Author Archives: Mary Turck

The state budget deficit crisis is monumental. As the legislature reconvenes in January, they will be faced with decisions about cutting programs, raising taxes and deficit spending. The state of Minnesota cannot run a budget deficit, but issuing bonds to pay for state spending is an option that looks something like deficit spending. Bonding means basically taking out loans to cover spending and paying them back over the long term. Bonding typically covers construction and public works projects.

The Minnesota House of Representatives has set up a webpage to gather your comments on the budget deficit, which totals $426 million this biennium and $4.8 billion for FY 2010-11. Those comments will not be published. We’d also like to invite your comments, suggestions and ideas — and if you comment to the TC Daily Planet, your comment will be published. For short comments, click on the comment link at the bottom of the story. For longer comments, send an email to editor@tcdailyplanet.net.

As the economy reflects the deep freeze and darkness of December, gift-giving goes beyond family and friends to give back to a hurting community. From the United Way’s Give 5 Now campaign to Second Harvest and foodshelves, there are many ways to give. Here are four smaller places where your dollar can make a big difference.

Heart of the Beast

In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater closes temporarily on December 26, planning to re-open February 11. If you know Heart of the Beast only through the MayDay Parade, check out the HOTB website to learn about the many programs it provides in the community throughout the year.

“This is a sign of, ‘All hands on deck.’ You know, we’re taking on water,” executive director Kathee Foran told MPR. “If people value what we bring to the community, we need you up on deck helping us come up with some ideas to make sure we get through this, because no one knows if we’ve hit the bottom yet.”

On its website, HOTB explains, “The growing economic storm is having an immediate and significant impact on funding for arts organizations across the nation, including HOBT. Funding agencies, both public and private, are finding their ability to give dramatically reduced, meaning cuts in the number and size of grants.” Your donation will help HOTB to come back strong on February 11.

Intermedia Arts

Art changes everything. That’s a key belief at Intermedia Arts, which says its mission is “to be a catalyst that builds understanding among people through art. We foster excellence in the creative process and product by presenting a multitude of perspectives, and we create a context in which those perspectives can be understood. By stimulating broader civic dialogue and giving voice to the issues and experiences of underrepresented communities, we contribute to a stronger, healthier society.”

The Big E picks up the story at the Minnesota Progressive Project:

“They realized last summer that they relied to heavily on major donors and major foundation gifts. They began planning how to expand their earned income and individual donor giving. Then the economy collapsed. Now they have no choice but to adapt.
“Intermedia Arts is probably going to survive in some form. But, you all can help ensure that it remains a vital incubator for new artists and new organizations.”

The Intermedia Arts website asks people to raise money for Intermedia Arts using the power of 10: donating $10 themselves and asking 10 others to do the same.

Neighborhood House

Neighborhood House took a hit this fall, forced to cut its budget from $6.58 million in 2008 to $5.35 million in 2009. The budget cut comes even as the multicultural, multilingual center’s low-income clients on St. Paul’s West Side suffer the last-hired, first-fired impact of the recession. Since its founding in 1897 by the women of Mount Zion Temple, Neighborhood House has served successive generations of immigrants from all over the world.

In his letter announcing the budget cuts, director Armando Camacho said: “We remain committed to the three core areas we serve–basic needs including the food shelf; education including English Language Learners; and our Youth Leadership program–but we will need your help. As demand increases our staff will be increasingly busy and welcome some assistance. Call us at 651.289.2503 and volunteer to work at the food shelf, teach an English class, pick up food at one of our partners. Whatever your interests and abilities, there is somewhere you can help!”

Besides volunteering, you can donate to Neighborhood House.

Postville relief

Postville was the scene of one of the largest immigration raids in the country’s history. Approximately 300 people were arrested on March 10th, 2008 as they worked at the Agriprocessors meat packing plant. Some of those arrested are still awaiting court dates and can’t work. Families were separated, leaving children or spouses without support. According to Paul Ouderkirk, the local priest in charge of the area food shelves, Postville has literally run out of food. Minnesota supporters will take a caravan with donations to Postville. leaving at 8 a.m. on Sunday, December 28.

Donations can be dropped off at Waite House community Center on December 24 from 10-4 p.m. (2529 13th Ave South Minneapolis) or at the Comite Salvadoreño on December 26 or 27 (301 E. Lake Street, Suite 203. Call 612-822-1114 for hours.

