern halves of Oregon, Montana and Idaho, all of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas, northern Nebraska and Iowa and ending in Wisconsin and Illinois, with possible further eastward drift depending on surface wind direction.

It doesn't pose a significant health risk for the U.S., we're told. But that isn't stopping some people from overreacting.

2) SOUTH BY ST. PAUL

South by Southwest -- SXSW -- is a sprawling event in Austin but St. Paul is getting some attention there, the blog TechDirt reports. A new documentary on the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul is being screened there focusing on the role of informant Brandon Darby, who was a key to the arrest of two men for making Molotov cocktails.

Says TechDirt:

... the documentary really highlights the ridiculous nature of government prosecutions in cases such as this. In the last few months, we've seen multiple stories, that have a familiar ring to them, involving the FBI busting up "bomb plots" that appear as if they would not have existed if the FBI had not become involved. In other words, multiple cases where it appears that the FBI found people who would have had no capability to actually do any damage, and then were enabled by the FBI or partners to put those people in a position where they could be arrested for preparing to do "acts" that they otherwise would not have been able to do. Is that entrapment? It certainly comes close to the borderline.

Variety gives the film the thumbs up:

Playing out against the high drama of the GOP gathering in St. Paul, Minn., compounded by the U.S. policy of targeting terrorists as a top priority, "Better This World" delivers the kind of case study, rich in national and personal dimensions, that would have made the New Journalists of the '60s and '70s swoon. In a sense, the film represents the next generation of that movement in subject and style: The street-based opponents of the GOP vividly recall Vietnam-era protesters, and the film integrates facts and re-enactments, as well as some clearly prearranged scenes, to tell its story.

Darby, by the way, is suing the New York Times for defamation because of this story which revealed him as the informant. He objects to the Times' claimed that he encouraged the two men to make Molotov cocktails. (Correction: An earlier link led to an incorrect reference to the New York Times in question. The article cited by Darby's suit was a February 22, 2011 article, to which a correction was later appended. I apologize for the error of the incorrect reference. There is no challenge to the accuracy of the January 9, 2009 story at the original link, which described Mr. Darby's acknowledgment that he was a government informant for the FBI during the period leading up to the convention in St. Paul.)

3) INCOMING!

Yesterday was a lousy day for public radio. First, Garrison Keillor announced he would retire in 2013. He's money in the bank for public radio stations around the country and while they might all talk about developing new programming, they've known Keillor wasn't going to live forever for years and they still haven't come up with a program to be a cornerstone of their non-NPR-News broadcast schedule.

Why not? It's a complicated process but here's a story that might explain it. Several years ago, when I was running this website, the Smithsonian asked for a copy of the very first broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion. Because that constituted a news story, I dug out the copy, encoded it for online listening, and posted it on the site. An hour later, the boss (no longer with the company, but it's not related) ordered it taken down.

Frankly, it wasn't very good and though I never heard from Keillor, I wondered whether he was embarrassed by the broadcast the way many of us in the business are embarrassed by our early work. There were technical difficulties, the main guest was a WCCO weatherman, and there was, then, no Guy's All Star Shoe Band.

When media companies are small, they can afford to play with ideas -- they didn't have that many listeners anyway. A show can get the time to find its legs. But I wondered whether A Prairie Home Companion in that early form could get on the air today. I suspect not for the same reason good TV shows can't stay on the air anymore. There's too much at stake and the time is short to garner an audience.

From the sound of things on Marianne Combs' blog, Keillor intends to keep his company alive and is said to be searching for a host. How'd you like to be the person to replace Garrison Keillor? How would you prepare for such a role? By having people shout at your every few seconds, "you're no Garrison Keillor!"

Then, yesterday, Congressional Republicans figured out a new way to hamstring public radio stations when they unveiled -- and held a hearing on short notice -- a plan to strip funding for NPR programming. Affiliate stations would be prevented from using taxpayer money to buy programming from other public radio stations. The cash could only be used for administrative costs.

Meanwhile, current.org carries the transcript of a lecture given to NPR board members by an independent radio producer who suggests it's time for the network to expand its audience, which requires acknowledging politicians may be right.

In other public radio news: Today is the 19th anniversary of my first MPR job interview. St. Paul is holding a big parade to celebrate.

4) TAINTED

Sarah Betzler was jogging on Highway 61 near Duluth on Sunday when she thought she was hit by a car. It turned out to be a flying deer, the News Tribune reports.

A truck had hit the deer and sent it flying into Betzler. The truck kept driving, ignoring Betzler.

"I remember trying to wave at that truck a little bit to say, 'Hey, you know, I was here, come help me,' but ... they just kept on driving," Betzler said. "That road there is so wide that there's no way he could have missed (seeing) me. He had to have seen me for about a half-mile at least, if not a mile. That's how straight and wide it is right there."

5) WE CAN LEARN A LOT FROM DOGS

Bonus: Reality TV doesn't particularly challenge the brain. So why did some version of the SAT tests given to people who want to be educated require them to know something about reality TV? It was one of the essay questions on the test, the Times says.

TODAY'S QUESTION

A bill that would ban human cloning in Minnesota is making its way through the Legislature. The bill's sponsor says he is promoting it as a preventive measure. Does Minnesota need a law to prohibit human cloning?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Considered an epidemic by addiction experts and policy makers, prescription drug abuse is sweeping the nation. How has it become so widespread, and what can be do to stop it?

Second hour: Author Wesley Stace is better known to music fans as John Wesley Harding. He joins Midmorning to talk about his new novel and the difference between writing songs and writing novels.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: The politics of the federal budget.

Second hour:

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Update from Japan.

Second hour: The ethics of prisoners and organ donation,

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - The Senate is expected to approve a continuing resolution to keep the federal government operating another three weeks. It cuts spending by $6 billion. We'll hear from some of Minnesota's delegation in Washington and what's being cut and what they want to protect from cuts.

MPR's Tim Post reports that the University of Minnesota is considering mothballing or demolishing more than a dozen buildings on its Twin Cities campus. U of M officials say it's an effort to save money by reducing the amount of space the college takes care of. But some of the buildings are historic and that has preservationists concerned.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota say proposed human cloning legislation would make the state the first in the nation to ban embryonic stem cell research. What would it mean to the U's research? MPR's Lorna Benson will report.

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Death and honor in a crippled nuke plant (5x8 - 3/16/11)

Posted at 7:34 AM on March 16, 2011 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Small stories in a big disaster, Wisconsin's controversy that won't die, living on a welfare card, preparing for floods, and should football be eliminated from high school.

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Whistleblower sues reporter (5x8 - 3/15/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on March 15, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

A Twitter chill, Japan's meltdowns, why you're not typical, interview walkouts, and the state of hair.

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On Arthur Hoehn (5x8 - 3/14/11)

Posted at 7:09 AM on March 14, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The first announcer, the unsung heroes of journalism, the tsunami video, Minnesota lawmakers want to roll back stateworker bennies, and the editing of the anti-NPR video.

