News Cut Category Archive: Icons

Coming soon: Internet birth

Posted at 3:12 PM on November 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

A Minneapolis woman is planning to give birth live on the Internet.

"Lynsee" has been documenting her pregnancy on the MomsLikeMe.com Web site, a partner site of KARE 11.

As described in the Boston Globe:

"We wanted to document the pregnancy and create a one-of-a-kind memento for our baby to have forever," Lynsee told the website's partner KARE-TV 11, which is also following her pregnancy (she requested that I not publish her last name, for privacy reasons). "You'll be at some of the doctor's appointments... You'll be there in the delivery room, tastefully, but you will be there.''

One question. Why?

"Cindy Chapman (the site manager for MomsLikeMe.com) put up a post on the site asking if anyone was pregnant," she told the Globe. "I emailed her right away and she filled me in on the project, I talked with my husband and we were excited about it!"

This one's for couples who have kids. Would you broadcast it over the Internet?

Comment on this post

Behind the scenes of A Prairie Home Companion

Posted at 10:46 AM on October 29, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Icons, Media

CBS Early Show host Harry Smith was one of the guests on A Prairie Home Companion last Saturday and produced a nice piece for his show this morning on what it's like to be a guest, including the pitfalls of a last-minute Keillor re-write of a song Smith was scheduled to sing.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Here's an extended Smith interview with Keillor.

In his segment on TV today, Keillor offered this piece of advice to Smith: "Wherever you go in broadcasting, never take calls from the listeners.

Or as we like to say here in the newsroom: The public. At least in these cubicles, we love to hear from you.

Comment on this post

On Norman Borlaug

Posted at 7:41 AM on September 13, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist from the University of Minnesota, has died at 95, and Penn Jillette -- yes, the entertainer -- had it right this morning on Twitter:

The greatest human in history. He is credited with saving 1 BILLION lives and he'll keep saving more and more.

That's saying quite a bit but how do you argue with it?

It's not hyperbole. He is, in fact, credited with saving over a billion lives as President George Bush pointed out when he presented Borlaug with the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. "No person has done more to rid the world of hunger," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

Borlaug is the father of the Green Revolution, which started with his work to create disease-resistant, high-yield wheat. The chances are pretty good that whatever you ate today had something to do with Norman Borlaug.

And these last words in a high-profile setting should be something everyone can agree on:

"We need better and more technology, for hunger and poverty and misery are very fertile soils into which to plant all kinds of 'isms,' including terrorism," he said.

Leon Hesser worked with Borlaug and also wrote his biography. All Things Considered host Tom Crann talked with him in 2007.

As Mr. Hesser pointed out, not everyone agreed with Borlaug's approach of genetically altering food. That brings us back to Jillette's own biography of Borlaug in this TV episode. Caution: There's an occasional obscenity in this clip - and it ends with the F bomb. But you'll get an excellent idea of Borlaug's fight:



And here's a milder telling of the Borlaug story from a documentary on his life and work:

Comment on this post

Comics make strange bedfellows

Posted at 1:12 PM on August 31, 2009 by Bob Collins
Filed under: Icons

Comic books are still a big deal. Somewhere.

In the biggest media deal of the day, Walt Disney Company today agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. The deal adds Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four to the Disney empire. But it's mostly a demographic play. The company of princesses and Snow White wants to attract more young men. Young men read comics and watch superhero movies, I guess, and favor action heroes over sleeping beauties.

There is, however, some concern over whether Marvel's "grittiness" will be compatible in Disney theme parks, where everyone plays nice.

Can the characters co-exist? Or is it M.O.D.O.K. vs. The Mouse?

Said one Marvel writer on Twitter today, "My main concern is that my checks still have Spider-man on them. The bank teller won't be so impressed with Mickey Mouse.

Death of an artist

Posted at 5:13 PM on August 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

You may not know Joe Williams by name, but you may be familiar with some of his work.

Thousands of people who traveled through the Mall of America or state fairs in the Upper Midwest probably have a caricature drawn by Joe Williams stashed somewhere in their house. He was profiled by MPR's Nikki Tundel more than six years ago.

Williams was found dead last week by an artist colleague. They were attending the Central States Fair in Rapid City, South Dakota. Williams was a diabetic, apparently hadn't taken his insulin, and didn't tell anyone, his friend told me Sunday afternoon. "He was a prideful individual," he said.

Now, the search is on for any family members he may have. "He didn't talk about them much and with a name like Williams, it's pretty hard to track anyone down," he said. He had no address book nor cellphone with his personal effects when he was found. The coroner in South Dakota is planning to cremate his remains on Monday if family can't be located.

"I just like that atmosphere, that circus environment," Williams told Tundel in 2003. "I always wanted to run away to the circus when I was a kid, so here I am." He had a degree in fine arts, but found drawings were his way of talking about himself and others.

"Humor is a powerful element. It just kind of seeps in. It's not forceful. But if people are laughing about something, they accept it more. Caricature art is like therapy," he said.

(h/t: Kelly Hungaski)

Comment on this post

Ted Kennedy, 1932-2009

Posted at 6:14 AM on August 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Ted Kennedy died overnight. I wrote about him last week so I won't repeat that.

A few interesting analysis pieces have been posted online that are worth mentioning.

Time Magazine says he was the Kennedy brother who mattered most.

So when Hubert Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon in the fall, Ted instantly became liberalism's last, best hope. There were people who thought he lacked Jack's intellect or Bobby's passion, that all his life he had merely trawled in their wake. But in his first speech after Bobby's death, he was already sounding the cry that would be the great theme of his political life: "Like my brothers before me, I pick up a fallen standard. Sustained by the memory of our priceless years together, I shall try to carry forward that special commitment to justice, to excellence, to courage, that distinguished their lives."

Cal Thomas, the conservative commentator, recalls his friendship despite ideological differences:

It began in 1983 when I received a call from a Washington Post reporter. I was working for the Moral Majority at the time and a computer had spit out a membership card for Sen. Kennedy and then inadvertently sent it to him. The reporter asked if I wanted the card back. "No," I said. "We don't believe anyone is beyond redemption. In fact, I hope Sen. Kennedy comes and speaks at Liberty Baptist College (now Liberty University)," the school founded by the late Jerry Falwell.

A few days later, I received a call from Kennedy's chief of staff. "The senator accepts your invitation." I was stunned and so was Falwell, but Kennedy came and was well received. He spoke on faith, truth and tolerance and his remarks are as relevant today as they were when he uttered them.

Here's that speech:

The PBS NewsHour Web site has put together a nice collection of video moments.

No doubt, the airwaves of Minnesota Public Radio will be filled today with such recollections.

Comment on this post

The last days of Ted Kennedy

Posted at 11:12 AM on August 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

If missing his sister's funeral wasn't an indication enough that Sen. Ted Kennedy's brain tumor is about to claim his life, today's letter to Massachusetts state officials is. In it, Kennedy asks the state to revise a 2004 law to allow a temporary appointee to fill his unexpired term.

The political analysts suggest the move is also an admission that health care reform itself is on its deathbed at the Capitol.

