August 26, 2009 · 7:27 am

NEWS DAY | Ted Kennedy / Mpls Council vs. Park Board / Strike Force hearings / RNC

581px-Ted_Kennedy,_official_photo_portraitTed Kennedy dies “For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts,” said President Obama, in a statement expressing loss and sorrow on the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. “An important chapter in our history has come to an end. Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time.” Kennedy died at the age of 77, after a battle with brain cancer.

The “Liberal Lion of the Senate” served Massachusetts and the nation since 1962. His leadership in the current battle for health care reform was the last in a long line of progressive causes he championed, beginning with civil rights, anti-poverty legislation and Medicare in the 1960s, described here by NPR. His was one of the few voices in the Senate that vigorously opposed the 2003 war in Iraq.

The Kennedy family issued a statement on his death: “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.”

City Council vs. Park Board Although the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board collected enough signatures to get its proposal for more independence and taxing authority on the November ballot, the Minneapolis city council may refuse to allow a vote. The charter commission will send the proposal to the city council today. According to the Star Tribune, unnamed council members are “irked” at the Park Board’s try for greater independence, and have obtained a city attorney opinion saying that the council has the right to prevent a November 3 vote on the question. Park Board backers disagree.

The proposal’s supporters have offered the council a letter from University of Minnesota Prof. Fred L. Morrison, a specialist in local government law, arguing that the council has a duty to put the charter amendment to the voters. Morrison said the Legislature has authorized charter commissions to create any scheme of local government not inconsistent with the state Constitution.

Gang Strike Force IDs, hearing Responding to a request by St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington, Andy Luger, chair of a state investigative panel, said he would meet with local police authorities next week to give them information on the identity of officers accused by the panel of criminal activity, reports the Star Tribune. The Star Tribune, citing “a source close to the investigation,” said that the 10-12 officers come from Minneapolis, St. Paul, Ramsey County and possibly one suburban department.

This afternoon, a joint hearing by four legislative committees will review the panel’s report and hear from Luger and public officials who have investigated the Metro Gang Strike Force. The hearing is scheduled to be carried live on the Senate television channel, http://www.senate.mn/media, at 2:00 p.m.

RNC arrests, one year later One year later, the TC Daily Planet offers a scorecard detailing what happened to all of the 856 RNC-related arrests. Unsurprisingly, more than 600 cases were dismissed or declined by prosecutors, while a handful, including the RNC 8, still awaiting trial. To date, five people have been found guilty after trials. Some others have either pleaded guilty or agreed to pay a fine or do community service and have the case continued for dismissal after a year.

The RNC 8 trial date has not yet been set, and the scheduling conference set for August 19 was postponed, with no new date set as of yet.

World/National News

Honduras An Organisation of American States delegation – consisting of foreign ministers from Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama and the Dominican Republic – failed to persuade the de facto coup government in Honduras to make any concessions, reports BBC. Instead, the ruling officials said they will proceed with an election in November, without allowing President Manuel Zelaya, ousted June 28, to return to the country. While BBC recognized Zelaya as a right-wing politico when he was elected in 2005, since the coup he has been reclassified as “Left-wing President Manuel Zelaya.”

War Report

Afghanistan Car bombs in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar killed more 41 people yesterday, reports NPR. At least 66 people were wounded, and the death toll could rise higher. The bombs were detonated near a foreign-owned construction company, according to NPR, and near the city government offices, according to BBC.

CIA Reports Want to read the recently released CIA reports for yourself? Just click here to see the PDF documents, courtesy of NPR:

The 2004 Document (PDF)
The 2006 Memo (PDF) on overseas prisons
The 2007 Reply (PDF).
The 2005 Report (PDF).

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August 25, 2009 · 8:26 am

NEWS DAY | Overloading MinnesotaCare / Subverting health care reform / Atrazine warning / Afghan election, U.S. deaths

Overloading MinnesotaCare The failing economy has dumped thousands of people into MinnesotaCare as they lose other heatlh care insurance. The system has been so overloaded, reports the Star Tribune that some applications are taking two or three months for processing. Since approval is not retroactive, that means people are left without any insurance coverage during processing.

The crush of applicants has doubled the time required to process applications, to eight weeks, and phone lines are often jammed because the agency that manages the program now answers the phone only between 12:30 and 4 p.m. so workers can spend more time on the paperwork backlog.

MinnesotaCare is available only to people who are MN residents, are uninsured and cannot get health insurance through their employer with at least half the premium paid by the employer. In addition, the appicant must meet income and asset restrictions.

A Minnesota 2020 commentator tells the story of her return from Australia to Minnesota and the obstacles she and her husband faced in trying to get health insurance — any health insurance. “We wanted to sign up for a basic plan we could extend on a monthly basis until we could find employment with health insurance benefits,” she explains. “When all twelve providers responded with a resounding ‘No!’ I realized we would need to find a more permanent health care plan.”