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The tsunami video and links (5x8 - 3/11/11)

Posted at 6:49 AM on March 11, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

How to follow the earthquake in Japan and the Pacific tsunami.

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Postscript Wisconsin (5x8 - 3/10/11)

Posted at 7:25 AM on March 10, 2011 by Bob Collins (27 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Wisconsin: The documentary, Stewart on NPR, are there too many 'heroes', the snow emergency business, the end of coffee, and cats with thumbs.

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A shot at vaccinations (5x8 - 3/9/11)

Posted at 7:33 AM on March 9, 2011 by Bob Collins (16 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Why is Minnesota's vaccination rate falling, understanding CPB, winter marches on, sexting, and musical Pi.

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Blogs on trial (5x8 - 3/8/11)

Posted at 6:40 AM on March 8, 2011 by Bob Collins (16 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The case of Johnny Northsider, ode to the skyways, a ride against depression, an incident in Iowa, and the king strikes a blow against museum stodginess.

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America's third world (5x8 - 3/7/11)

Posted at 7:09 AM on March 7, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The motel generation of kids, radicalization of Muslims to be investigated, pushing the season, whatever happened to Ila Borders, and the science of Up proven.

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Protesters leave state capitol (5X8 -- 3/4/11)

Posted at 7:06 AM on March 4, 2011 by Michael Olson (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) THE PROTESTERS HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING
Wisconsin protesters have left the state capitol after dwelling in the building for 17 days. A judge ordered the protesters to evacuate; they complied with cheers of victory and left without incident. However, after the protesters left, Democratic state Rep. Nick Milroy was tackled by police as he tried to gain access to the capitol. Rep. Milroy was allowed access to his office once police realized he wasn't a protester.


2) WALKER THREATENS TO CAN 1,500 PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
Protesters have left the Wisconsin Capitol, but it doesn't mean that the stalemate in the Badger State is coming to a close. Gov. Scott Walker (R ) is threatening to begin layoffs of public employees if his bill to diminish collective bargaining remains at an impasse.

3) HIGH SCHOOL PLAYER COLLAPSES, DIES AFTER MAKING WINNING SHOT
A sad item picked up by the Strib this morning:

A western Michigan high school basketball player collapsed on the court and later died after making the game-winning shot to cap his team's perfect season.
Holland Hospital spokeswoman Deb Patterson says 16-yer-old Fennville High School basketball player Wes Leonard died Thursday night. A cause of death has not yet been determined.

4) THE SOUNDS OF RED WING
A beautiful item from MN Today about a violin maker in Red Wing.



5) NEWS FROM THE NOT EXTINCT
Yesterday 5X8 carried an item that the eastern cougar was determined to be extinct. Amateur wildlife observers continue to doubt the declaration by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service. Although extremely rare, species can be removed from the extinct list. There is a candidate for that distinction swimming in Lake Michigan right now. A species of fish once thought to be extinct in the Great Lakes has reemerged. Straight from the front pages of the Leelanau Enterprise:

The strain of lake herring once thought to be extinct is part of the salmonoid cisco family of fishes native to the Great Lakes. Claramunt said that the species had been declared extinct in the 1960's. In the 1990's, however, anecdotal evidence began to emerge that some of the fish might be frequenting Grand Traverse Bay in the waters off Leelanau County.

TODAY'S QUESTION
With oil prices rising and the Middle East in turmoil, the Interior Department has approved the first deepwater drilling permit in the Gulf of Mexico since last year's BP disaster. Today's Question: How aggressive should the United States be in developing its own sources of oil?

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Rebels, cougars and fish (5X8 3/3/11)

Posted at 7:50 AM on March 3, 2011 by Michael Olson (0 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) LIBYAN REBELS HANG ON

The daylong battle was the first major incursion by the colonel's forces in the rebel-held east of the country since the Libyan uprising began. Arab diplomats, meanwhile, weighed reports of a peace plan proposed by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, an ally of Colonel Qaddafi (NYT).

The U.S. is repositioning ships to be able to provide support in the area and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is publicly speaking about possible no-fly zones in the region. Do you agree with the U.S. response so far to the situation in Libya?

2) 22 NEW CHARGES FOR BRADLEY MANNING
The suspected source for thousands of classified military documents that ended up on WikiLeaks is facing an additional 22 charges. Bradley Manning is now accused of "aiding the enemy" which as National Journal reports is "traditionally a capital offense. But in a release announcing the new charges, the Army said it would not be recommending the death penalty."

A veterans group raising money for Manning's legal defense was recently given the boot by PayPal.

3) MORE MONEY, MORE PROBLEMS: NFL LABOR DISPUTE HEATS UP
If N.F.L. players and owners can't agree on a deal by midnight, the collective bargaining agreement will expire and the first strike in the football league will be underway since 1987. Its hard to imagine this follows a season with record-setting Super Bowl viewership and sky-high profits. Judy Battista reports "The N.F.L. and its players union are prepared for a labor showdown, with the players poised to decertify the union Thursday afternoon and seek to block a lockout that the owners are expected to impose, said several people with knowledge of the plans of owners and players."

4) THAT'S NOT AN EASTERN COUGAR
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concludes eastern cougar extinct
Cougar sightings continue in Minnesota, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has concluded that the eastern cougar is extinct. The MN DNR says its unclear what the cougar population is in Minnesota partly because reported sightings and photos could be of pet cougars released into the wild.

5) WALLEYE CHOP ON LAKE MILLE LACS

When eight Chippewa bands begin netting walleyes this spring on Lake Mille Lacs, they will be shooting for a record harvest -- 142,500 pounds. That 71 tons of fish is 42 percent more than the bands' allocation only four years ago, and reflects a rising harvest by Chippewa netters since 1997, when courts affirmed the bands off-reservation hunting, fishing and gathering rights. (Strib)

Fish populations haven't always been this strong in walleye country. Arizona Public Media examined the restoration of Red Lake's walleye in Return of the Red Lake Walleye.

For those of us not lucky enough to live up north near a good walleye lake we do a lot of our fishing at restaurants and markets. San Francisco online explored the world of fishing with foodies and some of the greatest American chefs. The article definitely has a Portlandia sensibility, but provides some food for thought.

Many of our most famous chefs continue to put unsustainable choices like ahi tuna, monkfish, and farmed salmon on their menus, while their most respected suppliers keep selling red-listed fish to whoever wants it. Even the many chefs who go out of their way to ask the right questions of the people they get their fish from can be misled by the half-truths told all along the supply chain. In the end, despite our best intentions, much of what we're told or assume about the provenance of the seafood we eat is essentially a fish story.

TODAY'S QUESTION
A survey finds that doctors think patient health is improved by a long-term relationship with a physician. They also wish patients would show them more appreciation and respect. Today's Question: What would you like more of in your relationship with your doctor?