Most urgently needed donations include white rice and dry beans, canned corn and green beans, juices, Pampers sizes 4-6, medicines for children and adults (Tylenol, etc.), telephone calling cards for Guatemala and Mexico, copy paper and other office supplies.

To make financial contributions, send a check made out to St. Bridget’s Hispanic Ministry to St. Bridget’s Hispanic Fund, P.O. Box 369, Postville, IA 52162

Minnesotan Seng Vang is deeply offended by Burger King’s portrayal of Hmong people in its “Whopper Virgin” campaign. The offensive segment of the campaign featured Hmong people in Northern Thailand “simply as “tribesmen” who “don’t even have a word for burger,” Seng Vang wrote in a protest letter to Burger King.

The text of the ad reads:

“What happens if you take remote Chiang Mai villagers who have never seen a burger? Who don’t even have a word for burger? And ask them to compare a Whopper versus Big Mac in the world’s purest taste test. The Whopper is America’s favorite. But what will these people choose? The Whopper Virgins will decide.”

“Really?” wrote Seng Vang. “Do you really expect the 350,000 Hmong Americans in the U.S., some right in Miami where your headquarters is located, as well as in Boulder, Los Angeles, and London to believe that? You really expect the hundreds if not thousands of Hmong Americans who are Burger King employees across the U.S. and around the world to believe that? Of course, you really expect the 150,000 Hmong in Thailand to be so “pure” (primitive is what you want the consumer to believe) that they don’t know what a burger is?

“… I’ve got news for you. It has now been confirmed that those individuals in your commercial spot are in fact quite familiar with Burger King as well as McDonalds, two fast food chains that are quite popular right in the heart of Chiangmai, Thailand! In fact, a couple of Hmong Thai students are employees at both places as I write!”

Instead of retracting the ad or apologizing, Burger King replied to Seng Vang, defending the ad. “[We] always strive to be sensitive to cultural concerns,” wrote BK Vice President Susan Robison. “It is our practice to associate our brand with campaigns that are within the bounds of good taste, executed appropriately, and not offensive to any substantial population group.” The letter went on to describe the Virgin Whopper campaign taste tests administered to Hmong participants from the village Baan Mon Kghor, Maramures participants from the Romanian village of Budesti, and Inuit participants from the Greenland village of Isortoq. BK, the letter said, sent representatives to visit the villages of participants and learn about their cultures and then donated educational
tools and supplies to Baan Mon Kghor, children’s toys to Isortoq, and aid for a church restoration project in Budesti.

Seng Vang isn’t buying it.

The Hmong of the world, especially those in Thailand and in the U.S. are NOT satisfied by your explanations.

Let’s look at the your ad, again, word for word, line for line.

BK claims in it’s ad: “What happens if you take remote Chiang Mai villagers who have never seen a burger?”

This is obviously a false, as the specific people in the ads (who are our relatives) HAVE seen burgers before, lots of it. Almost every Hmong Thai villages in Thailand have a TV. Thailand has how many BK franchises? How many commercials in Thai have these franchises run in the past several decades? Even the most remote Hmong villages in Thailand, like the ones in your ad, drive Toyota Tundras, talk to their relatives in St. Paul on their cell phones, and watch CNN and BBC on their satellite TVs. Never seen a burger? Pure fiction. Hmong villagers in Thailand aren’t as backward or primitive as you want Americans or the world to think. This type of stereotype needs to stop! BK eating Hmong Americans demands it.

BK ad claims: “[Hmong] Who don’t even have a word for burger?

In Thai, burgers are called, “Ber-Gerh”. Hmong Thais may not pronounce “burger” you and I would, but they know what a burger is. It’s not like lutefisk or something. Please.

BK ad claims: “And ask them to compare a Whopper versus Big Mac in the world’s purest taste test.”

They have had burgers before. They have had Whoppers before. They have had Big Macs before.

BK ad claims: “The Whopper is America’s favorite.”

I’m sure millions of Thai people, including the Hmong of Thailand likes the Whopper too. They also like the Big Mac just as well. If they can afford it.

BK ad claims: “But what will these people choose?”

“These people?” Those primitives in remote places of the world? As if they exist in a time warp and isolated from the rest of the world. Last I checked, there was a Hmong Super Delegate for Barack Obama. Get your heads out of the sand. We all live in a very tight knit global society.