Subverting reform Health insurance companies will get a big pay-off under health care “reform” proposals that offer subsidies to help people “afford” insurance. The Los Angeles Times reports on the sweet deal that Big Insurance struck (hat tip to Eric Black at MinnPost). According to the LA Times, insurance companies are “poised to reap a financial windfall” under the leading plans, all of which “would guarantee insurers tens of millions of new customers — many of whom would get government subsidies to help pay the companies’ premiums.”

Health insurance companies both financed and urged employees to participate in this summer’s vitriolic attacks on the “public option,” which would establish a lower-cost alternative to their high-profit plans. (See previous posts for references to high and rising profit margins for health insurance companies (UnitedHealth profits up 155%), and the 30% administrative cost of private health insurance versus 4% administrative cost for Medicare.)

But wait — there’s more, reports the L.A. Times:

In May, the Senate Finance Committee discussed requiring that insurers reimburse at least 76% of policyholders’ medical costs under their most affordable plans. Now the committee is considering setting that rate as low as 65%, meaning insurers would be required to cover just about two-thirds of patients’ healthcare bills. … Most group health plans cover 80% to 90% or more of a policyholder’s medical bills, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. …

“They have beaten us six ways to Sunday,” said Gerald Shea of the AFL-CIO. “Any time we want to make a small change to provide cost relief, they find a way to make it more profitable.”

Atrazine warning A new National Resources Defense Council report finds that federal and state monitoring and reporting of atrazine levels in surface water and ground water are inadequate, and that atrazine levels frequently exceed federal safety standards. According to NRDC, short-term, high-level exposure to excess atrazine levels is dangerous, but federal standards are based on a yearly average rather than the high levels that occur in early summer after atrazine is applied to fields. Moreover:

Because the monitoring program was not designed to account for the timing of runoff in response to weather events or application, the EPA’s watershed monitoring program probably underestimates peak exposures.

According to MPR:

Paul Wotzka is a hydrologist who has studied water quality in southeastern Minnesota for years. He says animal tests show atrazine in small amounts can cause birth defects.

“If you were pregnant mother, drinking water in June and you had these high spikes of atrazine in your water, you would want to know about them,” he said.

Wotzka says private wells are rarely tested, and public drinking water supplies are only tested once a year.

The NRDC recommends banning atrazine, and says other methods for weed control are already available. Atrazine has already been banned in European Union countries.

Only one Minnesota watershed, the North Fork Whitewater River watershed near Rochester, was monitored. EPA monitoring in 2005-2006 showed an average atrazine concentration of 0.47 ppb and a maximum concentration of 15 ppb in this watershed. The maximum allowable concentration under EPA guidelines is 3 ppb as a yearly average, although NRDC warns that:

The adverse reproductive effects of atrazine have been seen in amphibians, mammals, and humans-even at low levels of exposure. Concentrations as low as 0.1 ppb have been shown to alter the development of sex characteristics in male frogs. When exposure coincides with the development of the brain and reproductive organs, that timing may be even more critical than the dose.

War Reports

Afghanistan As the war drags on, more voices question whether the U.S. should be in Afghanistan at all. Bob Herbert criticized the war in his column, noting the reluctance of Afghan troops to fight, and the war dragging on year after year after nine bloody years.

If we had a draft — or merely the threat of a draft — we would not be in Iraq or Afghanistan. But we don’t have a draft so it’s safe for most of the nation to be mindless about waging war. Other people’s children are going to the slaughter. …

Well, if this war, now approaching its ninth year, is so fundamental, we should all be pitching in. We shouldn’t be leaving the entire monumental burden to a tiny portion of the population, sending them into combat again, and again, and again, and again …

The deaths of four more U.S. service members yesterday raised the death toll for foreign soldiers to 295 since January, according to the New York Times, making this the deadliest year to date. Twelve foreign soldiers died in the first year of the war (2001) with the numbers rising steadily to 294 in 2008, a number now surpassed. The number of U.S. deaths already stands at 172 this year, up from last year’s high of 155.

Early results of Afghan elections were released today, with 10% of the votes counted, showing President Hamid Karzai with about 40% of the vote and challenger Abdullah Abdullah with about 40%, with the remaining 20% split among the other 29 candidates. On Monday, a cabinet minister said that President Hamid Karzai had won 68 percent of the vote, a figure so large as to cast doubt on the entire election, according to the Washington Post. The Post said Karzai was expected to win a bare majority, and that Abdullah had been expected to win 25%. Election monitors report widespread fraud.

“In Baraki Barak District, only about 500 people were able to vote out of 43,000 registered voters. In Harwar District, nobody at all was able to vote out of 15,000 registered voters. Yet the ballot boxes from these places came to Kabul full,” alleged Faizullah Mojadedi, a legislator from Taliban-plagued Logar province. “The fact that people were afraid to vote became a big excuse for those who wanted to take advantage of it.”

The final results will not be in until all the votes are counted, some time in September.

Iraq At least 11 people were killed and more wounded in two bus bombings yesterday near the usually quiet southern town of Kut, reports Reuters.