I prefer to use the occasion -- as a son of the Bay State -- to recall significant moments in Kennedy's life. Such moments, it seems, have to start with this one:

Never quite the orator that his brothers were, it only took two words to finish Kennedy's career as president-in-waiting: "I know."

His national "goodbye" came one year ago next Tuesday. :

Regardless of where you stand on Kennedy politically, you'll want to spend some time with the Boston Globe's seven-part series on him.

Comment on this post

Return of the Red Tail

Posted at 8:25 PM on August 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

As I mentioned in the Five at 8 post this morning, the red-tailed P-51 Mustang, which crashed in Red Wing, killing pilot Don Hinz years ago, returned to South St. Paul's Fleming Field today after years of restoration by the Red Tail Project. It's a traveling piece of history to educate people about the Tuskegee Airmen.

I didn't make it out to the ceremony this afternoon, but I happened to be standing by the runway Wednesday evening when it went out for its evening constitution with its hangar mate.

Comment on this post

On Cronkite

Posted at 8:11 AM on July 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Icons, Media

I've written -- twice -- about Walter Cronkite in the last month or so. You can click the "icons" category over there on the right and find them. So I won't go into his death too much. But I left out a couple of obvious videos that marked his career:

The death of Martin Luther King Jr.

And the moon landing:

A lot of people this weekend will lament that Cronkite was the last vestige of the "just the facts" newscast. And it's true, each story he introduced may have appeared to have no underlying message. But the dirty little secret of journalism -- one of them -- is that why a story is chosen to air is every bit as important as what a story says, and you can't make that decision without having an opinion about why a story matters enough to be told.

At the National Scholastic Press Association workshop at the University of Minnesota on Friday, a high school journalism teacher asked me how she could get her students to understand "objectivity" (a word I don't use, I prefer "fairness"). "Don't explain it to them" I suggested. "When they turn in a story, just ask them 'why?'." Why they pursued the story? Why they took a particular angle? Why one sentence appeared before another? Why they talked to the people they talked to? As they answer each question, the part of us -- the personal us -- that is part of the process, will be more clear.

Cronkite, it is said, influenced thousands of people to get into journalism. That's probably accurate. But I didn't find Cronkite to be the most inspiring journalist on the show. I found the person who was always at the end of his broadcast to be the most compelling:

News is supposed to be a snapshot of our world. He knew that a single note from a piano, for example, can still make us cry. And that 90 seconds of video of the world just being the world, can lead us to contemplate it far more than a babbling head. His stories were consistently the most memorable and I always wondered what it was -- and still is -- about journalism that kept them from leading the news.

I often wondered whether anyone asked Cronkite that question.

The part about us that's good, is every bit as newsworthy as the part about us that isn't.

Comment on this post

The nature of heroes

Posted at 11:37 AM on July 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Maybe you received the e-mail last week berating the news media for providing so much coverage to Michael Jackson, while ignoring the death of Ed Freeman, who was one of 246 recipients of the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War.

He was, in fact, a hero.

Back at base, Freeman and the other pilots received word that the GIs they had dropped off were taking heavy casualties and running low on supplies. In fact, the fighting was so fierce that medevac helicopters refused to pick up the wounded. When the commander of the helicopter unit asked for volunteers to fly into the battle zone, Freeman alone stepped forward. He was joined by his commander, and the two of them began several hours of flights into the contested area. Because their small emergency-landing zone was just one hundred yards away from the heaviest fighting, their unarmed and lightly armored helicopters took several hits. In all, Freeman carried out fourteen separate rescue missions, bringing in water and ammunition to the besieged soldiers and taking back dozens of wounded, some of whom wouldn't have survived if they hadn't been evacuated.

He did not, in fact, die the same day Michael Jackson did. Nor the same year. He died last year, the Washington Post's obituary blog reports.

As I began to investigate matters, I found out that Freeman's name had been invoked several times to berate the news media for its supposed lapses. Just as he hadn't died on June 25, he hadn't died last September and been neglected in favor of coverage of Paul Newman. He hadn't died in February, as a widely circulated e-mail claimed, and been buried in an avalanche of stories about "some Hip Hop Coward beating the crap out of his 'girlfriend.' " He hadn't died, as still other e-mailers wrote, on March 25, 2009.

As it turns out, though, neither of the national dailies carried his obituary when he did die, which is odd, especially since he had a Hollywood connection. He and his colleagues involved in the Ia Drang campaign in Vietnam "are immortalized in the Mel Gibson movie We Were Soldiers, says the Idaho Statesman.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama will sign a bill naming a post office in Mississippi in his honor.

Then, perhaps, the Internet will let him rest in peace.

Another e-mail is making its rounds this week, somewhat similar to the one above. This one recognizes Shifty Powers, made famous in Steve Ambrose's Band of Brothers. The e-mail says he died last month. He actually did.

By the way, the Web site The Living Medal of Honor Recipients reports there are now fewer than 100 living Medal of Honor recipients. One of them, Leo Thorsness, is a Minnesota native. He placed John McCain's name in nomination at last year's Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

(A longer conversation can be found here)

Comment on this post

Robert McNamara's war

Posted at 9:27 AM on July 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

For those of you who didn't live during the Vietnam War era, you might have a better sense of who former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was if I tell you he was the Donald Rumsfeld of the '60s.

McNamara, one of Washington's "The Best and the Brightest" has died at age 93.

He gave us Vietnam. Like Rumsfeld, he was reviled by the war's opponents. In his book, the late David Halberstam said McNamara "did not serve himself or his country well. He was, there is no kinder or gentler word for it, a fool."

"I don't object to its being called McNamara's war," he said in 1964. "I think it is a very important war, and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it."

A memoir he wrote in the '90s revealed how much his soul was tortured by his war. He revealed that he had misgivings about the war as early as 1967, but continued to publicly support it anyway. That opened up a barely-scabbed-over sore. The U.S. suffered over 93,000 casualities -- dead and wounded -- from 1967 to the end of the war.

"We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of our country. But we were wrong. We were terribly wrong," McNamara told The Associated Press 15 years ago.

Comment on this post

The truth about Cronkite

Posted at 3:44 PM on June 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Icons, News

If there's one person who would hate the way the condition of Walter Cronkite is being reported, it's Walter Cronkite.

To recap: Last Thursday it was reported Cronkite was "gravely ill."

Later in the day, his publicist declared the reports of Cronkite's near death exaggerated. "He has suffered no major health crisis. He is at home. He was recently ill, and he's home recuperating. He's not gravely ill."

This afternoon the family acknowledged the original story.

In order to dispel false rumors, Walter Cronkite's family wants it known that he has apparently suffered for some years with cerebrovascular disease and he is not expected to recuperate. He is resting comfortably at home with family, friends, and a wonderful medical team. We thank you for your prayers and good wishes."

It's been interesting to read comments from old-timers about Cronkite in the last week. "That was back when journalists just gave us the news," one said, a comment echoed by many others. They forget that it was Cronkite who basically said -- on a news broadcast -- that Vietnam was a mistake.

Cronkite's work also serves as a reminder that news doesn't have to be slick to be good.

