Author Archives: Mary Turck

Images of the Twin Cities burning made headlines around the world.

May 29, 2020—11 a.m.

I monitored news channels and Twitter until something past 2 a.m. this morning. My cities, my streets were burning. This morning I woke to news of the arrest of a Black CNN reporter, and then of his camera team, as they broadcast from Lake Street, as they asked police where they should go, and offered full cooperation.

All of this comes in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd on Monday, which lit fires of rage against the Minneapolis Police Department, with its long history of brutal racism.

The violence and destruction was not/is not all about protest or grief or anger. Some of it is about deliberate looting and destruction by people coming into our communities for that purpose.

Lake Street in Minneapolis and University Avenue in St. Paul are filled with small businesses: minority-owned, immigrant-owned family businesses. So much remains to be known, remains to be said, remains to be understood and acted on. So this is a report from the middle, compiled as I listen to Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington speak in a press conference and promise that the state response will not be just law enforcement but also a long-term commitment to changing the racist structures that have made Minnesota good for white people and simultaneously awful for Black people, for Native people, for people of color.  Continue reading →

There’s a protest today, 5 p.m. at 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis. 

“I cannot breathe,” the black man tells the white police officer kneeling on his neck. “Don’t kill me!”

The man is on the ground, on his stomach, handcuffed behind his back. He is wedged against the tire of the patrol car, near 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis.

Yesterday.

In broad daylight.

In front of a crowd of witnesses. At least one of of the witnesses videotapes the whole thing, as the man pleads with police to get off of his neck, as he says he can’t breathe, as he gradually stops talking and stops moving. Continue reading →

Photo by Jernej Furman, published under Creative Commons license.

Big banks, billionaires, and small-time grifters: all are out for themselves, and profiting from the pandemic at the cost of small businesses, health care workers, and people suffering from COVID-19. Continue reading →

Photo by Jernej Furman, published under Creative Commons license

Everybody knows that awarding no-bid contracts for medical equipment delivery to political cronies stinks of corruption. In my opinion, using West Point cadets to provide a captive audience for a president, at the risk of their health and safety, is equally corrupt.

We’ll be uncovering corrupt contracts for years to come, but one particularly egregious example has already surfaced: a no-bid contract for N-95 masks awarded to Panthera Worldwide, which filed for bankruptcy last fall: Continue reading →

Photo by 401kcalculator.org, published under Creative Commons license

Stimulus checks and small business relief were prominent parts of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed in March. Now some of the less-publicized provisions are coming to light. On April 24, the New York Times reported on tax breaks to the very wealthy embedded in the CARES Act:

“As part of the economic rescue package that became law last month, the federal government is giving away $174 billion in temporary tax breaks overwhelmingly to rich individuals and large companies, according to interviews and government estimates. Continue reading →

Photo at https://www.pikrepo.com/fdihp/raw-meat-in-clear-plastic-pack, used under Creative Commons license

Agustín Rodriguez died in South Dakota, one of more than 640 people infected with COVID-19 connected to the Smithfield pork processing plant near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Like many other plant employees, he was a refugee who was willing to work long hours in a physically demanding job. They routinely put up with pain, icing sore wrists at night and living on ibuprofen, but glad to have jobs that let them support their families. Then came the coronavirus, sweeping through the ranks of workers cutting meat in close quarters without protective gear.

The New York Times interviewed many of the Smithfield workers, including Achut Deng, a refugee from Sudan who thought the virus could not be worse than what she had already survived: Continue reading →

Newspaper notice asking people not to use the telephone system during the flu epidemic. Found in the 1918 Public Utilities annual report (Record Series 1802-H9), Seattle Municipal Archives.

During our daily phone conversation, my mother said she wished she had more information about the 1918 influenza pandemic and how it compares to today’s COVID-19 pandemic. Mom, this blog is for you!

From 1914 to 1918, World War I killed somewhere between 20 and 22.5 million people, nearly evenly divided between soldiers and civilians. In a single year, the influenza pandemic killed two to four times more people than the war. Continue reading →

pandore – Fotolia.com

The first Minnesota prison inmate tested positive for COVID-19 on March 30 at the prison in Moose Lake. Ten days later, the MN Department of Corrections (DOC) website shows 12 inmates tested at Moose Lake, with nine tested positive, one negative, and two tests still pending results. At least eight Moose Lake correctional officers have also tested positive. The MN DOC website has just added a new column for “Presumed positive” for people “based on symptoms and having close contact to a person confirmed positive through testing.”  There are 23 “presumed positive” inmates in Moose Lake.

The 23 “presumed positive” inmates probably will not be tested at all. Continue reading →

Wisconsin votes today. Milwaukee has 180 polling places, but only 5 will be open. Five polling places in a city of about 600,000. Imagine Minneapolis (population about 422,000) voting at five polling places. With a statewide stay-at-home order in place, Democrats in Wisconsin have tried, over and over, to make this a vote-by-mail election. No dice, say Wisconsin Republicans. Continue reading →