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Pork police target federal waste (5X8 - 3/2/11)

Posted at 8:07 AM on March 2, 2011 by Michael Olson (1 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) WASTE REPORT BRINGS ABOUT BIPARTISANSHIP
A new report from the Government Accountability Office sheds light upon redundant programs and activities that are wasting billions in federal tax dollars. The report was met with bipartisan praise by Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington that are in search of ways to address the deficit that is projected to reach $1.65 trillion in 2011.

The Wall Street Journal reports, "Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), who requested the report, estimated potential reductions would save between $100 billion and $200 billion a year."

2) WALKER BUDGET CUTS DEEP AT LOCAL LEVEL
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is proposing deep spending cuts to close the state's $3.6 billion budget gap. Walker described the proposal as "a reform budget... to get Wisconsin working again." The cuts would hit local governments and schools hard.
Roughly $1.5 billion cuts would come from schools and local governments. MPR's Matt Sepic reports that one school district is anticipating $200 to $1,100 less to spend per student.

The proposal also eliminates collective bargaining for most public employees. Senate Democrats are still on the lam, preventing a vote on the budget, and don't appear to have a plan to return to Madison anytime soon.

3) CONTENT FARM PREDICTING BUMPER CROP
Last week Google revamped its search algorithm to prioritize higher quality news and information. One producer of a lot of the weeded out content says it's on track to turn a profit. Online publisher Demand Media says they will be in the black later this year.

"There's a real gap and a real need for companies like Demand Media to be able to produce content at scale that people want to consume - Demand Media co-founder Shawn Colo (Journalism News).

4) THE JAIL TAPES: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Apparently suspects facing domestic abuse charges spend a lot of time talking with the people they allegedly abused. MPR's Sasha Aslanian unearthed some gripping audio material as part of a series on domestic violence. In some cases the calls are violations of no-contact orders and become evidence for prosecutors. Even though the calls are disclosed as monitored, the tapes paint a picture of manipulation.

A suspect who was arrested for allegedly hitting and slapping his girlfriend instructs her from jail, "Call up that prosecutor and tell him I ain't f------ do s---, man. Tell them we weren't even with each other or something. You were just mad because you thought I was with some other girl or something."

Midday picks up the topic of domestic violence today at 11:00 a.m.

5) NEWT'S HEADFAKE?
The Republican 2012 presidential field is crowded and doesn't have a clear frontrunner. Speculation this week puts Newt Gingrich in the mix. Several news outlets reported that Gingrich was planning on announcing an exploratory committee for a presidential bid. That's apparently not the case now.

TODAY'S QUESTION
Today's Question: Which potential GOP candidate would have the best chance of winning the White House?

WHAT WE'RE DOING
Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) -

9a- GOP presidential field starting to take shape? Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is reportedly set to announce a run for president in 2012. Will speculation surrounding Gingrich spur other Republicans presidential hopefuls to make their plans official? And which candidate is most likely to fire up the base?

Guests: John H. Richardson, journalist and author. His feature on Newt Gingrich appeared in the September issue of Esquire Magazine. Matt Lewis writes about politics for the Daily Caller. He previously wrote for Politics Daily.

9:45a- Apple's iPad2 Is Unveiled
Steven Jobs continues his indefinite medical leave, but there is no break from innovating at Apple. Apple executives unveil the iPad 2 today.

Guest: Leander Kahney, Publisher of The Cult of Mac and author of Inside Steve's Brain.

10a- Rodney Crowell in the Maud Moon Weyerhauser Studio

What do you get when you grow up poor, as an only child of a drunk father and a holy-rolling mother? How about an acclaimed musician, songwriter and now author of the book "Chinaberry Sidewalks." Hear Rodney share his story, through words and songs.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.)
11- MPR special reports on domestic violence, followed by a discussion with your calls and Jeffrey Edleson, Director of the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse.

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The global warming fallacy? (5X8 - 3/1/11)

Posted at 8:06 AM on March 1, 2011 by Michael Olson (12 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) GLOBAL WARMING DENIER BLOCKS FUNDS FOR ENVIRO RESEARCH
The Minnesota Senate Environment committee blocked a handful of projects from receiving dedicated environmental proceeds from the Minnesota Lottery. The projects were for planning and research, including global warming research; others were for environmental education. The chair of the committee says global warming research is a waste of money.

"If I have to go on record and say global warming, I think it's a farce, I think it's a fallacy. ... When it comes to that kind of studying, I can't be anything other than honest, I just don't buy it. And I think there's a lot of folks that don't" -- Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, chair of the Senate Environment Committee (MPR)

2) CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE HERE TO STAY?
One of the problems with Chronic Wasting Disease is that it sticks around and infects animals long after the initial carriers of the disease are gone. A deer hunter in Southern Minnesota opines that it will take government involvement to return health to Minnesota's deer herds.

It is likely that some folks will stop deer hunting altogether, for fear of harvesting and eating an infected animal. Others will continue to hunt, but they'll have their deer tested before eating the venison. Some will probably keep hunting and eating venison, irrespective of the disease. But two things are for sure -- the DNR will need to continue indefinitely its CWD surveillance, and hunters and maybe even non-hunting taxpayers will be stuck with the bill - Chris Kolbert (Post-Bulletin).

3) GOV WALKER PRESENTS BLUE PRINT, PUBLIC SUPPORTS UNIONS
After two weeks of protests in Madison and around the country, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R ) is poised to outline his union-gutting budget.

Walker issued Senate Democrats, who are on the lam, an ultimatum: come home and vote, or cost the state $165 million* in bond refinancing.

A new poll suggests that Walker is losing the battle of hearts and minds. The Pew Research Center poll indicates that the public is standing with the unions and not Walker.

4) MORE CLARITY ON THE RIGHT?
Remember yesterday morning when you were reading that News Cut item about the DOS attack on American's for Prosperity? It's all about the Koch brothers and the Wisconsin protests over collective bargaining. The act of making AfP's website difficult to access has turned AfP into a more distinctive voice on the right on matters of the Wisconsin budget and collective bargaining.

RedState defined the DOS event as a hypocritical move by the left that silenced the free speech rights of AfP.

Anonymous defined the act of crashing the AfP site as symbolic.

"[W]e, Anonymous, targeted only two pieces of the Koch brothers' vast empire of pawns. It is the opening salvo of what has become a call to arms for the American people, to stand up and fight against the corruption that has been slowly, insidiously invading the Democratic process. "

5) INDIE ROCK NOT DEAD, JUST CHANGING
This review from The Current of Toro y Moi's new album provides a snapshot of the current state of indie rock. Read it and you will know what the kids are talking about these days.

This album might feel like something of a disappointment at first. The sheer euphoric connectivity of Toro y Moi's debut is scarcely replicated here. Still, repeat listens reveal a nuanced and intriguing continuation of some of the ideas of Bundick's debut. More importantly, Underneath the Pine showcases his willingness to take risks with Toro y Moi's sound, incorporating new influences with care and aplomb.

TODAY'S QUESTION
A reported deal between legislators and Gov. Mark Dayton could clear the way toward an alternative licensing plan for teachers. Today's Question: What might teachers without traditional training bring to the profession?

