Author Archives: Mary Turck

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About Mary Turck

News Day, written by Mary Turck, analyzes, summarizes, links to, and comments on reports from news media around the world, with particular attention to immigration, education, and journalism. Fragments, also written by Mary Turck, has fiction, poetry and some creative non-fiction. Mary Turck edited TC Daily Planet, www.tcdailyplanet.net, from 2007-2014, and edited the award-winning Connection to the Americas and AMERICAS.ORG, in its pre-2008 version. She is also a recovering attorney and the author of many books for young people (and a few for adults), mostly focusing on historical and social issues.
August 12, 2009 · 8:17 am

News Day: Guns and budgets / Swine flu preparations / Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced

MSNBC broadcast interview with gun-toting protester

MSNBC broadcast interview with gun-toting protester

Your Second Amendment right to protest? Photos of a gun-carrying anti-Obama protester (William Kostric) outside the president’s New Hampshire town hall meeting set off a storm in the blogosphere but didn’t impress the Wall Street Journal, which found nothing alarming about people bringing guns to protests, writing that, “outside Manhattan, citizens’ exercising their Second Amendment rights are nothing unusual.”

Unlike the WSJ, Gawker.com headlines a cause for concern”:

The man is carrying a sign that says, “It Is Time to Water the Tree of Liberty.” That’s a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It was a favorite slogan of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was wearing a T-shirt when he was arrested with a picture of Lincoln on the front and a tree dripping with blood on the back.

Now, this guy is carrying a legal weapon, says NBC News’ Ron Allen. The local chief of police has no objections. …

But let’s be clear: anyone watching the mounting rage over, of all things, health care — perhaps one of the most boring and complex policy subjects — has to worry that these people are going to try to kill Barack Obama.

Another man carrying a gun inside the Portsmouth high school (Richard Terry Young, 62) was arrested at 9:40 a.m., hours before the town hall event, according to UPI. These incidents follow the arrests of a man with a gun outside Obama’s Chicago home in July, and a man with a gun looking for Obama at the U.S. Capitol in February, and other gun-related incidents and/or arrests at various rallies during last year’s presidential campaign and this year’s town hall rallies.

MSNBC’s Hardball program aired a seven-minute interview with William Kostric – the man with the gun, giving him ample time to explain his strange position that carrying a gun some how serves the cause of more politeness in society.

A more hard-nosed look at Salon.com profiles Kostric’s internet presence:

[In MSNBC’s Hardball interview,] Kostric insisted his intentions were peaceful, and that he’s not affiliated with Birther groups.

But at least one of those statements doesn’t seem to be true. A right-wing activist named “William Kostric,” who’s left a lot of footprints around the Web, is listed as a “team member” of the Arizona chapter of We the People, the far-right group best known for joining a lawsuit challenging Obama’s right to be president based on his not being a U.S. citizen. Kostric told MSNBC he recently moved from Arizona to New Hampshire. (Kostric did not reply to Salon’s e-mail request for an interview.

Kostric’s MySpace profile also lists among his heroes Randy Weaver, the white supremacist and right-wing activist who survived the Ruby Ridge confrontation with federal agents, along with Ayn Rand’s John Galt, Thomas Jefferson, libertarian/GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul and William Wallace, the Scottish resistance leader portrayed in Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart.”

Last week, Democracy Now reported on the extremely high level of threats against President Obama:

A new book on the history of the Secret Service reports the rate of threats against the President has increased 400 percent since President Obama took office in January as the nation’s first African American president. According to author Ronald Kessler, Obama is the target of more than thirty potential death threats a day. Most of the threats have been kept under wraps, because the Secret Service fears that revealing details of them would only increase the number of copycat attempts.

One budget down, one to come As both Minneapolis and St. Paul mayors continue as undeclared but much discussed possible candidates for next year’s gubernatorial race, their 2010 budget statements take on added significance.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman presented his 2010 budget proposal on Tuesday, and reports in the Pioneer Press and MPR note that his proposal combines a decrease in city spending — from $540 million in 2009 to $538 next year — with a six percent increase in property taxes to cope with an $11.6 million reduction in state funding next year.

Among the specifics of the plan:

• The city will cut 121 positions, which will mean leaving vacant positions unfilled and laying off about 45 current employees.
• Federal ARRA funds will allow hiring of 34 additional police officers and 18 additional firefighters. (MPR notes that St. Paul received $7.5 million in federal funding for police hires, but that Minneapolis received only about half that amount.)
• Hamline Midway library, which saw an outpouring of community support when it was threatened with closure this year, will remain open.
• Front, Sylvan and Prosperity rec centers will be torn down, but their athletic fields will be improved. Baker, Griggs, Margaret, South St. Anthony and Wilder rec centers will be turned over to “community partners” for management in some form. Bonding funds will be used to replace the current Arlington Hills library and recreation center with a new Payne-Maryland combined community center and library.