Finally, your BK ad claims: “The Whopper Virgins will decide.”

Obviously, BK and their ad agency, CONTRARY to their claim that they “carefully constructed the campaign to respect the cultures of the people who participated in the test,” yet have by calling remote Hmong villagers in Thailand “virgins”, BK has committed a grave and unspeakable cultural gaffe, especially with images of Hmong men chumping on “burgers.” Need a little Hmong cultural and diversity orientation, BK?

Let the apologies come forth, and hopefully soon. Some of these Hmong people know how to run viral campaigns on Youtube too, you know.

In an order issued late on Thursday afternoon, December 18, the Minnesota Supreme Court ordered that improperly rejected absentee ballots should be counted and the results included in the recount now underway. In doing so, the Court rejected Norm Coleman’s petition to restrict or delay counting of absentee ballots, and admonished both campaigns that they should not file motions “for any improper purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation.”

Selected quotes from the opinion: (full opinion attached in PDF format)

“Because previously rejected absentee ballots that all agree were rejected improperly should be counted and in light of the fact that the State Canvassing Board has not yet certified the final results of the recount, we order candidates Norm Coleman and Al Franken and their campaign representatives, the Secretary of State, and all county auditors and canvassing boards to establish and implement a process, as expeditiously as practicable, for the purpose of identifying all absentee ballot envelopes that the local election officials and the candidates agree were rejected in error. … Any absentee ballot envelopes so identified that the local election officials and the candidates agree were rejected in error shall be opened, the ballot shall be counted, and its vote for United States Senator added to the total votes cast for that office in that precinct.”

Justice Alan Paige dissented from the majority opinion, writing in part:

“The court’s ruling denies county canvassing boards which have reached the decision–that an absentee ballot was rejected in obvious error–the ability to correct those errors unless the candidates agree. The court’s order may seek the peaceful way out by asking the campaigns to agree on improperly rejected ballots. But the order does not guarantee that the candidates and their political parties will agree on any rejected ballot. Instead, the court’s order will arbitrarily disqualify enfranchised voters on the whim of the candidates and political parties …”

Concurring in part and dissenting in part from the majority opinion, Justice Paul Anderson criticized the court for narrowing the scope of county canvassing boards’ review of rejected absentee ballots, but expressed confidence in the ultimate result:

“Winston Churchill is reputed to have once said, in an admiring tone, that Americans ultimately do the right thing after they have exhausted all the other alternatives. Sometimes, the wheels of justice and due process take time to fully turn. While I believe that we have incorrectly exhausted one alternative today, I have complete confidence that ultimately the right thing will be done and all validly cast absentee ballots will be properly counted.”

Giant puppets and dancing children could steal anybody’s show. They didn’t have to steal a show or a scene during La Natividad, because this show belonged to them, and to all of the actors and to us in the audience, too. Like In the Heart of the Beast’s MayDay parades, La Natividad is part of the community it has taken place in these past three years. As much as its Christmas story belongs to the ages, La Natividad belongs to today and here and now, rooted in Minneapolis and in the experience of immigrants and carpenters and angels and babies and mothers.

Angels lead Mary out of Mercado Central

La Natividad, a not-to-be-missed theater experience, closes on Sunday night with no scheduled return. While it is sold out, rush tickets are likely to be available at the box office, starting at 5:30 each night through December 21. And five days after La Natividad closes, so does In the Heart of the Beast Theater—a response to the economic downturn, a closure planned as a temporary measure. The press release announcing the closing says HOTB plans to re-open in February, and that Saturday morning children’s puppet shows will continue during the closure.

A child with a “ferocious” wolf betokens the peaceful world of a promised future.

From the press release announcing HOBT temporary closing
This difficult decision is a response to the economic downturn, and is intended to shore up the long-term health and vitality of the theatre. The souring economy is having an immediate and significant impact on current and future funding for arts organizations across the nation, including HOBT. Government, corporate and non-profit funding agencies are finding their ability to give dramatically reduced in this economic climate resulting in a reduction in number and size of grants.