WHAT WE'RE DOING
Midmorning (9-11 a.m.)
9- Fighting Terrorism: Is The Playbook The Same in 2011?
Does Osama bin Laden remain the greatest threat to America's security? Or have home-grown, self-radicalized, "lone wolves" become a bigger danger to the United States?

Guests: Ralph Boelter, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Minneapolis office and Michael Scheuer, Former CIA Intelligence Officer.

10- Faith and suffering in song
Conductor and composer Andre Thomas says that when choirs perform spirituals, they need to understand both the joy and the pain of the slave experience. He joins Midmorning to discuss the legacy of spirituals and their meaning for modern-day audiences.

Guest: Andre Thomas, conductor, composer, and arranger of choral music and professor of music at Florida State University.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.)
11- Governor Mark Dayton in studio to discuss the new revenue forecast and the state budget. (CALL-IN)

12- New American RadioWorks documentary: Power and Smoke: A Nation Built on Coal.

* "million" was missing at first post.

Michael Olson is the editor for Minnesota Today and is filling in on mornings for Bob Collins this week.

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When 10 = 0 (5X8 - 2/28/11)

Posted at 8:45 AM on February 28, 2011 by Michael Olson (1 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

We have hamsters and gremlins fighting in our pipes and tubes today, sorry for the delay in the 5x8. Bob's out this week.

1) NO OSCAR FOR COEN BROS

Minnesota natives Joel and Ethan Coen reminded us this year that the Western genre one of the great American contributions to film. Their remake of True Grit was greeted at the box offices with strong ticket sales and garnered respect from the Academy. In all, they received 10 nominations for the film. None of the nominations turned into a win. MPR's Cube Critics broke the entire night down and then some. Did True Grit get overlooked, or was this year a particularly strong year for movies?

2) WISCONSIN PROTESTERS STAY PUT

Protesters continue to occupy the Wisconsin State Capitol. Wisconsin police asked them to leave, the protesters said 'no' and it now appears that police won't evict the protesters using force. The protesters have occupied the capitol for nearly two weeks as Senate Democrats try to broker a deal with Gov. Scott Walker (R). Walker says collective bargaining is hurting the state budget. Unions say they are willing to negotiate over benefits, but not over collective bargaining rights. Walker says the protests in Wisconsin and around the county in support of collective bargaining haven't swayed him from his position.

3) ANONYMOUS ATTACKS

A group of hackers calling themselves "anonymous" have launched a series of denial of service attacks on the Americans for Prosperity website, a group supportive of Gov. Walker's efforts against organized labor. A press release alleged to be inked by the hackers reveled that the Koch brothers are the real targets of their attack.

It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch--the billionaire owners of Koch Industries--have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.

But Politico reports the attacks, by singling out Americans for Prosperity, could actually strengthen the group as a voice against unions:

The DNS attack appears to have made Americans for Prosperity's website intermittently unavailable, but it will likely also help establish AfP among conservatives as the key group at Governor Scott Walker's side.

4) SIGNS OF SPRING
Spring might actually show up again. Signs of spring are emerging all around the state; ice dams turning into puddles, fresh snow fading into dirt, salt and other roadside residue - but a key for many Minnesotans - the DNR is releasing this year's fishing regulations.

Many of the new special regulations affect Big Sandy Lake in Aitkin County and several connected rivers and lakes, including a sunfish possession limit of five and size restrictions on walleyes.

With a sunfish limit of five, it's even more important to savor each cast. This Minnesota boy takes the experience to a new level:

5) BUDGET FORECAST
Minnesota lawmakers get an updated budget forecast today. It's unlikely that lawmakers will see a significant shift in the projected $6.2 billion deficit, but they are hoping some of the positive economic indicators of late will lead to a stronger revenue outlook for the state.

"The economy is certainly better than in November," state economist Tom Stinson said of the last economic forecast. The biggest economic improvement: The tax compromise between President Obama and Congress that cut payroll taxes. Economists predict that change will result in more take-home pay and a jolt to the nation's economy. Another heartening sign: The number of job openings in Minnesota jumped more than 30 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 compared to the same time a year before, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. New figures are due out Monday (Strib).

TODAY'S QUESTION
Gas prices rose last week to an average $3.48 per gallon in the Twin Cities. Experts say the price could go significantly higher. Today's Question: What might you do differently in response to the rise in gas prices?

Michael Olson is the editor for Minnesota Today and will be filling in on mornings for Bob Collins this week.

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What's up, Wisconsin? (5x8 - 2/25/11)

Posted at 7:11 AM on February 25, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Exploring the exotic land, drama on line one, driving Mr. Yogi, Duluth... very fast, and a statistical breakdown of the Oscar nominees.

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Want a job? Give me your Facebook login (5x8 - 2/24/11)

Posted at 7:27 AM on February 24, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) FACEBOOK: FRIEND OR FOE?

You're unemployed and you certainly need a job. You've got a lead on one; you even have an interview. And it's going pretty well right up to the part where the interviewer asks you for your Facebook log-in. What do you do?

The Maryland Department of Public Safety -- the potential employer in this case -- says it will review the policy.

2) THE WAY WE WERE

I grew up in the Sputnik and Telstar era. We played astronauts and everyone wanted to be John Glenn. I thought flying would be my ticket to a career in space. So today I'm wondering if anyone not my age has the same wistful reaction to this?

This is the last time you'll see the shuttle Discovery on the pad at Cape Canaveral. Later this morning, it heads to space for the last time. The U.S. is getting out of the manned space business. We'll be hitching rides with the Russians. For generations, lots of people have said we shouldn't be spending money on space because there are problems right here on earth to spend money on.

So now we're not going to space, and we don't have the money to do much of anything, anymore. Spectacular? Maybe later.

The wonder at the achievement of getting off terra firma was lost years ago and interest in it only seemed to return when astronauts died.

Today's discussion point: What separates the U.S. from everywhere else now? Are we running out of gee whiz? Or have we just gotten so used to see it that we don't recognize it anymore?

Today's launch is set for 3:50 p.m. Here are three ways to watch it.

3) WAR STORIES

Concordia College's women's basketball squad in Moorhead takes on St. Benedict tonight in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference semifinals. That'll be a couple of hours of not thinking about her husband for its star, Maggie Bauernfeind of Rosemount. She married her high school sweatheart last October, and then he shipped out to Iraq.

"Basketball helps me keep my mind off of it and it gives me a focus. I'm dreading basketball being done, because I think it's going to be a lot harder for me," she tells the Fargo Forum.

4) WHEN PEOPLE DO GOOD

The kids at Sauk Rapids-Rice were just about finished with their entry in next months regional robot competition in Duluth. Then they realized that key parts to make the thing go were missing. It appears they were stolen.

Robot rivals at Apollo High School in St. Cloud had extra parts and extra space in their high school. So their coach and team members invited Sauk Rapids-Rice over to help them finish.