Comment on this post

Ed McMahon, 1923-2009

Posted at 10:36 AM on June 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

"Who cares?" a follower on Twitter asked today, when the subject of the death of Ed McMahon came up.

I guess I don't have a great answer for it, although I do think there's value in remembering the icons of mass media when it was really mass media. Like McMahon, the Milton Berles and Dinah Shores poured the foundation for the influence of television.

"Here's Johnny!" I wonder how many people think that's Jack Nicholson's line?

Long before people talked about what was on Daily Show last night, they talked about what was on Carson.

The Archive of American Television has a series of interviews with McMahon here.

McMahon also was the last of a breed. Like Ted Williams, he was a star who interrupted his career, to go fly planes in the war in Korea.

After Carson, McMahon went on to host a series of forgettable shows and commercials -- Cash for Gold -- which just made us old-timers feel sad for the guy.

Comment on this post

Passing voices

Posted at 1:11 PM on April 13, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Harry Kalas died today. The long-time broadcaster for the Philadelphia Phillies passed out in the booth before this afternoon's game. He was to Philadelphia what Herb Carneal was to the Minnesota Twins. He also was the voice of NFL films.

Like Carneal before him, Kalas was one of the last great baseball broadcasters, the kind kids listened to on the fading-in-and-out AM radio after they were supposed to be asleep.

Kids don't listen much to baseball on the radio anymore, and they usually go up to bed after mom and dad, anyway. The connection between the radio play-by-play person has mostly been lost, and many of them are recycled players anyway, not the person who spent time crafting his/her skills (Yeah, I'm talking about you, Ken Harrelson).

Every baseball market had one. In the northeast, we had Curt Gowdy and Ned Martin. My cubicle mate, Chris Roberts, grew up with Ernie Harwell and George Kell.

West Coast fans still have a legend. Vin Scully is still calling games for the Dodgers.

Update 5:43 p.m. - Another icon in baseball passed today. Mark Fidrych, one of the great characters of the game, was found dead under his pickup truck in Massachusetts.

Comment on this post

The day MLK died

Posted at 1:14 PM on April 3, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

It was 41 years ago tomorrow that Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated. Today, Life magazine is providing images of the assassination scene that have never been published.

Keep trying, the server is often not able to keep up with the demand.

Comment on this post

End of the icon

Posted at 12:48 PM on April 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

This, apparently, is "end of the icon" week in America. Tonight, ER, which debuted -- Mrs. News Cut reminded me today -- when our oldest son was in 2nd grade (he's almost 23, now), has its final showing, ending -- officially -- the NBC dominated time period on Thursday night that started with Hill Street Blues, then L.A. Law, and then ER.

And it's been announced that "The Guiding LIght," will end in September.

The soap opera is disappearing almost as fast as the soap that spawned it.

Trivia question: What was in NBC's 9 p.m. (CT) time slot before Hill St. Blues launched the "Must See TV" tradition on the network? (No peeking or Googling)

Comment on this post

On Bill Holm

Posted at 8:34 PM on March 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Arts, Icons

They had a funeral for Bill Holm out in Minneota on Sunday.

Some touching memories of Holm were printed by the Marshall Independent over the weekend (Others who knew him posted some very touching comments to the News Cut post). One struck a chord for ye olde blogger:

My experiences in knowing Bill Holm while trying to assist him in his health care were likely more valuable to me than to Bill. Although a man of his own direction, he cared dearly for his family, friends, fellow poets, writers, and musicians. I found him to be a great wordsmith in describing his rural roots, thoughts, and experiences, especially those impressions concerning the ethos of Minneota and the prairies...and Iceland. His most recent comment to me was an insightful one: "The only good thing about a recession is that people might read more..."

MPR's Mark Steil is putting his Monday morning story together as I write this. Mark's got a great eye for stories and this image he sent along of the chair Holm sat in during church service is a great one. Note the copy of the Star Tribune on it, with Holm's picture on the front of the Opinon page.

I'm looking forward to Mark's story and the tributes contained therein (When it's done, it'll be at the top of this page).

I imagine they'll be like those of his cousin, Vivian Secrist, who shared this on billholm.com.

I had the privilege of being part of Bill's family since I was born. Bill was my cousin on both my mother's and father's side of the family. We attended Sunday school together at St. Paul's Icelandic Church when I was very young but, then a move by my family separated us for many years. I still would see him on occasion with visits to Minneota and after we both reached adulthood, our lives kept us apart for many years but, in the last twenty some years we were able to connect on many occasions for family celebrations and, of course, Boxelder Days in Minneota. Even tho I didn't get to visit as often as I would have liked, when we met again, it was like we had never been apart. He encouraged my youngest daughter to continue writing her poetry and I know that meant a great deal to her. Even tho she hasn't written anything for several years, I know it left a lasting impression on her and she thought very highly of him. I will so miss his wonderful hugs as we greeted each other on those special reunions and his great presence in our family. I have several of his books signed by him personally and I will treasure them and the stories for years to come. Good bye my precious cousin. You leave a huge void in all our lives. My heart goes out to Marci and all who feel the loss. May God Bless each and everyone of you. Say hello to Mom, Neva, Julian, Robert and all who have gone before you.

MPR is planning an event to honor Holm on April 7 at the Fitz.

Comment on this post

Alice Rainville, 1928-2009

Posted at 5:01 PM on March 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Alice Rainville, who died on Thursday, was the first woman to serve as the Council president in Minneapolis and she loved the north and northwestern neighborhoods of the city.

The news of her passing sent me scurrying to the MPR digital archive in search of past interviews with her. I was not disappointed. I found an interview that MPR's Dan Olson did with her when she stepped down from the Council after 22 years.

"I had great respect for the taxpayer," she said in the interview, recorded when she left the Council. "I don't want any of my dollars spent frivolously and I always would tell the Council, 'You are the guardians of the public purse,' and I don't want to be the people's banker. I only want government to assess what the needs are and fund them, but not to have a comfort blanket over government so that we never have to have a stomach ache or headache about where the money is going to come from. I think that government should be quite lean, but not mean. I think government has to be very cautious in that role because it's easy when just by a vote you can increase the dollars people have to send to you."

Here's the interview which aired on January 2, 1998:

(h/t: Sylvia Mohn)

Comment on this post

Things you don't see every day

Posted at 2:37 PM on February 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

There are a lot of useless Post-It Note neurons floating around my head, but I'll be darned if one of them is about the last time someone testifying before Congress got a standing ovation.

The crew of US Airways Flight 1549 testified before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and pleaded for the reform of the airline industry. Their salaries have been cut and their pensions replaced.

Capt. Chesley Sullenberger said it has placed "pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation... I do not know a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps." And yet, as the flight schools from Mankato to North Dakota reveal, they do.

It might be a tough sell, as a drive through the neighborhoods of Eagan and Apple Valley might suggest. Airline pilots, generally speaking, do OK. The average senior captain earns $180,000, according to the Air Line Pilots Association. A first officer makes about $121,000.