La Natividad begins with angels telling Mary that she is about to become a mother, following quickly with her encounter with a god-like giant puppet. Joseph’s astonished disbelief gives way to solid support. The journey to Bethlehem occasions analogies and parables of the immigrants’ plight today. The audience is drawn in as participants in the journey from Mercado Central to Plaza Verde and the theater and then down 15th Avenue. In an echo of the Mexican custom of Las Posadas, Mary and Joseph knock on doors and are turned away. Finally, passing a forbidding border guard and fence, they come to St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, where the birth of the baby is greeted with dancing and followed by a shared meal.

Words cannot convey the warmth of community feeling or the charm of giant puppets, shaggy animals, and winsome children. Much of the audience lives in the neighborhood, but no one feels like an outsider while that old In the Heart of the Beast magic warms the freezing night.

In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre has been part of Minneapolis since 1973. In addition to the annual MayDay Parade and Pageant in Powderhorn Park, HOBT creates and produces plays, teaches workshops, offers Saturday morning children’s puppet shows, and works with students and teachers and communities.

Cold weather, family plans, and inertia made me put off seeing La Natividad last year and the year before. I’m glad I had the opportunity to see and walk with the play this year. La Natividad is more than theater, as HOTB is more than a theater company. By helping people to cross boundaries and meet one another, they strengthen the fabric of our community. In these tough economic times, we need the magic of theater and the warmth of community more than ever.

Mary Turck (editor@tcdailyplanet.net) is editor of the Daily Planet.

Best Buy offers 4000 buyouts
Twin Cities health groups cut 613 jobs
3M to cut jobs to weather storm
Office Depot to close Woodbury store in nationwide downsizing
Downturn hits Hutchinson Tech hard
Ford Plant layoffs during December

“I don’t know anyone who’s actually lost a job,” the business owner told me. “I think a lot of it is just media hype.” That was two weeks ago. He probably wouldn’t say the same today.

Today the Daily Planet publishes two articles with personal stories about the recession’s impact. I believe that putting faces on the “economic crisis” helps increase our will to do something about it, both personally (contributing to your local foodshelf) and politically. Do you have a story to tell? A job lost? A home foreclosed? Hours cut? Benefits gone? Maybe you have a story of hope–someone reaching out to help in hard times–or a strategy for coping. Send your stories to me at editor@tcdailyplanet.net, or hit the comment button and tell us right now.

With almost every news outlet and politician in the state commenting on Minnesota’s budget deficit, what’s left to say? The numbers are bad: a $426 million deficit for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, plus a projected $4.8 billion deficit for the 2010-2011 biennium add up to $5.273 billion dollar total. State economist Tom Stinson said this could be the worst recession since World War II. (Excuse me, wouldn’t that make it the worst since the Great Depression?) He said today’s budget forecast was not a worst-case scenario, and that the situation “could be noticeably worse between now and the end of the biennium.” The next budget forecast will come in February.

Finance and Commerce notes that “neither GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty nor the DFL leaders of the Legislature offered any specific ideas for how they might even come close to erasing that huge hole in the state’s general fund.” In a related article, Finance and Commerce says that, in an effort to “jump-start a dismal economy with steam shovels and bulldozers, state lawmakers expect to propose a bigger-than-expected package of public works projects during the upcoming legislative session.”

Predictably, Pawlenty repeats his tired no-new-taxes mantra. He says cops and vets programs are exempt from budget-cutting, but that health care is costing the state too much, and could take some cuts. That’s just a few days after rejecting federal assistance possibilities because they might prevent health care cuts.

Over at Growth & Justice, Dane Smith lays out three important facts to keep in mind when considering the deficit and responses. From the Minnesota House, Session Daily reports reactions and links to the actual forecast document.

While promising a more detailed analysis in the near future, Minnesota 2020 points out:

The mushrooming of the state deficit from the May projections to the November forecast is almost entirely the result of declining state revenue. In short, Minnesota has a revenue problem, not a spending problem.

The terrorists win when they make us become more like them.

They win when we imprison Uighurs at Guantanamo for years and then, finally admitting they are not guilty of any conceivable charges, keep them in prison because they now have no place to go. (And, of course, it’s unthinkable to make amends by admitting them to the United States and providing counseling and rehabilitation to make up for what they have endured.)

They win when a whistle-blowing MP is arrested and his computer and Blackberry and papers are searched and seized.

