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.
April 27, 2009 · 8:17 am
Swine flu: Emergency? Epidemic? Pandemic? A new kind of flu — H1N1 –has fearmongers topping the headlines everywhere else, so we may as well follow suit. For actual information, check the CDC, the Minnesota Department of Health, and the University of Minnesota Center for Infections Disease Research and Policy. As the story progresses, these will be good links to keep on hand. And now for the facts: A new strain of flu, caused by a virus with genetic components from pigs, birds and humans, emerged in Mexico. This virus is different from previous swine flu because it can spread from human to human.
No one knows how many people in Mexico have the virus, but Mexico has reported more than a hundred deaths from this flu and hundreds of other people who are sick. The government has closed schools and daycare centers in Mexico City to try to stop the spread of the flu. Far smaller numbers of cases have been reported in at least five U.S. states (CA, TX, KS, NY, OH) and in Canada and Spain. (No cases in MN yet.)
Most people who get swine flu get better. That’s one reason that the extent of the outbreak is hard to track. Tracking the begins with a throat culture, and most people who have flu do not visit a doctor.
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April 24, 2009 · 8:08 am
A little legislative levity In a day that ran long past midnight, Rep. Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) injected a little humor, offering an amendment that would require:
“A legislator that lives within 50 miles of the State Capitol must provide housing, food, laundry and entertainment for legislators that reside greater than 50 miles from the State Capitol during a special session.”
Rep. Joe Mullery (D-Minneapolis) wanted an assurance that metro legislators could choose which colleagues they wanted to entertain, but after a bit of back-and-forth that included inserting the word “wholesome” before “entertainment,” the proposal was scuttled and what City Hall Scoop called the “world’s best amendment” was withdrawn.
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April 23, 2009 · 8:04 am
Contract or furloughs or both? State workers who are members of AFSCME and MAPE “won’t be required to take unpaid furloughs under a tentative two-year contract reached Wednesday with the state, according to the unions,” reports the Strib. That was the first read on the contract agreement, and seemed to be good news, since T-Paw had been threatening/demanding 48 unpaid furlough days over the next two years, which works out to a little more than five weeks per year.
But wait — T-Paw’s spokesperson, Brian McClung, jumped in to say the contract makes no guarantees and state government retains its “existing ability to furlough employees if necessary.”
Crippling health care in MN The PiPress details testimony by health care leaders that describes the crippling impact of T-Paw’s plan to remove as many as 93,000 Minnesotans from state-subsidized health programs. Twin Cities health care providers have cut more than 1,500 jobs since last fall, as uncompensated care in the sate rose to an estimated $601 million in 2008. Hospitals said the influx of uninsured patients would mean massive losses and would require cuts in services:
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Filed under news
Tagged as afghanistan, budget, economic stimulus, education, environment, health, housing, immigrants, iraq, Minneapolis, Pakistan, St. Paul, taxation, Tim Pawlenty
April 22, 2009 · 8:44 am
MN Budget Watch The House tax bill passed out of committee by a narrow margin, with Rep. Tom Rukavina providing the last necessary vote, but Rukavina says he may not support the plan on the House floor. Meanwhile, reports Steve Perry in Politics in Minnesota, the Senate omnibus bill would work “by essentially reinstating the tax rates that existed in the state in 1998, before the first of a pair of extensive income tax cuts during the Jesse Ventura adminstration,” and adding a new top bracket of 9.25 percent for adjusted gross incomes over $250,000. The increases would be spread over 85% of all taxpayers, and would revert to today’s levels in 2014.
And over at MinnPost, Doug Grow says it is “virtually impossible to create reform,” despite hard work and careful analysis put into the House bill.
In coming days, amendments will be loaded up on both the House and Senate bills. Then, somehow, the House and Senate majorities will have to come together with a single bill, which almost certainly will be vetoed by the governor, who has pledged no new taxes.
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April 21, 2009 · 9:09 am
Torture – again I am sick of reading about torture. I am not going to stop reading about it, because this is what my country did in my name. It makes me sick, but that is not a sufficient reason to “walk away” as Peggy Noonan recommends. The United States tortured prisoners and that was official government policy. Someone must be held accountable. MORE
Crime and taxes The legislature is hard at work on the budget, which means fiddling with tax and crime laws.
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April 21, 2009 · 7:56 am
I am sick of reading about torture. I am not going to stop reading about it, because this is what my country did in my name. It makes me sick, but that is not a sufficient reason to “walk away” as Peggy Noonan recommends.