If it's a situation the committee is interested in exploring, they might consider listening to the testimony of the non-major pilots and first officers or flight crews without seniority. Gross monthly starting pay at a regional carrier is around $1,500 a month.

For the first time, we also heard from Patrick Harten. He was the controller who was communicating with the US Airways' pilots on that January day when the plane ditched in the Hudson River.



"People do not survive landings on the Hudson River, and I thought it was his own death sentence.

"I believed at that moment," he added, "I was going to be the last person to talk to anyone on that plane alive."



Expect the crew to get another standing ovation tonight. They'll be in the gallery when President Obama speaks to a joint session of Congress.

(Photos: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Comment on this post

The power of images

Posted at 8:07 AM on January 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Recommended reading today: Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris' New York Times blog in which he interviews several White House photographers during the Bush administration. One comes up with this nugget after President Bush's farewell speech to the nation:

And I turned to one of my editors -- First I said, "Oh, my God." And he said, "What?" And I said, "You've got to see this picture of Bush. This is really stunning." And I flipped it over to him to process and his first reaction was, "Wow." And I said, "If he wasn't just back there behind that door crying, I don't know what that look on his face is." Because he just looks absolutely devastated as he comes through this door after essentially ending his eight year presidency. And it's just really striking. He just looks absolutely devastated.

(h/t: Nick Young)

Comment on this post

Carl Pohlad, 1915-2009

Posted at 4:08 PM on January 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Icons, Sports

Carl Pohlad, the owner of the Minnesota Twins, has died, Twins officials said today.

Pohlad became a lightning rod for controversy while trying -- and eventually succeeding -- to get taxpayers to pay for a new baseball stadium. He died a year before Target Field opens.

While Pohlad is best-known for his ownership of the Twins, he built his wealth through a diverse set of investments including Marquette Bank (which he sold to Wells Fargo for $1 billion). As president, he bought up 30 other banks before selling it to FirstBank (now USBank). He also owns or has owned a Pepsi bottling operation, United Properties, and Mesaba Airlines. He also owned Twin City Rapid Transit, the streetcar and bus service of St. Paul, which was acquired by Metro Transit in 1970.

According to Forbes Magazine, Pohlad was the 78th 102nd richest man in America, and the 245th richest man in the world. His net worth was estimated at $3.6 billion. He ranked as the third-wealthiest Minnesotan, trailing Whitney MacMillan and Cargill MacMillan Jr.

"I had no experience dealing with reporters, especially sports reporters," he told MPR's Mark Zdechlik in 2001 on the subject of criticism of Pohlad during his bid to get public financing for a new stadium. "I don't want to see the Twin Cities without a baseball team and I've proven I want to keep them here." Find the old interview here.

But the public never warmed to a Pohlad image of baseball savior. He served on the committee that voted to eliminate -- "contract" it was called at the time -- the Twins during the height of public debate over public financing of the Twins stadium at the Capitol. Eventually, lawmakers voted to tax Hennepin County residents for the stadium.

Pohlad contributed a fraction of the cost, calling it "fair and substantial". One of his last public appearances was the groundbreaking for the new stadium in 2007. Pohlad was also the richest owner in baseball.

Businessman Irwin Jacobs, a close friend of Pohlad's, said "when Carl was hurting, he didn't want anyone else to know his pain. When someone else was hurting, he wanted to know your pain." He said Pohlad "lost a literal fortune keeping the Twins here. I told him, 'Carl, get out of it, if people don't appreciate it, move on.' and he didn't and if it was me, I'd have done it. I wouldn't have put up with it." ( Listen to entire interview)

Pohlad came from a poor upbringing. He was one of eight children during the Depression years in Valley Junction, Iowa. He served in World War II in the U.S. infantry, before returning to Iowa and starting a career in banking.

"Carl never lost sight of the fact of his roots and where he came from, "Jacobs said. "How many people are losing their fortunes today because they'd forgotten where they'd come from. He always evaluated risk."

Pohlad was the finance director for Hubert Humphrey's last Senate campaign, but his politics was hard to pin down. In the latest election cycle, for example, Pohlad contributed to Barack Obama's presidential campaign and Norm Coleman's re-election campaign for Senate. He also financial supported DFLers Amy Klobuchar, Patty Wetterling, and Jim Oberestar and also Republicans Gil Gutknecht, Rod Grams, and George Bush.

His wife, Eloise, died in 2003. The couple had three children. They released a statement on their father's death this afternoon:

Carl was the leader of our family as well as the founder and leader of our family businesses. We've loved and respected him and are enormously proud of his accomplishments. And we will all miss him deeply.

We greatly appreciate the support and prayers of our friends, colleagues and the community. We especially appreciate the support of our employees throughout the Pohlad family of companies at this difficult time. We want to assure everyone that we will continue Dad's work and his legacy - just as he would have wanted and as he has prepared us to do.

On his last visit with Pohlad last week, Jacobs said Pohlad told him he was going to do "one more deal after the first of the year." He said there was no deal; he just loved the excitement of the possibility, Jacobs said. "I hope this community appreciates what Carl has done . They're such good people and they give so much. I just hope they treat the boys in the way they should be treated. This community should cherish the history of Carl Pohlad here," Jacobs said.

Comment on this post

Quentin Aanenson, 1921-2008

Posted at 7:03 AM on December 30, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

There may never have been a son of Minnesota more eloquent than Quentin Aanenson. The Luverne native was the inspiration behind Ken Burns' fabulous PBS series, "The War." The series featured Aanenson and three other families around the country. Through 17 hours, it was impossible not to be confused by the calm of Aanenson's voice recalling the chaos of his experience.

Aanenson is on my very short list of people I wanted to meet. I never got the chance. Aanenson, 87, died on Sunday of cancer.

As the Washington Post obituary noted, he was a man haunted -- and changed -- by war:

But the war never entirely left him. He was haunted by the fear that he had once mistakenly fired on Allied troops. The first time he fired on a column of German soldiers along a roadside, the impact of his shells pitched their bodies into the air. He knew he was doing what he was trained to do, "but when I got back home to the base in Normandy and landed, I got sick. I had to think about what I had done. Now that didn't change my resolve for the next day. I went out and did it again. And again and again and again," he said.

"It's hard to understand why the guy next to you was blown apart and why you're able to go on to have a wonderful life," he said. "There's a sense of responsibility we assume, or should assume. I tried to make a contribution, to my family, to the business world, to live with high ethical standards . . . not to waste this life, to do something that counts in a positive way. . . . I tried to live with purpose."

Here's a roundtable of veterans -- including Aanenson -- on the Charlie Rose Show in 1994, on the 50th anniversary of D-Day, a day on which Aanenson said, "I had the best seat in the house."

After the war, he became a life insurance executive.

On his Web site, Aanenson writes his own epitaph:

I guess in one sense you can say we are an endangered species. But unlike the spotted owl or the whooping crane, there is no legislation that can be enacted to save us. We are rapidly disappearing off the radar screen, and soon all that will be left is what we have written, what we have recorded, and some old, fading photographs. Our voices will be forever silent, and the untold "first-hand accounts" of our experiences will remain untold.