5) TABLET WARS

Apple now has competition firing live ammo, the Boston Globe's tech guru says:

TODAY'S QUESTION

The regime of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi has reacted violently to street protests. Hundreds have been killed and Gadhafi himself has vowed to die in his effort to hang onto power. How should the world community respond to the bloodshed in Libya?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: As Wisconsin politicians navigate their next moves, the outcome of the budget-labor battle may impact the labor movement for the next generation. Will unions, and public opinion of them, become weaker or stronger?

Second hour: Over the past 30 years rap and hip-hop have emerged as a powerful and influential cultural force. Midmorning examines the power and the poetry of rap music, from the "old school" to the present day.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Professor Michael Barnett of George Washington University on the uprisings in Arab nations. He is author of "Dialogues in Arab Politics."

Second hour: Congressman Keith Ellison, speaking at Westminster Presbyterian Church about interfaith dialogue.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Is single motherhood is bad for society?

Second hour: What can the U.S. do about Libya?

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - What happens if the government shuts down? There is a budget showdown approaching on Capitol Hill. And, if Democrats and Republicans do not come to an agreement on a spending bill, the federal government could shut down. It happened in 1995. Social Security checks didn't go out, National Parks were closed, passports and visas weren't issued, and people were angry.

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Sports' military connection (5x8 - 2/23/11)

Posted at 7:15 AM on February 23, 2011 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) TOO MUCH PATRIOTISM?

Is it time to dial back the patriotic festivities at sporting events? Commentator Frank Deford thinks so:

It's also true that in the United States sports games are more associated with the military and mass displays of patriotism than are other amusements. I've always wondered why it is SOP -- standard operating procedure -- for the national anthem to be performed at games, when no one would ever expect "The Star-Spangled Banner" to be played at the theater or the opera or a rock concert or at the start of the Academy Awards this Sunday.

Why is this strictly an athletic devotion?

And, now, at the start of major sporting events, it's also obligatory to have military jets flash overhead. The Olympics sends up doves; we send up fighter planes.

And yet, it can be magic:

2) FIRESIDE SPAT

There's no other story in these parts these days than the one from Wisconsin. Here's Gov. Scott Walker's address to his people last night:

Sen. Mark Miller gave the Democrats' response.

At last check, the Wisconsin Assembly is still debating the bill that strips some public unions of collective bargaining rights. They've been going all night.

So here we are, pretty much the same place were were yesterday. We're talking about this on MPR's Midmorning this morning. Walker's comments are resonating with somebody. Several polls out of Wisconsin show he's got significant support, although at the moment the public unions are getting most of the attention.

Richard Hurd, a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University, told All Things Considered last night about how collective bargaining rights vary state by state. His statistics were fascinating, including this one: Public employees usually have better wages than the private sector, but that's true in any state, whether there are unions or not. But public sector workers tend to be higher educated, he says, and on an education basis, are paid less than their private-sector counterparts.

The New York Times' editorial today takes the unions' side:

The game is up when unionized state workers demonstrate a sense of shared sacrifice but Republican lawmakers won't even allow them a seat at the table. For unions and Democrats in the Midwest, this is an existential struggle, and it is one worth waging.

And Mother Jones considers four possible ways this thing ends.

For the Daily Show, by the way, Wisconsin is comedy gold.

3) THE RAPE THAT DOESN'T END

In Maryland, about 10,000 parole hearings are held each year. Only about three rape victims show up each year to try to keep their attacker in prison. The Washington Post has today's must-read story of one of them.

4) SOUTH DAKOTA'S CHINA SYNDROME

In South Dakota, the House has sent a bill to the Senate requiring women to wait at least 72 hours after she meets with a counselor to determine if she is voluntarily seeking an abortion. The Argus Leader notes a new angle surrounding anti-abortion legislation: The need to compete with China:

"The United States is in a strategic competition with China. China is a country which has a military which teaches its soldiers to hate America, it's a country that grows 10 percent a year economically, it has something like 1.4 billion people, and I think that we need to safeguard our economic growth and our population in order to compete with China," (Rep. Brian) Liss said, adding his argument for the bill is "completely secular."

Opponents of the legislation point out South Dakota has voted against a ban on abortions twice.

5)GOING OUT WITH A BANG

We don't know very much about the circumstances surrounding this video. Only that family members of "Uncle Gerald" somewhere wanted to send him off with a fitting goodbye upon his recent death.

Bonus: The 9/11 Memorial Museum has just released a multimedia timeline, featuring new video.

Soon-to-be Viral Video of the Day: This is what it looked like in Japan when new Twins' player Tsuyoshi Nishioka came to bat.

(h/t: SethSpeaks.net)

TODAY'S QUESTION

The political uproar in Wisconsin may be spreading to Ohio, where a similar bill to curb collective bargaining rights for public employees is under consideration. Could what's happening in Wisconsin happen here?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: The Wisconsin uprising.

Second hour:Is it still possible to reinvent yourself?

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Rep. John Klinetalks about the Afghanistan war, the uprisings in the Arab world, and domestic concerns facing Congress.

Second hour: NPR's "Intelligence Squared" series debate: "Is The Two Party System Making America Ungovernable?"

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: States with budget problems.

Second hour: How Groupon is hurting old-line business.

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A changing world and the public radio listener (5x8 - 2/22/11)

Posted at 7:32 AM on February 22, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The feel-good listener considered, beauty and Lake Superior, the first woman to throw BP, Wisconsin splits at the seams, and women in combat.

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Fact checking Wisconsin II (5x8 - 2/21/11)

Posted at 7:21 AM on February 21, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The connection between student achievement and collective bargaining, a day in the life of a defense attorney, deep driveway thoughts, sign sense in St. Cloud, and Watson is coming for you.

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Fact-checking Wisconsin (5x8 - 2/18/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on February 18, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Weighing the statements from the Wisconsin Uprising, hiring the autistic, blood sweat and chemo, the reporter who was having a stroke wasn't having a stroke, and boys wrestling girls.

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The Wisconsin uprising (5x8 - 2/17/11)

Posted at 7:13 AM on February 17, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

When people push back, the irony in Fargo, the value of life, free speech or murder, and how melting ice is music to our ears.

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Budgets and the state worker (5x8 - 2/16/11)

Posted at 7:03 AM on February 16, 2011 by Bob Collins (19 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Should state workers lose union rights, open season or self defense in South Dakota, innuendo explored, photographing a fading winter, and pillows at 10 paces.

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Racism in rural Minnesota? (5x8 - 2/15/11)

Posted at 7:31 AM on February 15, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Suggestions of racism dog Brainerd, the myth of the green job, matrimony in Mora, neighbors in the news, and can anything save the Minnesota Timberwolves?

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Shutdown? (5x8 - 2/14/11)

Posted at 6:44 AM on February 14, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Grab the air guitar. Here's the Monday Morning Rouser. The theme is "everybody cut."