Next up: Minneapolis. Mayor R.T. Rybak will deliver his budget address on Thursday. MPR notes that Minneapolis is facing a $21 million cut in state aid, and also “an increase in pension obligations for two closed employee funds, which will cost the city an additional $18 million a year.”

Swine flu preparations The flu season is coming and a double whammy of regular, seasonal flu and swine flu is expected to strain health resources across the country and in Minnesota. MPR’s report of a briefing by state epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield noted that, “No one knows what will happen with H1N1 this fall. The virus could mutate and become more severe. It could fizzle out. Or it could follow the path it has charted so far.”

What is known:

• In a normal year, seasonal flu kills about 36,000 people in the United States, most of them elderly.
• Young people and children seem to be hardest-hit by swine flu.
• “The Health Department estimates that 30 percent of Minnesotans — about 1.5 million people — may become infected by H1N1 as multiple waves of the pandemic move through the state over the next year or two. Of those, the agency says anywhere from 3,600 to nearly 33,000 could die.”
• Priority for the new swine flu vaccine will go to health care workers, pregnant women, young children and people who care for infants under 6 months of age. No one will be required to be vaccinated. (That should go without saying, but in today’s political climate, it’s an issue.)

For more information and for updates on the situation, check out the Minnesota Health Department’s “H1N1 Novel Influenza (formerly known as swine flu)” page

World/Nation

Burma Nobel Peace Prize winner jailed again As expected, reports BBC, opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was convicted and sentenced to another 18 months of house arrest.

Ms Suu Kyi was on trial for allowing a US national, John Yettaw, into her lakeside home after he swam there uninvited. Mr Yettaw was jailed for seven years, including four years of hard labour.

Critics of Burma’s military regime say the verdict is designed to prevent Ms Suu Kyi from taking part in elections scheduled for 2010.

4,000 arrests in Iran The Iranian government said that 4,000 protesters were arrested in protests over June’s elections, reports BBC. Opposition leaders say that at least 69 people were killed. The government is now trying 100 of the protesters. Allegations of torture and rape in jail continue to be made.

Activists killed in Chechnya Two human rights activists were kidnapped on Monday and killed in Chechnya, reports BBC:

The case follows July’s abduction and killing of activist Natalia Estemirova.

Ms Sadulayeva and her husband Alek Djabrailov were in their mid-20s and had just got married, reports say.

Law and Order plot? “A man accused of hiring a U.S. Army soldier and another man to kill a Mexican drug cartel lieutenant who was cooperating with U.S. authorities was himself a government informant, police said Tuesday.”

No – it’s not a TV crime drama, but a real-life report from AP. The convoluted Texas scheme resulted n a May 15 murder in El Paso, Texas.

War Reports

Iraq Two car bombs in a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad killed at least eight people and injured at least 40, reports BBC.

Afghanistan Taliban fighters attacked a government base in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, killing a district police chief and at least one other person in a prolonged gun battle, reports BBC. The attack comes just one week before the Afghanistan elections

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August 11, 2009 · 8:34 am

News Day: NCLB failing schools / RT vs. Park Board / Obama on immigration / One in nine Americans

<a href="http://us.fotolia.com/id/8903511" title="" alt="">© M Jackson</a> - Fotolia.com

© M Jackson - Fotolia.com

NCLB failing schools If I were a Minnesota school principal or teacher, I would have awakened this morning with a mouth full of dread. Another of the many annual school-bashing events is scheduled for today, with the 2009 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) report released late last night by the Minnesota Department of Education. With absolute predictability, the AYP report showed more “failing” Minnesota schools. Since this year’s report included 357 more schools than last year, it also showed more “passing” schools. Total numbers:

Despite the late hour of the release, the Star Tribune was prepared with an impressive set of charts and graphs showing the performance of every school district in the state, and every school within each district. For the record, statewide proficiency stands at 64% in math and 72% in reading. In Minneapolis, the figures are 48% in math and 51% in reading. In St. Paul, the figures are 46% in math and 52% in reading.

The figures can be sliced and diced in myriad ways, and the Department of Education spins the story as well as it can be spun:

There has been a 7.6 percent increase in the number of schools making AYP, compared to 2008, due to an increase in the number of schools measured for AYP. The increase in the number of schools not making AYP is the result of more schools being measured and proficiency improvements that have not yet matched the increases necessary to meet the AYP targets under NCLB.

The Department of Education helpfully provides a PDF file detailing the five stages of AYP for school and three stages for districts, with a guide to penalties at each stage.