We are the boys of World War II. We are dying off at the rate of 1,500 a day -- that's 45,000 a month. That number will steadily increase until the unyielding laws of mathematics give us an increasing rate of deaths, but a decreasing number of deaths -- the remaining pool will have become too small.

Taps is just one sunset away.

But in our lifetimes, we made a difference. We had the good fortune to live during a time when honor, patriotism, and character were important. We stepped up to defend freedom, and put our lives on the line for the "cause." It was a moment in history that may never occur again.

Comment on this post

A note about Eartha Kitt

Posted at 6:51 PM on December 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Eartha Kitt has died and it's funny the different things people think of immediately when mentioning her name. The sultry voice, Santa Baby, Catwoman on the Batman series, or -- in my case -- a huge (at the time) controversy over what she said to Lady Bird Johnson at a White House dinner.

As the Voice of America tells the story...

The president's wife, Mrs. Lyndon Johnson, had invited Eartha Kitt with a group of other women to discuss the problem of youth crime. When Mrs. Johnson asked her guests for their thoughts, Kitt raised her hand and spoke out against the war in Vietnam, where young black men were serving and dying in disproportionate numbers. Mrs. Johnson reacted with shock, blinking back tears, and the incident made headlines.

In retaliation, President Johnson ordered the FBI and CIA to investigate her and she became blacklisted.

America has often felt most threatened by its singers.

Comment on this post

The final curtain

Posted at 6:00 AM on December 11, 2008 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Arts, Icons

From a news guy perspective, here's the thing about Dale and Jim Ed's (Tom's) show: The news stinks. Everyone knows the news stinks. Every morning we wake up and one of the first things we remember is times are tough and, oh yeah, the news stinks. Then you turn on the radio and someone is on stage singing "Getting to Know You," just as someone has been singing it since about 10,000 end-of-the-worlds ago. And suddenly you realize that just because the news stinks, life doesn't; it goes on and people sing and dance.

The cynics will call that denial -- that life is simply too crushing in its burden. I will deny that.

Long-time The Morning Show producer Mike Pengra signs "the wall" backstage at the Fitzgerald Theater. Performers and speakers at the Fitz sign their names to the bricks. "This is quite an honor," Mike said as he finished. "Don't worry, we'll paint over it," the theater manager joked.

Comment on this post

Mischke

Posted at 6:00 PM on December 9, 2008 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

I was out sick last week when KSTP Radio mysteriously canned Tommy Mischke, described in many quarters since as the last of the truly original radio types in the Twin Cities. Garrison Keillor called him his "hero" on a show a few years ago.

Area blogger Mitch Berg wrote what seems to be the definitive column on Mischke from his view as a call screener at KSTP before Mischke started working there.

... like a lot of genuine originals in any art form (and Mischke's radio was a sort of art form - and I say this while stressing that radio as a whole is a craft), the art depended on having a patron to shield the artist from the spikes and deadfalls of the open market.

That someone, so rumor always had it, was Ginny Morris, one of the granddaughters of Stanley Hubbard the Elder, the founder of Hubbard Broadcasting (and one of the great pioneers of American broadcasting in his own right) and the person who really pulls the strings on the radio side at Hubbard. Ms. Morris - so the rumors in the industry had it, at least when I was paying attention to them - kept Mischke on the payroll, and on the air, for many long years when there was no explicit market demand for a free-form, eccentric stream-of-consciousness show like his. As talk radio morphed into what it is today - a venue for partisan anger, humor and information - Mischke was an outlier who, I think it's fair to say, could only exist in the market with the aid of someone who really really wanted him to exist.

Here's the bit when Mischke joined Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion in 2006. Listen

So this month will be a tough one for long-time radio fans. Mischke is gone -- for now, anyway -- and Tom Keith retires from MPR's The Morning Show on Thursday. Julia Schrenkler and I will be live-blogging the event.

Icons come and icons go. But they always leave a little bit of themselves behind.

Comment on this post

The man who revolutionized AM radio

Posted at 7:48 AM on December 2, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Bill Drake is dead and the New York Times left off an important sentence to his lengthy obituary today. "He was preceded in death by the industry he revolutionized."

Drake, 71, teamed with Gene Chenault to form a radio consulting firm that programmed -- and rescued -- some of the biggest AM radio stations in America. Those of us who grew up in the business spinning 45s on a turntable had a connection to Drake every time the boss would open the studio door and shout, "just shut up and play the music."

The Times obit put that a little nicer:

In the 1960s, Mr. Drake, an up-and-coming disc jockey and programmer from south Georgia, revolutionized radio when he and his partner, Lester Eugene Chenault (pronounced Sha-NAULT), decided that radio stations could make a lot more money and reach more listeners if they cut back on D.J. chatter, accelerated the pace of their programs and gave audiences more of what they presumably tuned in to hear: hit songs.

He and Mr. Chenault introduced a formula, eventually sold as a syndicated package with prerecorded music, that would revamp -- and homogenize -- radio stations across the United States.

Under the Drake-Chenault formula, jocks on radio would stop conversing about things in their community -- be it a sock-hop or a high school game -- and provide more insight, like "more hits more often," more often.

Drake's movement led to the consultant-heavy influence on radio. Eventually it led to the end of disc jockeys altogether in many radio stations, replaced by automation and large reel-to-reel tapes instead, all bearing the Drake-Chenault logo. Machines couldn't rebel the way disc jockeys could.

Funeral services are incomplete. But a fitting tribute would be a words-free service. Just play the music.

Comment on this post

Farewell, Woolworth's

Posted at 1:46 PM on November 26, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

No matter where they live in the country, anyone over the age of 50 can tell you what used to be in this building. It was an F.W. Woolworth five and dime. All the stores used the same weird brick color, few windows, except on the first floor, that housed a spectacle of consumer wants in its day. In my town, I grew up with a five-and-dime tri-fecta -- a Woolworth's, next to a W.T. Grant's, across the street from an S.S. Kresge (the forerunner of KMart). Of course, they're all gone now, along with the 10-cent hot dog and the fish department.

Why is this in the news? Woolworth's in downtown St. Paul closed in 1993. Because the big story in the UK today is Woolworth's is going under, and the big story on this side of the Atlantic is that people are finding out there still is a Woolworth's.

The British government today refused to intervene to prop up the retailer, which is a descendant of the F.W. Woolworth chain, but has been separate since 1982.

Still, the news brings back memories and prompted a stop at the Seventh Place location in St. Paul where I found the last remnants of the "get lost" spirit that the doomed retailer possessed in its latter days.

.

Comment on this post

Miriam Makeba and the power of music

Posted at 12:18 PM on November 10, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

NPR's All Things Considered tonight will air a tribute to Miriam Makeba. the South African singer and anti-apartheid activist who died this morning after a performance in Italy. She was 76.

Let's not wait for it.

True to her nature, she was at a concert against organized crime in Italy when she had a heart attack.

Says the Guardian:

As the first black South African to win international stardom, Makeba performed alongside the likes of Harry Belafonte, Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie in the US. Fusing township melodies with jazz ballads, she sang for world leaders from President John F Kennedy to Nelson Mandela, who led the tributes today, describing Makeba as "South Africa's first lady of song".

