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.
September 13, 2016 · 8:06 pm
Riverside towers on West Bank, home to many of Somali Minnesotans, and the planned setting of K’Naan’s HBO television series.
A planned television series set in Minnesota’s Somali community sparked protests at Saturday’s West Bank block party on September 10. Angry and tired of being characterized as jihadi recruits or recruiters, Minnesota Somali youth protested Somali Canadian rapper K’naan’s television plans when he came to perform. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say who threw what first – but police sprayed some of the crowd with chemical irritants, and arrested a couple of people, including a Muslim woman who is a leader of the Black Liberation Project.
The HBO television series started out as “The Recruiters,” focusing on the Somali community in Minnesota, with the promise that it “will draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment.” That sure plays into stereotypes about Somali youth in Minnesota. Now, the series has been renamed “Mogadishu, Minnesota,” and K’Naan claims that it will “present the true and beautiful side” of Somali immigrants. The protesters weren’t buying the new description. Continue reading →
Filed under immigration, race, religion
Tagged as Araweelo, immigrants, immigration, Jim Crow North, K'Naan, Minnesota, Mogadishu MInnesota, refugees, Somali, Somali refugees, The Advocates for Human Rights, The Recruiters, Voices from Silence
September 12, 2016 · 8:21 pm
Does chocolate really help weight loss? Does aspartame cause seizures? Did an Italian doctor discover a simple operation to cure multiple sclerosis? Do dryer sheets cause cancer? The answer to all these claims is a resounding NO. So why do these, and hundreds of other phony health stories, continue to circulate? And how can you sort good health and science information from utter crap? Continue reading →
August 28, 2016 · 9:50 pm
Did President Obama really sign an executive order banning the pledge of allegiance in schools nationwide? Must be real — you can read it in abcnews.com.co. Oh, wait — that’s a phony news site, set up to steal the reputation of the real ABC News and get you to believe fake stories. Just like nbc.com.co or foxnews.com.co or cbs.com.co — all fake sites set up by the News Examiner, which also publishes phony news. Because theses “shill” sites look, at first glance, like legit news organizations, their phony news gets picked up and spread, often over social media and sometimes even fooling real news organizations. Continue reading →
August 23, 2016 · 8:05 am
Filed under elections, media, news
Tagged as Borowitz Report, campaign, election, fake news, Michele Bachmann, news, phony news, satire, The Onion
August 21, 2016 · 5:51 am
Did you read about the world’s biggest baby, born in China, weighing 73 pounds? How about Pope Francis’s denunciation of Pokemon as the devil’s tool? Or about Donald Trump’s cousin leaving a statement for his obituary begging people not to vote for him? Or that Donald Trump says President Obama founded ISIS? Okay – the last one is unfortunately true, which shows how hard it can be to tell actual news from fiction and satire, this year more than ever.
I spend lots of time reading news, and I care passionately about sorting truth from lies. So I’m going to write a series of blog posts to share what I’ve learned over a lifetime of working at this Sisyphean task. Today: phony news sites. Next time: Satire beyond The Onion. After that: Outright lies and hoaxes. Finally: Not really science and not really health. Continue reading →
August 9, 2016 · 4:21 pm
If we really love Minnesota’s sky-blue lakes, if we really care about swimming and canoeing and fishing, we need to do a lot more to protect those waters. And we need to act quickly. Toxic algae blooms, fertilizer run-off, garbage, and mining sediment and run-off threaten Minnesota lakes and rivers and wetlands. Threaten? That’s actually an understatement. “Threaten” sounds like the damage is in the future. It’s not. Minnesota waterways have already been seriously damaged. Continue reading →
Filed under agriculture, environment, food and farming
Tagged as agriculture, blue-green algae, copper nickel, farming, fertilizer run-off, lakes, mining, Minnesota, Minnesota waters, rivers, sky blue waters, sulfide mining, taconite, wetlands, wild rice
August 5, 2016 · 1:55 pm
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Yusra Mardini and her sister fled the war in Syria, two teenagers making their way through Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, the Balkans and Central Europe to Germany. Crossing the Mediterranean in an overloaded rubber boat, they jumped in the water when the engine died and the boat started taking on water. Here’s how the New York Times tells her story:
“Of the 20 people on board, only the Mardini sisters and two young men knew how to swim, so the four of them jumped overboard. It was about 7 at night, and the turning tide had made the sea harsh and choppy. …
“Mardini and her sister swam for three and a half hours, helping the boat stay on course — even when the two male swimmers gave up and let the dinghy pull them along. It was cold, Mardini said. Her clothes dragged her down, and salt burned her eyes and skin.
“’I’m thinking, what? I’m a swimmer, and I’m going to die in the water in the end?’ she said.”
Continue reading →
August 2, 2016 · 7:27 pm
In the 1980s, Lou Anne Kling advocated for farmers against abuses by the federal Farmers Home Administration (FmHA). In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Kling as the agency’s national administrator of farm loan programs. Now, at 77 years, Kling has retired from her job as farm transitions coach for the Land Stewardship Project, and remains active in her community, as health allows, keeping a sharp eye on government shenanigans that affect farmers.
Continue reading →
August 2, 2016 · 1:31 pm
Unless you are in a contested legislative district, you might be tempted to skip the August 9 primary election. You shouldn’t. The primary will decide which Minnesota Supreme Court candidate will be on the ballot this November. That’s hugely important. While the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints U.S. Supreme Court justices, Minnesota voters elect Minnesota Supreme Court justices, and this year they should re-elect Justice Natalie Hudson. Continue reading →
August 1, 2016 · 7:24 pm
I’m a klutz at composting. Every time I’ve tried, the stuff just sits there. So I am happy to see that the Twin Cities are making composting easier, with curbside pick-up for organics in Minneapolis and easy organics drop-off sites in St. Paul. Big news: St. Paul now has 24/7 drop-off sites, so you can get rid of the accumulated food waste before the raccoons raid your collection bin. Continue reading →
Mary Turck