Minnesota 2020 has a cogent critique of the entire NCLB/AYP problem:

The number of schools not meeting AYP grows each year because the NCLB is meant not to highlight student achievement but to brand schools as failing. AYP is a false measurement of achievement. Even the most ardent of public education’s detractors will find it contrary to common sense that more than half the schools in the state can’t educate their students. These “results” are ludicrous. …

Here’s how NCLB works: States develop a standardized test and give it to all students once each year. Students are divided into subgroups depending on their race or special conditions, i.e. special education or English language learner. If one subgroup fails to meet AYP, the entire school and district fails. Not only must students show proficiency, the school must make sure enough students take the test. If too many students miss the test, the school and district fail to meet AYP.

The bottom line is that AYP doesn’t measure the work of teachers and principals and schools or the achievement of students over time. To measure that work, a test would need to ask how much individual students have learned during the course of a school year or two or three. That would require knowing where students were when they entered a school and how much each of them progressed.

That’s not what the tests are structured to do. The test does not measure how much progress Johnny and Maria and Moua and Jamal, who have now moved on to different schools, made during the years they spent at PS 135. Instead, it measures how well the current population of students performs — regardless of whether they have been in the school for six weeks or six years, regardless of what reading or math level they had when they entered the school, regardless of whether the teachers and school have had time and opportunity to make a difference. If a student enters the school in fifth grade, with a first grade reading level, and moves up two grade levels in one year — that’s still not proficiency and that’s not Adequate Yearly Progress.

Our schools need support and improvement. The NCLB/AYP mess provides neither. NCLB comes before Congress for renewal — or not — later this year.

Mayor vs. Park Board Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak denounced the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board’s attempt to get taxing authority. The MPRB has turned in thousands of signature sheets to put a referendum on this fall’s ballot, a move the mayor called “half-baked.” According to the Minnesota Independent:

The proposed referendum would grant the city’s quasi-independent (and chronically broke) park board the ability to impose its own levies, without oversight of the city council.

Today is the last day to turn in petitions, and then the city clerk will have 10 days to count and verify signatures. To put the measure on the ballot, signatures must total five percent of the votes cast in the last general election.

Some of the day’s best headlines

• With God as his co-pilot, Jungbauer announces bid for governor
• Barnes & Noble to buy Barnes & Noble College Booksellers
• Do not drive drunk to jail to bail out boyfriend on DWI
• Wisconsin woman accused in Krazy Glue assault

World/National News

No immigration bill until 2010 That’s the Obama message, delivered after a tri-national meeting with Mexican and Canadian heads of state, according to the New York Times:

“Now, am I going to be able to snap my fingers and get this done? No,” the president said. “But ultimately, I think the American people want fairness. And we can create a system in which you have strong border security and an orderly process for people to come in. But we’re also giving an opportunity for those who are already in the United States to be able to achieve a pathway to citizenship so they don’t have to live in the shadows.”

One in nine That’s the number of Americans using food stamps to help meet basic needs. Another number: $4.50 per day. That’s the average amount of food stamp benefits. Think about it. What do you get for $4.50 a day? Rice and beans, yes. Maybe milk and cheese. Fresh vegetables or fruits? Rarely. And, as NPR reports, you wait for that. Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) explained:

Let me point out one other kind of problem we’re finding here and that is because more and more people are eligible and are, you know, trying to enroll and state budgets are being cut back, and the states kind of processed the whole program even though the federal government provides most of the money. But because they’re being short staffed that is taking them, in some parts of the country, up to 57 days between the time somebody applies and between the time that they’re told they’re either qualified or that they’re denied. … And, you know, 57 days is a long time to go without a benefit to be able to put food on the table.

War Reports

Congo The government troops sent to drive out rebels in eastern Congo and protect the people in fact have become persecutors, escalating the rape epidemic as they take women as spoils of war.

Although all sides in Congo’s messy 15-year conflict have used rape as a weapon of war — particularly the Rwandan rebels — the spike since January is being widely blamed mostly on the army. The number of soldiers roaming these eastern hills has almost tripled to 60,000, and rapes have doubled or tripled in the areas they are deployed. Aid groups said the number of rapes so far this year is probably in the thousands.

Pakistan A rocket attack on Peshawar killed at least two people and wounded more as a dozen rockets sent panicked residents fleeing into the streets. In northwest Pakistan, a U.S. drone attack killed at least ten people. Officials said the attack targeted an insurgent training camp.

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August 10, 2009 · 7:29 am

News Day: Town brawls and anti-Pulitzer nomination / Evicting Rosemary – or not / New anti-gang police plan

©KonstantinosKokkinis - fotolia.com

©KonstantinosKokkinis - fotolia.com

Crazy days of summer From “town brawls” (more here) to death threats to Congress members and the SEIU, the weekend headlines described a political scene loosely tethered to reality. “It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Stupidity,” proclaimed the Daily Kos, linking to half a dozen stories of right-wing blather and bluster.