Here's a performance with Paul Simon:

Her music was banned in South Africa and she was forced into exile for three decades until Nelson Mandela, now 91, asked her to come home.

Her career was starting to take off in America until she married Stokeley Carmichael of the Black Panthers. "She was in immediate trouble with the FBI and all her American concerts and recording contracts were cancelled," according to the Times Online.

Like South Africa, the FBI realized the power of music. They couldn't stop it.

Comment on this post

John W. Ripley, 1939-2008

Posted at 6:59 AM on November 4, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

I had never heard of John W. Ripley until this morning. Apparently, I'm not alone.

"He's the most revered war hero no one's ever heard of," Fred Schultz, senior editor of Naval History Magazine, told the New York Times in Mr. Ripley's obituary today.

It was Easter 1972 when 20,000 North Vietnamese troops and 200 tanks were heading for the South. Only a bridge separated the force from Ripley and 600 South Vietnamese soldiers. So Ripley blew up the bridge in a fashion we weren't interested in reading about in 1972.

Going back and forth for three hours while under fire, Captain Ripley swung hand over hand along the steel I-beams beneath the bridge, securing himself between girders and placing crates holding a total of 500 pounds of TNT in a diagonal line from one side of the structure to the other. The I-beam wings were just wide enough to form pathways along which he could slide the boxes.

When the boxes were in place on the bridge, Captain Ripley attached blasting caps to detonate the TNT, then connected them with a timed-fuse cord that eventually extended hundreds of feet.

"He had to bite down on the blasting caps to attach them to the fuses," John Grider Miller, author of "The Bridge at Dong Ha," said on Monday. "If he bit too low on the blasting cap, it could come loose; if he bit too high, it could blow his head apart."

Captain Ripley bit safely, and the timed-fuse cord gave him about half an hour to clamber off the bridge. Moments later, his work paid off with a shock wave that tossed him into the air but otherwise left him unharmed.

Through the miracle of YouTube, we're left with Ripley's story from Ripley himself.

"Saigon would probably have been lost in 1972 but for Ripley," said retired Marine Corps Col. John Grider Miller, author of "The Bridge at Dong Ha", in today's Washington Post.

Comment on this post

Studs Terkel. 1912-2008

Posted at 5:49 PM on October 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

It was only two days ago that Mary Lucia and I were talking about her favorite interviews. Studs Terkel was #1 on her -- and lot of other people's -- list. He died on Friday.

We're luck enough here at MPR that he made a few visits. The format of the audio is RealAudio, but perhaps you'll enjoy a last listen to an American icon.

12/8/05 - Here's Mary's interview. "Who else could make falling down the stairs such a funny story," she told me.

8/11/05 - Tom Crann talked with Terkel about music. He was one of the people to recognize the genius of Bob Dylan early on.

2/10/06 - MPR's Midday presented this collection of interviews with Studs Terkel.

Comment on this post

Have we seen the last of the Delta Queen?

Posted at 8:36 AM on October 22, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

The Delta Queen, the quintessential American fixture on the Mississippi River, dies at the end of the month when an exemption that allowed it to travel the river from St. Paul to New Orleans expires.

What's behind its demise? It's either a public safety issue -- the ship is made of wood -- or it's a payback to a union from an influential Minnesota congressman.

The New York Times tackles the issue today but doesn't answer the question as it documents the Delta Queen's last scheduled visit to Cincinnati on the Ohio River.

Rep. James Oberstar, who chairs the House Infrastructure and Transportation Committee, is refusing to allow a vote on an exemption allowing the steamboat to continue. Oberstar, the Times says, cites a Coast Guard evaluation that the ship is a "fire hazard."

But Capt. Erik Christensen, chief of the Coast Guard's office of vessel activity, denies that characterization.

The newspaper story suggests Oberstar is sinking the ship at the behest of the Seafarers International Union, which represented the boat crew until a new owner forced the union off the steamboat. The union is a campaign contributor to Oberstar's re-election.

The Queen's supporters have tried video to help save it, but it never "went viral."

Politics aside, here's a nice multimedia slideshow of the Delta Queen, produced last year.

Comment on this post

End of an era

Posted at 8:18 AM on October 15, 2008 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

It's the end of an era. Dale Connolly and Jim Ed Poole's (Tom Keith) Morning Show on MPR is ending.

The two announced today the last show will air on December 11. "It's part of the natural order of things," Dale announced on the air this morning.

"I checked my driver's license and found it was almost time to retire," Jim Ed said. And so he will.



Dale said he's "been offered the opportunity to find something else at MPR."

Comment on this post

Gene Lourey

Posted at 9:31 AM on October 14, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

The metro media gave pretty short shrift to the death of Gene Lourey, whose death I wrote about yesterday.

His was a life story waiting to be told, and today the Duluth News Tribune (registration possibly required) told it. It's as compelling a story as ever existed in Minnesota.

We newsies often think that the only stories are the big weighty world issue stories. Don't get me wrong, they're important. But people who raise a dozen kids, many of them adopted, become the "man behind the woman", and prove that you can run a successful business, provide a living wage for your employees, and give back to your small town community, is big news, too.

When I put out calls here for you to tell me about the interesting people you know living their lives, and leaving a mark, guys like Gene Lourey are the kind of people I'm talking about. I'm kicking myself today for not telling the story when I had the chance.

Update 10/14 10:42 a.m. - I very much appreciate Chuck Haga dropping me a note from Grand Forks, letting me know of a piece he wrote in the Star Tribune in 2006 about Gene Lourey.

Comment on this post

The face of war

Posted at 12:51 PM on October 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

The Bush administration's attempt to minimize photographs of the caskets of returning soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq has often made it difficult to capture the stark reality of war: People die and the hearts of loved ones ache.

No picture better captured this than the photograph MPR's Bob Kelleher took at the memorial service for Matt Lourey, a pilot who died in Iraq when his helicopter crashed near Baghdad in 2005.

Gene and Becky Lourey, a former state senator and candidate for governor, raised a dozen children in Finlayson, Minn. Gene Lourey died in his sleep over the weekend, according to John Blackshaw, the general counsel for Nemadji Research Corporation, the software and system analysis firm the Loureys own in Bruno, Minn.

He and his wife worked on the Humphrey presidential campaign in Minnesota, after they moved back to the state from Washington. Gene Lourey was a codebreaker for the National Security Agency, and then worked at the University of Minnesota.

Comment on this post

Leroy Sievers, 1955-2008

Posted at 7:31 AM on August 18, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Icons

Leroy Sievers died Friday of the cancer about which he's blogged for the last few years.

He made several appearance on MPR's Midmorning. This one in 2006, this one last November, and this one just last month, when he acknowledged his disease was gaining on him.

The last post on his blog came from his wife, Laurie Singer, last Thursday:

On any normal day, this would just be a really bad thunderstorm rumbling its way across the summer sky.

But it's not a normal day and the rumbling is more like the growl of a predator stalking its prey.

Leroy's cancer is making its move.