They win when national political conventions become an automatic occasions for beefing up security forces and crying “the communists are coming and they are going to destroy our country!” Oops — showing my age. Today’s security motto is “the anarchists are coming and they are going to destroy our city!”

The War on Terror followed the War on Drugs followed the Cold War. War rhetoric provides excuses for super-patriotism, denunciation of enemies foreign and domestic, and a host of “war powers” enshrined in the Smith Act, the Patriot Act and presidential, above-the-law directives on surveillance.

Time for a change.

Tis the season to shop, which I have never considered a great pleasure. MOA is my idea of torture, and I’m a conscientious objector to Walmart.

Walmart and McDonalds are among the few businesses not struggling as we head deeper into the recession. As people tighten their belts and cut spending, they “down-scale” their expenditures, and these two giants both profit from their down-scale images.

I do like giving gifts, and not everyone needs another loaf of cranberry bread. Luckily, local options abound. Black Dog Cafe hosts a local craft sale for artists and near-artists today (November 29). Ginkgo Coffeehouse has a similar event on December 13. Ten Thousand Villages offers fair-traded gifts from around the world, with Mennonite values supporting local artisans and benefit nights supporting Minnesota non-profits.

Turck’s Trees, my brother and sister-in-law’s tree farm offers a gift shop in addition to trees, wreaths, hayrides and reindeer. Steve and Joan have been raising trees on the family farm for decades, and the shop features lots of locally-made consignment crafts.

Supporting locally-owned business and local craftspeople and artists and bakers and coffee-makers keeps my dollars circulating in the local economy. I feel neither an obligation nor a desire to contribute to Walmart — or Wall Street.

Koko lives at Turck’s Trees.

I know that a cappuccino costs more at Blue Moon or A Fine Grind than it does at McDonalds. But that’s not the point. I save money by brewing my own coffee or tea most of the time. When I go out for coffee, I want to see local art instead of plastic clowns. I want to chat with a barista who lives in my neighborhood, not a drive-through squawk box. I want to sit down in a comfortable chair, and see who else comes through the door.

As Minnesota 2020 reports:

Each $1 spent with a local, independent business keeps 68 cents at home and circulating in the Minnesota economy. About 43 cents of the $1 spent at national chains that do not have headquarters in the state stays behind to boost the local economy. …

[I]f Minnesotans spent 25 percent of their holiday shopping budget on Minnesota made products, the impact would ripple through the economy like a tidal wave and have small and local business people hiring more employees. That would make more than a $2 billion infusion into the state economy. Even a 10 percent increase in purchases of local products would stimulate employment and increase entrepreneurs’ purchases from local suppliers.

Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Geoffrey Canada wants to save all the children. In the Harlem Children’s Zone, a “97-block-laboratory in Central Harlem,” the Harlem Children’s Zone programs run from Baby College through high school, providing effective (and expensive) support to parents and children with the goal of changing the lives of poor children. Canada’s vision goes beyond the Harlem Children’s Zone, to the hope of creating a model that can be replicated in other neighborhoods, other cities, other places where class and race conspire to defeat families and destroy the hopes of children.

Paul Tough covered the Harlem Children’s Zone for the New York Times. this book provides an admiring — but not hagiographic — portrait of Canada and a clear-eyed look at the successes and the failures of his project.

But Tough goes beyond the Harlem Children’s Zone to summarize the national debate on race, poverty and education, with particular attention to competing views published since the 1960s. He identifies two competing explanations:

One explanation blames powerful social and economic forces beyond the control of any individual. This belief holds that it is the very structure of the American economy that denies poor people sufficient income, and so the appropriate and just solution is to counter those economic forces by providing the poor with what they lack: food, housing, and money. The opposing explanation for American poverty is that it is caused by the bad decisions of poor people themselves and often perpetuated by the very programs designed to help relieve its effects. I fthis theory is correct, what the poor need is not handouts but moral guidance and strict rules.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, James S. Coleman, Charles Murray, William Julius Wilson … Tough reviews the reports, and then asks the right questions.

In some ways, the verdict is still out on the Harlem Children’s Zone and whether it can truly transform the culture of poverty in a community. Even if it does, larger questions about cost and replication remain. The questions take on new significance in view of the campaign statements that Barack Obama made in 2007:

If he were elected president, Obama went on to say, “the first part of my plan to combat urban poverty will be to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone in twenty cities across the country.”

View all my reviews.