Josh Marshall at TPM commented: “Teabaggers say they want their country back. But Afro-Arab socialists have only had it for like 6 months. Can’t they wait their turn?”

“Idiot Nation, Idiot Press,” read another Daily Kos headline, this one denouncing Politico’s serious treatment of Sarah Palin’s outrageous and completely non-factual claim that the “Obama health plan” would set up a “death panel,” and that such a panel would have condemned her aging parents or her Downs Syndrome son. Hunter writes:

I think there should be such a thing as an anti-Pulitzer. There should be an award for the reporter or reporters that most willfully ignore the basic falsehood of a story — something like “fire is cold”, or “if you shoot yourself in the head, M&M’s will come out” or “if we reform our nation’s healthcare, the President will send a Death Panel to murder my disabled son” — and instead treat as if it was a debatable point worth reporting as fact.

For a factual analysis of claims about the health care reform proposals, turn to PolitiFact’s Truth-O-Meter, which ranks claims on a scale ranging from truthful to “liar, liar, pants on fire.”

Evicting Rosemary – or not Rosemary Williams has become a symbol of the foreclosure-and-eviction crisis in the Twin Cities, and Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies arrived on Friday for what could have been the final act — eviction. The deputies turned Rosemary and her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren out of the home on the block where she has lived for 55 years, and padlocked the doors. As soon as they were gone, her supporters got back inside the house, and spent the weekend moving her possessions to a safe place and setting up an occupation inside the home, reports the TC Daily Planet.

Similar stories abound, with inner city residents who refinanced their homes with adjustable mortgages and then were unable to keep up when, after an initial grace period, monthly payments “adjusted” to double or triple the original amount. A Facebook post by a neighbor noted eight boarded-up homes on his block.

New anti-gang police plan In the wake of the dissolution of the Gang Strike Force, police chiefs in 36 out of 37 Hennepin County jurisdictions (including Minneapolis) are working on a new strategy — communication and prosecution, reports the Star Tribune. The old Strike Force was heavy on property and cash seizures, and light on prosecutions. The new, collaborative arrangment will emphasize prosecutions, according to County Attorney Mike Freeman, who has assigned a prosecutor to meet with the police chiefs.

In addition, the police departments will collaborate on “focused, proactive investigations to head off crimes,” information sharing, collaborative investigations, and, when a local chief feels it is necessary, a “surge ‘suppression’ operation in which officers would blanket a neighborhood.”

Next up: St. Paul budget In 2009, the city of St. Paul scrambled to meet a $5 million budget deficit. In 2010, St. Paul faces an $11 million plus gap due to decreased state aid. Tuesday, Mayor Chris Coleman will present his proposal, which will then go to the City Council for debate and revision, with passage of some budget by December.

According to the Star Tribune, the mayor’s budget proposal will increase police on the streets, by using ARRA federal funding, and will keep the Hamline Midway library open through 2010. The budget will cut some city positions, cut library hours, close some rec centers, and eliminate some city jobs. According to the Star Tribune:

The city employs about 3,000 people.

Under Coleman’s proposed budget, about 160 jobs would go away. The majority are vacant positions.

About 50 current employees would be laid off across the departments.

A property tax increase will also be part of the budget, though a smaller amount than in previous years.

Kids Count – down The Annie E. Casey Foundation released its 2009 Kids Count Data Book on July 29. The Kids Count report noted some progress, but also continuing racial disparities:

Our ability to progress as a nation depends on the degree to which we can create opportunities for all children to succeed. In fact, nationally, since 2000, gaps in the differences in child well-being along racial and ethnic lines have decreased in some areas—most notably, the high school dropout rate. However, on the whole, non-Hispanic white children continue to have greater opportunities for better outcomes compared with most other racial and ethnic groups.

Minnesota ranked second overall in ten measures of the well-being of children. But, reports the Star Tribune, “Child poverty in Minnesota rose 33 percent between 2000 and 2007, six times the national average, and several other measures of child well-being declined.”

Kara Arzamendia, research director for the Children’s Defense Fund Minnesota, is preparing a Minnesota state report that will include Kids Count data.

Arzamendia argues that restoring funding for some state programs could help.

“We made cuts in 2003 when we had major state budget problems and we didn’t buy them back,” she said. “What did other states do? Well, some of them are doing something right. While our numbers remain pretty good, Minnesota’s changes generally were not as good as the national average.”

Somali travel agency raid, arrest In unrelated cases, a Somali travel agency was raided by FBI agents and its owner was arrested, MPR reports. The raid was staged in connection with an ongoing investigation into travel to Somalia by young Somali-Minnesotans.

The owner of the agency, Ali Mohamed, was arrested for fraud in connection with an unrelated case on charges of “scamming customers out of more than $33,000 in airline tickets that he allegedly never arranged for them.”