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April 20, 2009 · 7:21 am
Subsidizing corn for a sacred cow A 107-page report (PDF) from the state legislative auditor’s office says the state should stop subsidizing ethanol and questions the potential for increased environmental benefit from increasing production of corn-based ethanol.
The recommendation to end public subsidies for ethanol producers is based on strictly economic analysis that shows increased profitability for ethanol producers has eliminated the justification for subsidies. The state program, begun in 1987, is a producer payment program. The Job Opportunity Building Zones (JOBZ) program has also provided subsidies for recently-built ethanol and biodiesel facilities. According to the report, “the producer payment program has paid $93 million over the last five years to companies that have earned profits of $619 million” during the past five years, and “about $44 million is scheduled to be spent on the producer payment program from fiscal year 2010 through 2012.” The report recommends ending the subsidy and “redirecting the funds to programs designed to further reduce fossil fuel energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.” That, of course, is not going to happen because the ethanol industry has a lock on legislative support, as well as the support of the governor.
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Filed under news
Tagged as afghanistan, Africa, agriculture, employment, environment, EPA, ethanol, gender, global warming, green, Iran, iraq, MN Job Watch, Pakistan, Somali, South Africa, St. Paul, Sudan
April 17, 2009 · 8:38 am
Cops, guns, unanswered questions Why won’t Chief Dolan talk to the Pioneer Press? Why has Mpls police officer refused to sign an affidavit prepared by the Mpls city attorney and retained a private attorney? How can the Police Community Relations Council –dissolved by the City of Minneapolis months ago — petition the Justice Department now? These are just a few of the questions in the continuing saga of the Minneapolis police shooting of teenage Fong Lee in 2006. No answers to any of these questions, but you can read about more twists and turns in the gun saga from the PiPress, the report of the PCRC complaint from Fox 9, and the exclusive interviews Dolan gave to the Strib, MPR, and KSTP. Did anyone say “softball” interviews?
Earlier this week, Dolan sat for interviews with the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio, and on Thursday, he was interviewed by KSTP. It does not appear that he was asked about Adams’ refusal to give an affidavit for the city or his hiring of a lawyer.
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Filed under news
Tagged as bailout, budget, civil liberties, economic crisis, education, employment, environment, GLBT, journalism, media, Mexico, Minneapolis, MN Job Watch, St. Paul
April 16, 2009 · 7:35 am
Media spotlight on media From Fox News to the Strib, media is the news this morning.
Not all media are equal in the eyes of the law — or at least not in the eyes of Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan. The TC Daily Planet reports that the chief decided to give an exclusive interview to the Strib about the legal case arising from the 2006 police shooting of Fong Lee, but isn’t answering requests for interviews from the PiPress, which has reported on the family’s side of the ongoing lawsuit. Since then, the chief has also talked to MPR. Guess he doesn’t like the PiPress coverage of inconsistencies in stories about the gun found near Fong Lee’s body or questions about the patrol car video.
And then there’s Fox: the “news” channel sponsored and heavily promoted yesterday’s national tea bag protest day — and then joined the rest of the media in extensive coverage of the events. Sponsorship? Oh, yes — as Media Matters reports, “from April 6 to April 13, Fox News featured at least 20 segments on the “tea party” protests scheduled to take place on April 15 and aired at least 73 in-show and commercial promotions for their April 15 coverage of the events,” which Fox hyped as “the FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” This goes so far beyond the bounds of journalistic ethics that it’s hard to know where to begin.
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Tagged as agriculture, budget, employment, environment, journalism, media, Michelle Bachmann, Minneapolis, Obama, Somali, taxation, Tim Pawlenty
April 15, 2009 · 8:39 am
Dumb power lines, smart grids The MN Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is set to decide on yet another power line this week, reports MPR. For those of you keeping score, the power line proposals include:
• CapX 2020 — roughly 600 miles and $2 billion.
• “Green Power Express” from ITC Holdings Group — “a series of 765 kV transmission lines across seven states, including Minnesota”
• Xcel Energy — “upgrade a power line from Granite Falls to Shakopee from the current 230 kV line to a double-circuit 345 kV”
• And don’t forget Big Stone II — already approved by the PUC “to construct and upgrade 112 miles of transmission lines in western Minnesota.”
Big Stone II is all about energy from burning coal, but the other proposals claim they are about wind energy — with no promises, of course. Power line proponents say there’s a need for more energy, but MPR notes that the Citizens Energy Task Force research found Xcel Energy’s “energy demands dropped by 12 percent from 2006 through 2008.”
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Mary Turck