1) WHACK-A-BUDGET

This is a big week for budgets and showmanship. Gov. Mark Dayton is releasing his budget plan on Tuesday (I'll live the blog the announcement). Today, President Obama is releasing his dead-on-arrival budget. But it's all a dance. Congress and the president are arguing about 15% of the budget -- discretionary spending -- while keeping hands off the "third rail" parts of the budget, like Medicare and Social Security.

There was a fine segment on Sunday evening's All Things Considered in which one analyst predicted a government shutdown, and noted that we love some government services, but not government spending. A shutdown shows us what government does and forces us to calculate whether we can or want to do without it. National parks? Do we need them? Home heating assistance? Is that our problem?

One economist tells MPR's Mark Zdechlik that lawmakers in Minnesota and in Washington are playing the economic version of whack-a-mole:

"Most of government spending is employment, and if state and local governments cut spending that means they're going to be laying off teachers, they're going to be cutting back on Medicaid spending," David Wyss said. "All of that means lost jobs. If you raise taxes it means the people in the state cut back on spending which is going to cost jobs too. So either way it is going to hurt."

The truth? The days of cutting someone else are probably over. What do you think you'll have to live without?

2) THE NEXT DETROIT?

It wasn't long ago that cities like Phoenix, Detroit, and Las Vegas were synonymous with the nation's housing problems. Those cities are stabilizing now, the New York Times reports. Now another city is popping up whenever there's a national dialogue on housing basket-cases: Minneapolis.

3) EMBRACING WINTER: THE HOVERCRAFT

What's the famous last line from "Back to the Future"? "Where we're going, we don't need roads." Like Lake Superior...

Over the last few weeks, I've suggested readers send me a single picture that describes "winter." Kate Gereats sends along a perfect example of the weekend's "transition" from one season to the next...

4) THE FACE OF BRAINERD

Residents of Brainerd are waking up with a startling picture today. It's a man in a bed with a patch over one eye and bruises around the other. The man is African American, which is why he's a bed with a patch over one eye and bruises around the other.

"I'm a black guy, I've got an education and I came to Brainerd to make a better life for myself. I know I'm not running from nobody but I didn't come here for no problems. This doesn't make sense. It's 2011 and you get treated like this?" Willie Navy told the Brainerd Dispatch.

5) THIS NEWS THING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

TODAY'S QUESTION

Medical facilities and businesses are starting to deny employment to smokers, both to promote healthy lifestyles and to hold down their own health-care costs. What policies should health-care facilities set for employees who smoke?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Mubarak is gone, but many questions remain for Egypt. How long will the Egyptian military govern the country, and what does new leadership mean for the country's relationship with the United States?

Second hour: Rick Steves believes a life devoted to thoughtful travel can change your assumptions and broaden your perceptions. He joins Midmorning to talk about how people can gain a better understanding of the geopolitics of the world through travel.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Chris Farrell on money.

Second hour: Stephanie Curtis on romantic movies.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: TBA

Second hour: TBA

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - MPR's Jennifer Vogel will have the story about how Red Wing is using volunteers to replace eliminated city services and the way some communities -- Maple Lake and Annandale for two -- are collaborating to deal with cuts to programs and services.

Sandbagging operations begin in Fargo, which is asking local companies to provide volunteers to fill sandbags. MPR's Dan Gunderson will report.

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Erasing winter (5x8 - 2/11/11)

Posted at 7:16 AM on February 11, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Destroying Winter Carnival evidence, love stories, trying kids as adults, a memo from the overhead bin, and photo contest winners.

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Adios, winter (5x8 - 2/10/11)

Posted at 7:28 AM on February 10, 2011 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The joy of cold, the joy of sandbagging, the joy of breakthroughs, the joy of the iPhone, and the nurse who allegedly stole a surgery patient's pain med.

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Athletics a la carte (5x8 -2/9/11)

Posted at 7:15 AM on February 9, 2011 by Bob Collins (31 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Paying to play, talking txt, roundabouts reconsidered, the point of no return, and busted in a boom.

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When is funny not funny? (5x8 - 2/7/11)

Posted at 7:03 AM on February 7, 2011 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The only question remaining from the Super Bowl, the great Ziploc controversy, the South Shore gets its day, snowblowing the roof, and should college kids be allowed to rent in your neighborhood?

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Lou takes a bow (5x8 - 2/4/11)

Posted at 7:16 AM on February 4, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Nye's loses its star, the airline monopoly in the Twin Cities, racism and the false police report, the obligatory Super Bowl ad post, and hunting via the Internet

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Girl power (5x8 - 2/3/11)

Posted at 7:38 AM on February 3, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

The cookie revolution, where does Minnesota's toxic waste go, redefining rape, football skeet, and the battle of Lake Shore Drive.

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They had a blizzard without us (5x8 - 2/2/11)

Posted at 6:51 AM on February 2, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Are you feeling left out of the big blizzard, have you seen you, Fred Yiran, put the hand-helds down, and no beer at the fair.

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The last text (5x8 - 2/1/11)

Posted at 7:37 AM on February 1, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) WHY DO YOU TEXT WHILE DRIVING?

A recent documentary from a company that makes its money from text messaging:

Police in Fargo yesterday unveiled a new media campaign to also try to get people to stop texting while driving:

Now, do you get it? from Paul Amundson on Vimeo.

Confession time: Why do you text while driving? Share the latest text you sent while driving.

By the way, it's illegal in Minnesota not only to text while driving, but to look at the Web on a smartphone while driving. Here's my confession: I watched Kurt Rambis' post-game news conference on the way home from a game last Monday night. But I was at a stoplight.

2) PEOPLE DOING GOOD (Cont'd)

In Atlantic, Iowa, Dr. Keith Swanson is still going at age 78. But he gave up charging 99 percent of his patients years ago. "Many people have lost their jobs. And they've lost their insurance," Swanson said.

Now, listen up!

"The fun of life is giving, and most people miss the fun of life," Swanson said. "Money is the least important thing. If people would forget about money, and provide service, it would be a wonderful world."

In Duluth, meanwhile, scores of volunteers are keeping the John Beargrease sled dog race on track, the News Tribune reports. "This is a fun spot," volunteer Josh Capps said. "It's out in the woods and in a beautiful spot away from the crowds. It's more of a wilderness experience." Capps left sunny Arizona to return to the tundra.

3) EMBRACING WINTER: OTTERS

It's a good time to be an otter in Minnesota, even if you're stuck in a small pen. From the Minnesota Zoo.

Humans can have fun, too. Especially if they have one of these:

How long do you think it would take for a legislator to file a bill to ban that thing?

4) SHOULD FEDERAL GUN LAWS PRE-EMPT STATE LAW?

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent investigators to Arizona a week or so ago, to show how easy it is to buy guns, and get around federal guns laws.

"Mayor Bloomberg and his 'task force' have no legal authority in the state of Arizona, or in any other place in America except New York City," the gun show promoter said. "These forays into America's heartland committing blatant acts to entrap otherwise innocent gun owners is an unlawful scheme."

Minnesota lawmakers are considering eliminating the state's gun permitting laws. They say they duplicate the federal laws already in place.