World/National News

Waiting in line for health care – today In a report that every Congress members should read, NPR tells the story of tens of thousands of people in miles-long lines waiting to see a doctor. Right here in the United States. Right now under our wonderful private health care system.

5:34 a.m.

That was when the weekend’s free mass clinic was supposed to open. But the line of cars trying to get in was a mile long. In the pre-dawn darkness, headlights snaked down the road as far as we could see. Doctors and dentists were also stuck in that traffic jam, so the clinic couldn’t open on time.

People seeking treatment had been arriving for two days. Many camped in a grassy parking lot while they waited. Some had long drives to get there; there were license plates from at least 16 states.

Read the whole story. And then send it to your Congress member.

Honduras The OAS continues trying to find a compromise that will reinstate Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, ousted in a coup on June 28. However, the acting government, put in place by the coup, has refused to allow a high-ranking OAS delegation including OAS secretary-general Jose Miguel Insulza and several foreign ministers to enter the country, according to BBC.

War Reports

Iraq BBC reports that Sunni insurgents continue to target Shiites. The latest:

Two truck bombings in northern Iraq and attacks targeting day laborers in western Baghdad killed at least 51 people and wounded scores early Monday, Iraqi authorities said. …

The truck bombings killed at least 35 people in Khazna, a small Shiite village 12 miles north of Mosul. Residents said at least 80 houses were destroyed in the blasts.

Last week’s bombings included blasts in Shiite areas of Mosul and Baghdad, which killed more than 50 people.

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August 8, 2009 · 4:15 pm

See the ads that CNN won’t run

Picture 1CNN is refusing to run an ad critical of the health care industry, according to Americans United for Change, which produced the ad. CNN earlier refused to run a Media Matters-produced ad critical of Lou Dobbs and the “birthers.” Watch the health care commercial CNN refuses to run and then scroll down for the anti-Lou Dobbs ad and for a bonus 2006 health care reform cartoon.

CNN also refused to run an ad critical of Lou Dobbs and the “birthers.” This ad, created by Media Matters, is shown below:

And here’s a bonus for your viewing pleasure — a 2006 cartoon, with music by the Austin Lounge Lizards.

Hat tip to Two Putt Tommy of MN Progressive Project for blogging about the health care ads.

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August 7, 2009 · 7:20 am

News Day: July unemployment numbers / Swine flu ahead / Operation Red Zone / Scam alert

jobs on a white background with a magnifierJuly unemployment numbers Surprisingly, unemployment fell slightly in July, with the U.S. Department of Labor reporting the figure as “9.4 percent, little changed for the second consecutive month.” Economists had forecast an increase. The U-6 unemployment figure, which includes all workers who are marginally attached to the labor market and those who are employed part-time for economic reasons, remained at 16.8 percent. The total number of non-farm jobs declined by 247,000.
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August 6, 2009 · 7:32 am

News Day: Talking trash in St. Paul / Twine and turkeys / Unemployment update / GLBTQ-friendly school

©Maninblack – Fotolia.com

©Maninblack – Fotolia.com

Talking trash in St. Paul St. Paul council member Dave Thune has proposed that the city council study trash collection in St. Paul, and from the storm of comments unleashed on the E-Democracy forum, this ranks right up there with single-payer health care as a threat to the entire capitalist system. Currently, garbage collection in St. Paul is 100% private, which means that every house on a street might have a different garbage collector, with different trucks rolling down the street five days a week. Alternatives range from city-owned and operated garbage collection, which no one advocates, to city-awarded contracts for specific collection routes. The issue keeps on coming up, and the garbage industry has always rolled out the big guns to shoot down any proposals for change.

In unemployment news The MN unemployment compensation fund, forecast to go into the red early 2010, dipped into red ink in July, necessitating borrowing from the feds for a week, reports the Star Tribune. After that, unemployment tax collections put the fund back in the black – at least temporarily, with the next red ink forecast for October, before the end-of-quarter tax payments. Then the fund will go into the red again in December, with no prospect of pulling out of deficit until at least 2012. A big part of the problem: no jobs.

On average, laid-off Minnesotans collected unemployment checks for 14 weeks in 2007 and 18 weeks last year. In June, the timeframe rose to between 21 and 22 weeks.

The U.S. Department of Labor figures on initial unemployment benefit claims showed a slight decrease nationally, with seasonally adjusted initial applications for unemployment insurance at 550,000 for the week ending August 1, a decrease of 38,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 588,000.

Twine and turkeys Meeker County is in the news, which is rare enough, and it’s in the news for two separate stories on the same day, which is almost unheard of.

First, there’s the avian flu, discovered in one of the gigantic turkey factory farms. Not to worry, says the state Board of Animal Health, according to MPR. This is a mild form of avian flu, and besides that, theyve quarantined the farm, and besides that, none of the workers shows any signs of infection. In fact, it sounds like none of the birds are really sick — they just have the virus, which shows up multiple times each year, somewhere among the cages of the turkey-growing factories that make MN the top turkey-producing state in the country.

