Category Archives: Uncategorized

On August 17, 1862, as the United States fought our bloody Civil War, another civil war began in Minnesota, pitting native Minnesotans against immigrants, Dakota against European. Today Governor Mark Dayton ordered that all flags be flown at half staff on August 17, “to honor the American soldiers, Dakota people, and settlers who lost their lives in that war.” (See Governor Dayton’s entire proclamation in sidebar.) Continue reading →

Words are not enough. The front page of the anti-bullying task force report quoted from a listening session participant who said, “There needs to be more behind the posters than just tape.” The task force recommendations agree, calling for a new Minnesota law and school policies to prevent bullying. Continue reading →

I wrote this for the TC Daily Planet – but I’m reposting here with a special request: if your son or daughter, nephew or niece, grandson or granddaughter is heading back to college in the fall, take a minute to remind them to get an absentee ballot and vote.

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A Twitter comment today criticized DHS head Janet Napolitano because it took her 24 hours to post a short statement about yesterday’s massacre in Milwaukee. I have some sympathy for her. How do you know if you are one of the people who is expected to make a statement? And when? What difference does a statement make anyway? Continue reading →

Something about the employment numbers has been nagging at me for a while. Every month, the growth in employment comes from the private sector, and government employment falls. This — during a Democratic administration denounced as “big government” by Republicans and Tea Partiers.

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Friday is usually a slower-paced day, an end-of-the-week breathing space. And August is the slowest news month of the year, so when I headed in to the office this morning, I expected to get caught up on some of the pile of emails and stories that built up during the week. Continue reading →

Minnesota’s MCA scores were released today, and there’s plenty of analysis spinning around, though it’s hard to claim much real change from last year.

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Health insurance companies have to pay more than a billion dollars in rebates this year, because they didn’t spend at least 80 percent of premiums on medical care. According to the Chicago Tribune:

Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies are required to spend 80 to 85 percent of the money you pay in premiums on actual health care. … Insurers that don’t spend the prescribed amount have to issue rebates.

Is that an unreasonable amount to spend on actual health care? Well, take a look at what Medicare spends on administrative costs. Continue reading →

Books in boxes, books on shelves, and book people everywhere — that was the scene at the inaugural poetry reading at SubText, St. Paul’s newest indie bookstore. David Unowsky brought his cow, and many friends, to the first of a weekly Wednesday reading series he has organized for this summer. Poets Carol Connolly, Shannon Gibney, Ed Bok Lee, Jim Moore, and Juliet Patterson read in alphabetical order. Forty or fifty of us occupied an eclectic selection of comfortable chairs, and we enjoyed the wine-and-cheese welcome and relaxed atmosphere. Continue reading →

I couldn’t pronounce the address of our apartment — Dessewfy utca 22. I learned, eventually, that there are 47 characters in the Magyar alphabet, which may explain why I can’t pronounce anything. Magyar also has different words for “red,” depending on the temperature of the word. Not the color or shade — but one word would mean the passionate red of blood, while a different red would mean the red of a roof or something “cooler.” And that made me wish even more that I could understand the language. Continue reading →