In South Dakota, lawmakers are protesting the health care mandate by filing a bill requiring people to buy guns.

5) VOICES FROM EGYPT

Of the many fascinating ways people have found to get information out of Egypt, this one is the latest, and has the capacity to occupy us for hours today.

Speak 2 Tweet is offering short audio messages from tweeters in Egypt. Many are not in English, some are. This was made possible by a small group of engineers at Google, who developed an international voicemail system over the weekend to allow people to leave the messages.

TODAY'S QUESTION

There's a growing ambiguity in how Americans describe their ethnic backgrounds. There is also a growing number of mixed-race marriages producing multiracial children. Who are you?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Egyptian opposition leaders have called for massive protests, and the Egyptian army has said that it will not fire on protesters. How much longer can Hosni Mubarek last?

Second hour: Home owners throughout Minnesota are dealing with ice dams this winter, and the winter is only halfway done. Midmorning's home repair experts will try to provide some guidance on how to handle ice dams, and answer other winter home repair questions.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Latest on the protests in Egypt.

Second hour: MPR president Bill Kling.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: What's next for Egypt.

Second hour: The measures of power used to be finite: tons of gold bullion, millions of
people, numbers of battleships, or nuclear missiles.. The cyber-age has changed all that. And while America may have started the 21st century as the most powerful nation in the world, China, Brazil, India, and Russia are catching up. Joseph Nye talks about his new book, "The Future, of Power."

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Record prices for copper are helping to fuel controversial new efforts to mine the red metal in Northern Minnesota. Copper set new records earlier this year and continues trading near record highs of over $4.40 a pound. Most market watchers predict continued strong prices; but some see a bubble getting ready to pop. MPR's Bob Kelleher will have the story.

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Best in snow (5x8 - 1/31/11)

Posted at 7:15 AM on January 31, 2011 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Celebrating winter.... again, why are you here, from toys to men, online gym, and social media and the art of revolution.

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On Henry Oertelt (5x8 - 1/28/11)

Posted at 7:06 AM on January 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Breaking: KVSC reports that Henry Oertelt has died. Oertelt, of St. Paul, has told his story around Minnesota for over 40 years, mostly in speeches at colleges, high schools, and churches. In recent years, he worked closely with the station to record his memories, so they would live on in podcasts.

"It would be available all over the world. The story and my book will be listened to for many years to come, after I'm gone," he said.

I visited with him in his home a few years ago. Find the interviews with and about Henry here. And you can find KVSC's marvelous work on Mr. Oertelt's project here.

1) MYTHS OF CHALLENGER

The Challenger did not explode, the crew did not die instantly, mostly people did not see the event live, the disaster was not caused by the cold, and shuttles do not now have ejection seats. National Geographic challenges what we think we know about the disaster that happened 25 years ago today.

2) THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION: WHY?

While the top news in the rest of the world was the rioting in the Middle East, much of the U.S. audience got the latest on Charlie Sheen's lifestyle. Even when news organizations talked about the rioting, there was very little to explain why all of this is taking place. Foreign news isn't our strong suit. Even NPR has failed as this blog post attests. Here's a country-by-country breakdown of why it's taking place. At the heart of the protests, the Washington Post says, is resentment. Some have. Some haven't.

Here in the U.S., we respond quickly when other nations clamp down on Twitter and the Internet. That we can relate to. But as Wired points out, the Internet isn't a big player in Egypt. When the uprising ends -- probably in success -- there will be some who will say it shows the power of Twitter and the Internet. They're wrong, according to Wired.

This situation is changing quickly. Live TV coverage can be found on al Jazeera's English channel.

3) IS IT TIME TO GET OUT OF THE RECREATION BUSINESS?

A string of budget cuts passed the Minnesota House yesterday and lawmakers are warning that more painful ones are on the way. In Moorhead, a question being asked may be next for many cities and counties: Why are we in the recreation business?

Moorhead is thinking of selling its two golf courses, the Fargo Forum reports. Golf was once a popular sport in Minnesota, with more rounds played per capita than anywhere else in the country. But participation has dropped precipitously in recent years.

Lawmakers say everything is on the table during our budget crisis. What about recreational facilities and programs? Are they valuable to you?

4) ARE SMALL AIRPORTS A THREAT?

I'm not much of an objective person when it comes to general aviation issues, but I am an informed one. So when The Atlantic carried a story the other day suggesting that small airplanes represent a significant terror threat, I rolled my eyes. That hasn't stopped the reliever airports in the Twin Cities to spend money erecting large fences to create the impression that this comparatively non-existent threat has been conquered. Leave it to The Atlantic's Lane Wallace -- an acquaintance and also an occasional guest on MPR's Midmorning -- to explain why the notion of threat is nonsense:

1. It's a rare airport fence that can't be gotten around, if you know your way around. The high fences and intimidating signs make airports seem unapproachable by community people, but they tend to fall more into the realm of "security theater" (which Jim has talked about many times) than a real deterrent for someone intent on getting access to an airport or airplane for nefarious reasons.

2. Despite the public's fears of a rogue pilot with terrorist intentions, most general aviation airplanes are extremely limited in the damage they can inflict. There's a reason the 9/11 attackers chose 767 airliners filled to the brim with fuel for transcontinental flights for their weapons. Something smaller wouldn't have been effective. Recall that in the same week as a van driven by an elderly man went out of control in Herald Square, New York, killing half a dozen people, a small airplane flown by a suicidal teenager crashed into an office building in Tampa, Florida, doing serious damage to a desk.

3. The power of human connections. Aviation is a small community, and individual airports are like very small towns. Strangers stand out. And pilots look after each other. A private plane is also a different environment than an airliner. Airliners carry a large number of people who don't know each other. So the risk of a lone terrorist making their way on board is real. That's not the case on a private plane. You know your fellow passengers. What's more, if you blow up an airliner, you kill a lot of innocent people who are on board with you. That's not the case with a private plane--which is another reason they're less attractive as a target.

5) CROW EATING

There's a metaphor here somewhere in this video posted this week from someone's backyard in Minneapolis. Anyone want to take a stab at what that metaphor might be?

(h/t: Dave Peters)

Bonus: The inside story, apparently, of the firing of NPR's Ellen Weiss. (Washington Post)

TODAY'S QUESTION

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. NASA's shuttle program is coming to a close. What should come next for America's space program?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

At noon today -- on MPR's Web site -- Minnesota Public Radio News and the local newspaper, Hometown Focus, will discuss challenges facing Minnesota's rural hospitals. Hometown Focus is hosting the online forum examining issues facing Virginia's hospital.

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Medical malpractice reform: Will it really reduce health care costs?

Second hour: Studying Marriage: What Women Want and How Men Behave

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Lebanon: What it means for the Mideast and the world. Guest: Egypt scholar Diane Singerman of American University.

Second hour: A new documentary from American RadioWorks, "Back of the Bus: Mass Transit, Race and Inequality."

Science Friday (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Political activists in North Africa, logging onto Facebook to publicize their protests.