The Darwin Twine Ball is the second Meeker County newsmaker, with Martha Stewart naming it one of the “good things” in the country. Among more than a thousand Google references to Martha and the Twine Ball, here’s the local take from the Litchfield Independent Review:

Anyway, can anyone make a connection between Martha Stewart — the diva of home design and all that is proper — and the Largest Ball of Twine Collected By One Man?

Apparently, Martha and her team of TV producers are going to give it a try. Roger Werner, curator of the Darwin Twine Ball Museum, informed me yesterday that he got a call from one of the producers of the Martha Stewart TV show….

Werner admits he has no idea why Stewart would be interested in Darwin’s twine ball, but he figures that any kind of publicity is good publicity for the city’s humungous claim to fame.

Just in time for this Saturday’s Twine Ball Day celebration in Darwin.

Picture 8
For more than you ever wanted to know about the Twine Ball, click here to watch and listen to Weird Al Yankovic’s seven-minute ode.

Bankruptcies rise Both nationally and in Minnesota, bankruptcy filings are rising, reports the Star Tribune. Nationally, consumer bankruptcies were up 34 percent in July, compared to July 2008. In Minnesota, bankruptcies were up 30 percent in July, compared to July 2008, and “consumer bankruptcies for the first seven months of 2009 are running 35 percent ahead of the same period in 2008.” Bankruptcy attorneys said that more filers are people earning more than $60,000, both because filing became more expensive in 2005, and because people with higher incomes are more likely to have homes in foreclosure and second mortgages outstanding.

Nationally and in Minnesota, bankruptcy filings are expected to continue at high levels.

American Bankruptcy Institute executive director Sam Gerdano is expecting 1.4 million bankruptcies by the end of the year, the busiest year since 2005, when more than 2 million consumers flocked to file to beat the less-consumer-friendly reforms put in place that fall.

GLBTQ-friendly school A new on-line high school based in Maplewood says it is the first on-line GLBTQ high school in the country, reports the Pioneer Press. GLBTQ stands for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning. David Glick, the first online learning coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Education, founded the school and says it is getting national and international interest. So far, however, only 24 students have registered, and 50 are needed to start the school in the fall. Tuition for the private, on-line school is $5900 per year. While some fear that an on-line school could further isolate students from their peers, Glick is confident that will not happen.

Curt Johnson reaffirmed Glick’s assertion, saying his findings “overturned the conventional suspicions” of the online classroom. He is a managing partner at Education Evolving, a joint venture of the Center for Policy Studies and Hamline University that promotes technological progress in schools.

“The individual transactions of e-mailing and telephoning regularly creates a relationship between students and teachers,” said Johnson, who believes online schools will outnumber their physical counterparts by the year 2017.

Minnesota to the world Two Minnesotans have been confirmed as ambassadors, reports MPR. Miguel Diaz, a theology professor at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University in Collegeville, will become the new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Sam Kaplan, an attorney and DFL fundraiser, will become the U.S. ambassador to Morocco.

National/World News

“One of these things is not like the other” Paul Krugman points out that the news reports equating Republican health-care opponents with Democratic opponents of Bush social security privatization schemes are just wrong:

Indeed, activists made trouble in 2005 by asking Congressmen tough questions about policy. Activists are making trouble now by shouting Congressmen down so they can’t be heard.

Talking Points Memo reports that Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) will not hold any town hall meetings because of “threatening phone calls, including at least one direct threat against his life.”

Dealing away health care reform The New York Times reported that the White House says it “stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion,” despite House proposals to “allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers.”

Closer to home, the Minnesota Independent reports that Blue Dog Democrat Colin Peterson said he won’t vote for the health care reform proposals now before Congress.

Scam alert The New York Times describes employment scams, which seem more widespread as more people feel more desperate in their search for work.

Like job seekers, criminals are after moneymaking opportunities online. And they’re setting increasingly sophisticated traps to prey on the desperation of the jobless, whose guards are down amid eroding savings, swelling debts and calamities like foreclosure and bankruptcy. Victims can ill afford another financial setback.

Among the most common scams: help for a fee, fishing for identity data, work from home, “money mule” and reshipper schemes.

War Reports

Afghanistan A roadside bomb killed 21 civilians, mostly women and children, who were headed for a wedding in the southern province of Helmand, reports the New York Times. A roadside bomb in another part of Helmand province killed five police officers and wounded three more. In Kandahar province, local officials said an attack by a U.S. Apache helicopter killed five farmers who were taking cucumbers to a bazaar. U.S. officials said the men were loading small arms, not cucumbers.