I guess we all knew this day would come. The day when his doctor would say the medicine needs to be stronger.

The day when I would need to be stronger still.

The thunderstorm has passed, but I can still hear the growl.

-- Laurie

Have you ever seen 954 (at last count) comments to a blog post before? Me neither.

Comment on this post

Starbuck's closings

Posted at 2:24 PM on July 18, 2008 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

For reasons I don't quite understand -- and which are probably an entire post of its own -- colleagues and friends have been sending me updates over the last few weeks whenever the whiff of a Starbuck's store closing is detected.

Operating under the assumption that they're more clued in than me on matters of popular culture, I'm pleased to pass along the official Starbuck's store closing list.

Twenty-six stores are closing in Minnesota. Ignore the fact the company spelled Minneapolis wrong.

The closings leaves Walgreen's as the most overbuilt chain now.

Comment on this post

Goodbye, Bozo

Posted at 4:50 PM on July 3, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

The Associated Press must've realized today that there' simply no dignified way to write an obituary when the deceased is Bozo the Clown.

Take the last line of this paragraph, for example, in the obituary for Larry Harmon, who died today at 83:

Although not the first person to play Bozo, Harmon took on the famous clown's persona and, as an entrepreneur, he licensed the character to others, particularly TV stations. Those stations then recruited their own Bozos for local shows.

(The AP rewrote the last line for the morning papers.)

Comment on this post

Still going

Posted at 1:52 PM on July 3, 2008 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

It's the slowest news day in a traditionally slow news week, which allows me more time to think deep thoughts. Today's deep thought: How many things that you owned in 1977 are still working and still useful to you?

If you were born after 1977, then think back to the deepest recesses of your memory for a similar object.

I just moved a couch that I bought in 1983, out of my house and into my son's new apartment after convincing him that an orange-dominant, all-plaid couch never goes out of style. That's about as far back as I can go to find a useful object.

1983 is six years after this country launched two Voyager space probes, which originally were intended to fly past Jupiter and Saturn, but worked so well that their mission now is to reach interstellar space, which is the space in a galaxy that is not occupied by planets or stars.

In 1977, the picture of the year was Annie Hall. Hotel California was the top song, and the Oakland Raiders beat the Minnesota Vikings in the Super Bowl, 32-14.

Voyager II was launched the same year Apple Computer was incorporated, and the Apple II computer was unveiled. Tandy's TRS-80 made its debut, the Atari 2600 game system was first sold, and the Concorde made its first regularly scheduled flight from London to New York, and this baby was the Motor Trend Car of the Year:

All of those things are now, for practical purposes, junk. And yet, there is Voyager, still functioning. And this week it taught us that the bubble of solar wind surrounding the solar system is not round, but has a squashed shape. It's an impressive thing, even though we admit to having no idea what it means or what its significance is.

Meanwhile, back on terra firma in 2008, the average lifespan of a cellphone is 14 months.

Comment on this post

It's Pat!

Posted at 10:14 AM on July 3, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

News Cut is in a nostalgic mood. It happens every time I read another story about vinyl LPs making a comeback, especially if it's accompanied by a picture of a record rack featuring albums, every one of which -- I think -- is in the News Cut vault (i.e. an unopened cardboard box in the crawl space under the stairs from at least three moves ago).

But this item in this morning's Worthington Daily Globe sealed the deal:

Pat Boone will present holiday concerts at 3 and 7 p.m. Dec. 6 at the Business, Arts and Recreation Center (BARC), 1012 Fifth Ave., Windom.

Tickets for the event are now on sale with all seating reserved.

Boone hit national fame in 1955 with his recording version of "Ain't That A Shame." He hit the national spotlight via his first television appearance singing on the "Ted Mack Amateur Hour." Pat Boone sold more records in the 1950s than any other artist except Elvis Presley. He has sold more than 45 million records and has charted 60 songs, 18 of which hit the Top 10.

Pat Boone? Is he still alive? Yes, and he's on a 50 year anniversary tour (aren't we all?), according to his Web site, which automatically plays him singing "Tears of a Clown." and -- if that's not enough to make your day, reports that there's a petition drive to get Pat Boone into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.

The prospect of an evening checking out Pat Boone fans in Windom on a December evening during his 50 Year Anniversary Tour cannot be ignored.

Now the only thing left to make it a perfect entry into the holiday weekend is to stumble onto a Hot Rod race for pink slips on the way into work.

Comment on this post

The end

Posted at 8:22 AM on June 28, 2008 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

As planned, they dynamited the Xcel High Bridge plant smokestack in St. Paul on Saturday morning (previous thoughts on this here). News Cut readers are sending images and video. Use this form to send images.

You know how I am by now, right? I like to turn the camera around and photograph the people photographing and watching. So if you've got one of those, feel free to send those along too.

Nathan Levine of St. Paul gets the award for being the first to send an image:

And Mark Jungmann, one of my colleagues, followed seconds behind with the first video:

It fell gracefully, almost beautifully. And in Mark's video above, the little puff of smoke coming out of the stack just before it crashed seemed its way of saying, "so long." That's the way I prefer to look at it, anyway.

Teresa Boardman of St. Paul Real Estate blog fame, has sent a series...

"Oh The dust! People ran," Teresa says.

"The earth trembled..."

.. and now they've got a mess to clean up.

From a different vantage point, Luke Albrecht says, "The shockwave was amazing from just across Shepard Road."

Tracy Anderson of St. Paul took a series of images. Click on the image to see them in all of their implosive glory.

I'm getting some e-mailed links to posted video.

David Zuhn of St. Paul from the Smith Avenue High Bridge.

Todd Pittman with the view from Lilydale.

Noah Kunin's two cameras. "During the second "take" there's some interesting audience reaction in audio and in the foreground. High fives, someone woefully misjudging the size of the stack, etc.," he says.

Comment on this post

A smokestack is just a smokestack?

Posted at 1:20 PM on June 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Icons, Surveys and trivia

Isn't that a gorgeous picture? Teresa Boardman of the St. Paul Real Estate blog took it (used by permission). As I mentioned the other day, Teresa is a supporter of the notion of preserving the smokestack at Xcel's High Bridge plant in St. Paul, the one they're going to blow up on Saturday morning.

"It's just a smokestack," someone said in the comments section to the above post. True, enough. To appreciate the High Bridge smokestack, you have to think of it as representing something other than what it was -- the dumping ground for pollution from a coal-burning power plant.

Smokestacks, though, represent industrialization, which used to be considered a good thing.

Cleveland, when it built Jacob's Field (I refuse to call it Progressive Field), understood that by designing the light towers to portray smokestacks.

The smokestacks in Cleveland fouled the air in a city where they still joke about the time the river caught on fire, and yet they symbolized something greater.

That, I presume, is what Teresa sees in the smokestack, which is in its final hours as one of the dominating features of the St. Paul skyline.

Which brings us to.... the St. Paul skyline.

A skyline should make a statement about the city to all those who are about to enter it. Absent a symbol of the city's past (along with a demolished brewery from some years ago), what statement will the St. Paul skyline make now?