Second hour: Digital music sampling and copyright.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Two state Senate committees will meet this afternoon in Hibbing to hear testimony on plans to streamline environmental review for mines and other projects. In northeastern Minnesota, people want jobs, and they also want to protect the environment. A proposal for the state's first copper-nickel mine has been under review for five years. And more mining projects are waiting in the wings. The Senate committees on jobs and economic development, and the environment and natural resources, will hear from local residents. MPR's Stephanie Hemphill will have the story.

MPR's Jess Mador says a financial literacy program held at the Urban League in North Mpls is about to graduate its first group of students. The program is two years long and has a success rate of more than 90 percent.

MnSCU board of trustees will announce finalists in their search for the system's next president on Monday. Tim Post's story willl assess how the current chancellor has done over the past 10 years, and what sort of skills the next chancellor will need to have.

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The 99-week syndrome (5x8 - 1/27/11)

Posted at 7:09 AM on January 27, 2011 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Why don't long-term unemployed have a job, Tim Pawlenty: the sequel, heroes and zeroes, and the joy of human hibernation explored.

Continue reading "The 99-week syndrome (5x8 - 1/27/11)"

Bad sports or good business? (5x8 - 1/26/11)

Posted at 7:11 AM on January 26, 2011 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Should a Packers tie get you fired, the Chipotle firings, happy Swap Day, running in place at work, and the Iron Range weasel's workout.

Continue reading "Bad sports or good business? (5x8 - 1/26/11)"

What's going on in your cockpit? (5x8 - 1/25/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on January 25, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Travails of the tired pilot, Tim Pawlenty: The movie, funerals by webcast, how I became a Minnesota pineapple farmer, and the vanishing mention of war.

Continue reading "What's going on in your cockpit? (5x8 - 1/25/11)"

Border battles (5x8 - 1/24/11)

Posted at 7:10 AM on January 24, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

Business and the border states, you've reached the end of the Internet, the lost blizzard film, the Wind and Mr. Ug, and are you a narcissist?

Continue reading "Border battles (5x8 - 1/24/11)"

A grand gesture (5x8 - 1/21/11)

Posted at 7:05 AM on January 21, 2011 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8

1) FROM RIM TO RIM TO RIM

When I visited the Grand Canyon last year with the trophy wife, I ended up doing the mall-walking thing. I was the old man, huffing and puffing, trailing the in-much-better-shape spouse. It wasn't my finest moment, but it's a high elevation and all. I wanted to walk down into the canyon, but though the spirit is willing, the body is weak. It's a young man's trip.

So I was impressed yesterday when I heard about the plan of Redwood Falls native Nikolas Oman and two colleagues who intend to run the 46.5 miles through the Grand Canyon to raise some money for charity. They intend to do it in 24 hours.

"I've been outside running and cross country skiing more than anything right now," he told me last night. " I'm going to Norway on a military training exercise for a while in February. So I'm focusing on that more than the R2R2R. I'm a triathlete and usually ride and swim during the warmer parts of the year. I don't use any supplements like most other people so conditioning is critical to the success of our goal."

Apparently, this can be done as this video proves:

The trio is raising money for the Armed Forces Foundation and Diabetes Action. Learn more about their quest here.

2) DO FACTS MATTER ANYMORE?

The shooting in Tucson earlier this month was blamed on political rhetoric long before there were sufficient facts to support the conclusion, a young man's death in central Minnesota last weekend was blamed on gay bullying before it was ruled the death was a suicide, and today MPR's Tom Scheck documents what most people probably already know -- if Michele Bachmann gets her facts right, she got lucky.

"We have checked her 13 times, and (found) seven of her claims to be false and six have been found to be ridiculously false," PolitiFact editor Bill Adair told Scheck.

So?

The indictment is as much reflection on us as anyone else. "Respect for facts just doesn't mean a whole lot any more,"Norm Ornstein said. "You don't get punished. You don't get shamed if you say things that are patently false. Let's face it: for many, repeating them over and over again -- even after you've been told and it's been made clear that what you say is false -- just doesn't have any impact at all."

Why not? Is that an indictment of people who speak with only a casual relationship with facts, or people who are willing to believe them? In the case of Bachmann, as I've written before, the more her district knows about her, the more popular she becomes. But everyone with an agenda has contributed to the lack of respect for facts.

If Ornstein is correct that respect for facts doesn't matter anymore, the real question is: Why not?

Discuss.

3) INSIDE THE HEALTH CARE WAYBACK MACHINE

Did the Founding Fathers require people to buy health insurance? Writing at Forbes.com, Rick Ungar says merchants marines were required to buy insurance as part of a health care plan:

Yes, the law at that time required only merchant sailors to purchase health care coverage. Thus, one could argue that nobody was forcing anyone to become a merchant sailor and, therefore, they were not required to purchase health care coverage unless they chose to pursue a career at sea.

However, this is no different than what we are looking at today.

Each of us has the option to turn down employment that would require us to purchase private health insurance under the health care reform law.

4) FACES OF POVERTY

In rural Minnesota, poverty is people working harder and falling further behind. In Pine City, a volunteer effort involving city residents and the University of Minnesota tried to do something about it.

Meanwhile, in the Twin Cities today, poverty looks a little different -- people on the street. With last night's cold well predicted, workers and volunteers hit the streets to try to reach people who couldn't -- or wouldn't -- move in to shelters for the night, MPR's Dan Olson reported.

They didn't reach everyone. Reports this morning say a woman died in the cold when she tried to walk to the Harbor Lights shelter.

New poll: Americans want fewer programs and lower taxes, but don't want to cut the two programs that drive debt.

5) EMBRACING WINTER: HOCKEY HEAVEN

The backyard hockey rink. The video raises an important question...

... why don't kids care about the cold the way adults do?

Bonus: Here's a daydreaming idea to get you through the cold day:

TODAY'S QUESTION

The Metrodome is almost 30 years old and may need a whole new roof. Authorities aren't sure how long it will take to fix. What would you like to see happen with the Metrodome?

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: Doctors are "rock stars." Giffords is a "fighter." Her recovery is a "miracle." Ordinary people are "heroes." As we all root for Congresswoman Giffords, has the public, the media and the medical community turned her recovery into a primetime reality show?

Second hour: The first representatives of the Baby Boomer Generation are turning 65 this month, but whether it's due to the economy or their own personal preference, many are not ready to retire. Will boomers change the way we think of retirement?

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: -- DHS commissioner Lucinda Jesson.

Second hour: TBA

Science Friday (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: The future of the gulf. How does all that oil figure into long-term recovery for the wetlands?

Second hour: How the effects of climate change--including sea level rise, and acidification--are changing the oceans.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Some low-income kids in Minnesota struggle to get enough nutritious food over the weekend, when they aren't getting lunch at school. Now three Rochester schools are sending those kids home on Fridays with backpacks full of food. There's a hodgepodge of similar programs across the state, but they're hard to fund in the schools that need them most. MPR's Julie Siple will have the story.

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