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August 5, 2009 · 8:22 am

News Day: Family recession lessons / Failing at helping / AstroTurf at Crapstock / Keith Ellison tweets

Picture 5Astroturf at Crapstock! Stephen Colbert proposes a successor to Woodstock – Crapstock, where like-minded memos and talking points come together from all over the country to oppose health care reform. “Since you can’t have an actual popular movement,” Colbert advises, “just say you have one. … We don’t need to look at what real people think to know what’s important. We can just look at our faxed memos …” He read from a memo advising opponents to pack town hall meetings, sitting in the front half of the hall, so they will look like a majority — even though a majority of Americans in fact support health care reform.

Among the “best practices” in a memo from Tea Party Patriots volunteer Bob MacGuffie:

– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”

– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

– Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

NPR reports that the opposition is well-organized and national:

Many of the events this week appear to have been organized by conservative groups. A new Web site is called “Operation Embarrass Your Congressman.” A widely circulated memo tells right-wing protesters how to treat their representative: “Make him uneasy … stand up and shout out, and sit right back down … rattle him.”

And the Astroturf “organizing” goes beyond health care reform and packing town hall meetings, into probably prosecutable realms for one lobbying firm. TPM Muckraker reports on fake letters sent to oppose environmental legislation. The letters were sent by Bonner and Associates, a lobbying firm:

Bonner and Associates was working on behalf of the coal industry when it sent forged letters — purporting to come from local Hispanic and black groups — to a member of Congress, urging him to oppose the recent climate change bill. Bonner’s client was the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a top coal-industry advocacy group.

One of the letters went to Virginia first-term Congress member Tom Perriello, purporting to come from a Latino group in his district.

“They stole our name. They stole our logo. They created a position title and made up the name of someone to fill it. They forged a letter and sent it to our congressman without our authorization,” said Tim Freilich, who sits on the executive committee of Creciendo Juntos, a nonprofit network that tackles issues related to Charlottesville’s Hispanic community. “It’s this type of activity that undermines Americans’ faith in democracy.”

Family recession lessons From anger and stress to resilience and coping, the lessons that parents hope to teach and those that children are actually hearing may be miles apart, according to a fascinating and careful report by MPR. One family faces the “devastating” but seemingly inevitable loss of the home they built nine years ago.
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August 4, 2009 · 7:38 am

News Day: Minnesota’s recession / New schools / Tweets from Keith / Obama and immigration

From <a href="http://www.positivelyminnesota.com/lmi/Home.htm" target="_blank">DEED's "Positively Minnesota" website.</a>Minnesota’s recession Although Minnesota is doing slightly better than the nation as a whole, the recession/depression hits us as unevenly as it hits the country. Along the western border, unemployment is lower — 4.5 percent in Moorhead and Clay County marking the lowest point. Except for Anoka County, the seven-county metro area manages to stay barely below 9 percent unemployment. The dark spots on the map are located mostly in Greater Minnesota, with four counties and a handful of cities showing unemployment at more than 12 percent. On the Range, unemployment reaches 17 percent in Virginia and 18.7 percent in Hibbing. (For county and city details, go to DEED’s “Positively Minnesota” website.)
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August 3, 2009 · 6:42 am

News Day: Little clinic, big insurance / Bridge collapse, contracts / TiZA: When success isn’t enough / more

Little clinic, big insurance show need for health care reform Ruben Rosario reports in the Pioneer Press about a little clinic run by a nurse-practitioner that offers affordable health care basics to uninsured and underinsured families. Associated Press reports that Humana insurance raked in second-quarter profits that are 34 percent higher than last year “on higher premiums from the company’s Medicare and commercial insurance programs.” (Last week, Minnetonka-based insurer UnitedHealth reported a 155 percent increase in second-quarter profits.)

At the Anoka North Metro Pediatrics clinic, the check-ups and immunizations required for two kids to attend school cost $40, on a sliding-fee scale that takes income into account. “Private clinics wanted to charge a minimum $150 a head,” Rosario reports. “No upfront money, no exams.”

More than 70 percent of the families the clinic serves have no health insurance. About 20 percent have partial insurance through a state-subsidized plan. Roughly 10 percent have insurance but are grappling with high deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. Roughly 60 percent are minorities.

The clinic scrapes by, with private and corporate donations and a grant from the Minnesota Department of Health. Nurse practitioner Connie Blackwell, who doesn’t draw a full salary and left a good-paying job to found the clnic, worries about funding cuts and the needs of the families she serves. Their stories, eloquently told by Rosario, should be read by every lawmaker and by everyone who has not yet managed to call/write/email their congressional reps about health care reform.

Meanwhile, the Star Tribune reports, “insurers worried that an overhaul could hurt their bottom line are funneling a wave of cash to members of Congress.” Insurers have funneled more than $40 million in direct contributions to members of Congress over the past decade, and spent more than half a billion in lobbying.

