Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’d like to resolve, like Susan Mernit, that I’ll blog every day this year. I doubt that I’ll make it – but I’m going to try. And maybe re-make the resolution on the first of every month.

Of course, the library is closed January 1-2 for New Year’s Day, but you can still check out a book. In fact, said the St. Paul Public Library in a press release, on the day after Christmas, with the library closed up tight, “Customers downloaded nearly 200 eBooks from Saint Paul Public Library on December 26, reaching an all time daily high for the eBook lending service.” Continue reading →

I got a phone message at the TC Daily Planet yesterday from someone who wanted a local source where she could buy red worms. She said she  read about red worm composting and TCDP was the only phone number on the page. Probably — we published the article, and we don’t always have phone numbers in stories.

I didn’t want to go find the article and track down a local red worm outlet, so I threw up a quick question on my personal Facebook account. Wow! Within minutes, I had multiple responses from the author of the TCDP article about places to go, and more responses from other friends who also knew where to get red worms or offered to share their own.

I think this Facebook post got more responses, more quickly, than anything else I’ve ever posted. (Yes, the caller got her worms.)

Maybe I’m missing something. I should write about worms more often.

Which story is the biggest news: the death of Osama bin Laden, ten years after he orchestrated the September 11 attack on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon or the Florida trial — and acquittal — of Casey Anthony for the death of her two-year-old daughter? Continue reading →

November, but might not be good news. Minnesota also lost 13,700 jobs in November and more than 22,900 jobs in the last three months. How do we lose jobs and have lower unemployment? Continue reading →

Just last week, Metro State congratulated itself for its work on developing curricula for teaching both Dakota and Ojibwe languages. The timing was ironic, as this week students and faculty angrily protested a decision not to offer two courses — “American Indian Spirituality” and “Dakota People of Minnesota: Genocide, Survival, and Recovery” — in 2012, the 150th anniversary of the War of 1862. Continue reading →

On TV, they’re called infomercials, but in newspapers they look like news stories, with only fine print identifying them as ads. And they’re phony as a three-dollar bill or, in this case, phony as an “absolutely free” $2 bill, an “Amish” Heat Surge space heater, and an “armored safe.” Continue reading →

UPDATED 12/1/2011  November 30 was the deadline for reopening University Avenue, so I took my camera along for a ride from Emerald Street in Minneapolis to Hamline in St. Paul. Is it open? That depends on what “open” means. Continue reading →

Romenesko was the news-of-the-week for the journo in-crowd last week, and I probably missed my chance to grab my 15 seconds of re-Tweeted fame by waiting until now to write about it. Strangely, though, the reason I am late has a lot to do with what Romenesko did wrong. Continue reading →