On the way in from the eastern front today, I noticed the Capitol is now partly obscured from sections of I-94, by the addition to Regions Hospital. We have a bank building with the big red "1" still dominating the skyline. St. Paul: A good place to get sick and cash a check.

There is the Cathedral of St. Paul, of course. It's a gorgeous building, to be sure. But it somehow stands apart from the downtown skyline, as if it's in this city, but not of this city.

Tomorrow, by the way, News Cut will be accepting your pictures of the demolition of the smokestack. We'll be providing video from this end. Use this form to send me your favorite shot. And if you want to provide some prose about the stack, I'll be happy to include that, too.

Update Reader Sean Garrick has sent a photo he took Wednesday evening.

Comment on this post

George Carlin, 1937-2008

Posted at 7:31 AM on June 23, 2008 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

This is probably a generational thing on my part (As a colleague reminded me last week when we were discussing Steve Martin and she informed me he used to do stand-up played banjo), but I like to think you can grab any 5 people you run across today and talk for an hour about George Carlin, who died on Sunday at 71.

Entertainment Weekly said Carlin "emerged in the 1970s with a style much more reflective of the times, pushing into more sensitive areas of social observation and language, a favorite topic of his over the years. Most notably, his recorded routine 'Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television'' became the center of a landmark Supreme Court case.'

Carlin, it's fair to say, pushed the boundaries. Nothing was off-limits, as this rant on religion once showed:

The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan. What's the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and **** up Your Plan?

For baby-boomers, though, Carlin was troubling to us in his age. It wasn't for anything he said -- or didn't -- it was for what he'd become: a elderly curmudgeon. As a young comedian, he was a refreshing poke in the eye to The Establishment. In his age, he'd become another cranky old man who wanted kids off his lawn. He was still funny, but when we were young, he seemed to be making fun of someone else -- The Man, perhaps. As we aged, he was making fun of us.

(Strong language warning in this video)

It was a heck of a run.

Here's a neat slideshow from the New York Times. As you watch it, you'll want to poke someone near you and tell them your favorite George Carlin bit. Feel free to share it below. (But keep it clean!)

Comment on this post

Right stuff. Wrong gender

Posted at 5:00 PM on June 18, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Word comes today that Janet Christine Dietrich has died. She, and 12 other women, underwent -- and passed -- the same "physical and psychological assessments as the men who became immortalized as America's first astronauts," according to an article this afternoon in the San Francisco Chronicle.

While the women waited for the next phase of their program in July 1961, the testing was halted without warning or explanation.

It wasn't until Sally Ride went into space 20 years later that America learned what it could have learned 20 years earlier.

(h/t: Michael Wells)

Comment on this post

Tim Russert, 1950-2008

Posted at 2:43 PM on June 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

Tim Russert, the host of NBC's Meet the Press, collapsed at work today and died.

Comment on this post

Jim McKay, 1921-2008

Posted at 6:33 PM on June 7, 2008 by Bob Collins
Filed under: Icons

You want strange? I'll give you strange. Hours before Jim McKay died Saturday, I was listening to the Bob Costas show on a local radio station, with veteran CBS Sports host Jim Nance talking about Jim McKay. "I wonder if he's still alive," I said to myself. "There's a guy who deserves a great send-off when he goes."

An hour later, he went.

McKay was the voice of sports when there were only three TV stations to watch. He gave us, of course, ABC's Wide World of Sports and most people today can't begin to understand the world he opened up to us each Saturday. Never heard of that? How about "the agony of defeat"? He wrote it.

But McKay, at least in my mind, is best remembered for this line: "they're all gone." That's how we learned that the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, who were taken hostage by the Black September group, had not survived an attempt to rescue them. That day, McKay -- by himself it seems, although I'm sure he had more than a little help -- was our lone link to the unfolding tragedy. We sat and watched him on the edge of our seats for hours.

His work that day was every bit as memorable as Walter Cronkite taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes while telling us President Kennedy was dead.

There are a lot better writers than me to tell you about the life of Jim McKay. About all I can do is pass along that the United States lost one of its biggest legends.

There's some really great raw footage on YouTube available here. They are parts of an interview McKay (whose real name was McManus) did for Archives of American Television.

It says a lot about the ABC Network, for whom McKay toiled, that its Web site reveals "nothing found" when entering Jim McKay in the search field. He practically built the network.

Lowering the ceiling

Posted at 12:36 PM on May 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

While patrolling for information on suburban home construction practices, I discovered the coming end to a suburban icon -- the high ceiling.

In today's edition, the San Jose Mercury News says the big homebuilders -- including a few that have created cities out of cornfields around here -- have given up on the design:

Major home builders including Pulte Homes, Toll Brothers and K. Hovnanian say more buyers are looking for the maximum number of rooms and square footage for their money, so they're opting to have a loft, bedroom or playroom built in the air space where the plans call for a double-height ceiling. "People don't want it anymore," says Ken Gancarczyk, head of builder services for KB Home. The big Los Angeles-based builder has stopped offering double-height great rooms in response to falling demand.

The article also introduces us to a new malady: "high ceiling fatigue."

Update 5:39 I alluded in a post yesterday to today's suburban home construction and how it can't stand up to a tornado. Suburban home construction isn't a matter of being shoddy, per se, but it is done more cheaply now than it was decades ago. Why? So we can afford them and so they can be built quickly. But the reason they go up so fast, is also the reason they come down so fast.

MPR's Tim Nelson takes a look at this question in a story that aired on All Things Considered tonight.

Comment on this post

Darkness on the edge of the E Street Band

Posted at 10:33 AM on April 19, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Arts, Icons

"Danny sends his best," Hall of Fame rocker Bruce Springsteen said at the beginning of his concert in St. Paul last month, "and he hopes to be back with us later in the tour."

But you had the feeling it was a comment borne more of hope than reality.

And, mostly, it was. On Thursday, Danny Federici, 58, who goes as far back with Springsteen as a non-blood relative can, died of skin cancer.

Says the Times:

Mr. Federici and Mr. Lopez started their own band and invited Mr. Springsteen to become a member. "This skinny guy with long hair and a ratty T-shirt was an incredible guitar player and a good singer, so we asked him to join," Mr. Federici once said.

One of the most compelling tributes to Federici, was written by local blogger Mitch Berg, on his blog "Shot in the Dark."

I'm no music expert, to be sure, so I am fascinated by the reminder of the extent to which a note soars above a word.

Chris Phillips, editor of the North Carolina-based Backstreets, a Springsteen fanzine, said Federici added to the mystique of the band.

"I've been listening to the live version of "You're Missing,' " Phillips said, "and it's a fine example of Max (Weinberg) hits the snare and Bruce points it over to Danny. And it's not that anything jawbreakingly technical is going on, but those notes Danny plays say as much or more than the lyrics. Sometimes he would bring that Jersey Shore sunshine part of the song, or maybe even some circus tones, but his music also was haunting at times, bringing in a whole different color to a song.

A video of Federici's last appearance with Springsteen -- four days after the St. Paul concert -- is on the Springsteen Web site.

Comment on this post