Bridge collapse – yesterday’s news for MnDOT? Although the state is suing URS and Progressive Contractors Inc., and “holds the companies responsible” for the 35W bridge collapse two years ago, the MN Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has also given the two companies more than $55 million of “contracts for projects across the state in those two years, including work to predesign other bridges,” reports the Star Tribune.

While PCI company officials said this shows the state does not really believe that is to blame for the 35W collapse, the Star Tribune points to a “complicated relationship” that includes contracts given to URS for its work on the I-35W bridge after URS hired MnDOT’s longtime bridge engineer, Don Flemming, and MnDOT’s refusal — a year before the bridge collapse — to follow a URS recommendation to “reinforce the aging bridge with $2 million in steel plating.”

TiZA – When success isn’t enough Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) has consistently posted high student test scores, especially remarkable for a school where more than 85 percent of the children live in poverty and a high percentage speak English as a second language. TiZA has also been the target of high-profile attacks by Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten, which also triggered an ACLU lawsuit accusing the school of illegally promoting Islam. The campaign against TiZA has resulted in especially close and prolonged scrutiny by the MN Department of Education.

The state department is withholding millions of dollars in state and federal aid to TiZA, alleging that the school had 14 unlicensed teachers, reports the Star Tribune. The school received $4.7 million in state aid (based on per-pupil funding for charter school students) last year, and the MN Department of Education is withholding $1.3 million of state aid this year, based on the teacher licensure charges. TiZA executive director Asad Zaman says that amount “is enough to cripple just about any charter school in the entire state.”

According to a Ramsey County judge, the state also withheld the information that TiZA needs to defend itself on the teacher licensure charges. After TiZA went to court last month, the judge’s order finally resulted in the release of 10,000 pages of documents last week.

The documents disclosed a previously-secret investigation, this one by a private contractor hired by the Department of Education to look at TiZA’s high test scores. The test score investigation, by a private contractor paid by the state, turned up no wrong-doing.

“The silver lining of this cloud is that it is absolutely clear that our test results are valid,” said Asad Zaman, executive director of the K-8 school, which has campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine.

The Education Department has visited the school more than a dozen times since January 2008, Zaman said, reviewing the school’s special education services, after-school programming and more.

The MN Department of Education is still holding up federal aid for TiZA, including “$375,000 to help other schools replicate TiZA’s learning program,” and $500,000 for renovations to the school’s physical plant.

Minnesota connections to Americans arrested in Iran, Israel Israel arrested two Americans who arrived by plane Saturday, planning to visit Palestinian activists in Ramallah, reports the TC Daily Planet. According to press releases by the Anti-War Committee in Minneapolis, a third woman was deported immediately and the two who were arrested were put on a plane and deported on Sunday.

Iran announced the arrest of three American hikers near the Iraq border Friday, reports the New York Times. Kurdish officials said the hikers apparently lost their way. According to the Star Tribune, one of the hikers is a Minnesota native, a freelance journalist who now lives in San Francisco.

World/National News

Iran The government put more than 100 dissidents on trial, reports the New York Times. Two of the figures recanted their past beliefs on the stand, saying they had changed since being arrested, and said they had not been tortured. People close to the two men, including the wife of one, said that the phrasing of their testimony was not characteristic and that they did not believe the denial of torture.

In addition, “a Tehran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, who is running the trials, released a statement warning that anyone criticizing the trial as illegitimate, as many opposition figures have done, would also be prosecuted.” Even as former President Mohammad Khatami denounced the trials, hardline political leaders warned of more arrests and hinted that defeated opposition presidential Mir Hossein Moussavi could be targeted.

Nigeria The death toll mounted to 700 after a week of battles between government forces and an extremist religious sect called Boko Haram, reports the New York Times.

The Nigerian authorities disregarded dozens of warnings about a violent Islamist sect until it attacked police stations and government buildings last week in a blood bath that killed more than 700 people, Muslim clerics and an army official said.

War Reports

Uganda The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is on the move again, reports BBC. They recently attacked people in the south Sudanese town of Ezo and killed civilians in several towns in the Central African Republic. The LRA is a Ugandan group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Afghanistan The Taliban killed nine U.S. and NATO soldiers over the weekend, reports the New York Times. The NYT cited two factors contributing to higher death tolls – more U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and more sophistication by rebels in use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Iraq A car bomb in a crowded market in Haditha killed at least six people, reports the BBC.

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July 31, 2009 · 7:29 am

News Day: Beer Summit / Gangs of St. Paul / Police gang / Harassment by pizza / Iran repression

Picture 4Beer Summit Red Stripe for Henry Louis Gates, Blue Moon for the police officer, and Bud Light for the president: beer choices at the White House were all over the news yesterday, along with Congressional admonitions to the president to drink American.
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