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August 24, 2009 · 7:45 am

NEWS DAY | Profiling professors / School flu preparations / Revisiting single payer

Photo - U of M College of Continuing Education website

Photo - U of M College of Continuing Education website

Profiling professors Two University of Minnesota profs are speaking out against profiling Somali Americans, reports Laura Yuen on MPR.

Abdi Samatar chairs the U’s geography department. He’s married to Cawo Abdi, a sociology professor. Since June, the husband and wife say they’ve been pulled aside a total of six times at airports for lengthy interviews that have lasted up to two and a half hours.

Abdi was born in Somalia and Samatar in neighboring Djibouti. Both professors are U.S. citizens, but that doesn’t help them at airports. Nor does Samatar’s past consulting work with the U.S. State Department. The extensive airport interviews included inspection of academic papers, a personal diary and even a diaper bag. Agents questioned Samatar about why he was reading academic papers on Somali piracy, and he explained, “We are scholars, and we write papers and books.” Samatar recognizes the need for security:

“But they should be on high alert on an intelligent basis, rather than on a dumb basis,” he said. “It seems to me there is a sort of ‘Dumb Operating Procedure,’ which picks up people for all kinds of nefarious reasons: You have a Muslim name, you live in Minneapolis, you are a Somali, and you travel a lot. Therefore, you become a target.”

Their experience is similar to reports from many other Somali American travelers. Nor did the profiling begin this summer – other Somali Minnesotans reported similar experiences in past years. The two professors say they are following procedures to formally seek information from the U.S. government about the continuing airport stops.

School flu preparations New hand soap dispensers, extra tissue boxes, warnings about staying home from school when sick, hand sanitizers and surgical masks — Minnesota schools are preparing this fall for the expected onslaught of H1N1 novel influenza (the flu formerly known as swine.) The Star Tribune reports that, “nationwide, the largest number of swine flu cases have hit young people ages 5 to 24, and vaccines are not yet available,” though vaccines are expected by some time in October. The Washington Post lays out some of the unanswered questions about vaccine administration:

The mass immunization program, likely to be the largest of its kind since the polio vaccine was given to about 100 million Americans in the 1960s, will play out with some differences between states and local jurisdictions. For instance, still waiting to be resolved are questions about who gets the vaccine, whether schools are used as vaccination sites, whether parents are present when children are vaccinated and whether the vaccine is administered by injection or nasal spray.

In contrast to last spring’s school closings, this time around the Centers for Disease Control advises keeping schools open and sending sick students home, where they should stay until they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the aid of fever-reducing medication. (That goes for adults, too, who should observe the same precaution in staying home from the workplace.)

World/National News

Prosecute the CIA That’s the advice of the Justice Department, according to the New York Times, as today’s release of more CIA memos reveals further torture and abuse of prisoners. The recommendation to reopen a dozen cases and prosecute the individuals involved came from the Justice Department’s ethics office:

When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general’s findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder’s associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider.

With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow…

Single payer: A reform that makes sense The Nation reports that single payer health care — abandoned before the beginnning of the current debate — resurfaced in last Tuesday’s Morning Joe show, as Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York repeatedly asked why we are paying insurance companies. Show host Joe Scarborough summarized Weiner’s argument:

The goverment would take over only the “paying mechanism” of healthcare, not the doctors or their medical decisions themselves. His ears perked up every time Weiner mentioned that the nonprofit Medicare spends 4 percent on overhead, while private insurers spend 30 percent.

Weiner pressed the point repeatedly:

“Why are we paying profits for insurance companies?” Weiner asked Scarborough. “Why are we paying overhead for insurance companies? Why,” he asked, bringing it all home, “are we paying for their TV commercials?”

And why aren’t we hearing this simple, cogent argument in town halls and in Congress?

War Reports

Afghanistan Challenger Abdullah Abdullah says that last Thursday’s elections were tainted by fraud, reports BBC, and a group of election observers agrees that fraud and intimidation were widespread. Abdullah Abdullah is the most prominent of the 30 candidates challenging incumbent president Hamid Karzai.

Meanwhile, U.S. military commanders said they do not have enough troops to do the job, according to a report in the New York Times.

The assessments come as the top American commander in the country, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, has been working to complete a major war strategy review, and as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, described a worsening situation in Afghanistan despite the recent addition of 17,000 American troops ordered by the Obama administration and the extra security efforts surrounding the presidential election.

“I think it is serious and it is deteriorating,” Admiral Mullen said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

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August 21, 2009 · 7:45 am

NEWS DAY | Bad boys in blue / SPPS still says no / Good MN employment news

Bad boys in blue Some 10 to 12 Metro Gang Strike Force cops committed crimes reported the special state panel headed by Andy Luger, a former assistant U.S. attorney, and retired FBI agent John Egelhof. The panel has turned the information over to the FBI, whose investigation into criminal activity by the Strike Force continues. The Star Tribune reports:

The state inquiry into the disbanded Strike Force uncovered “substantial evidence of misconduct” that went well beyond revelations previously reported by news media or uncovered in earlier government investigations.

The panel’s report, issued Thursday, said that Strike Force employees repeatedly took home seized property for personal use and that many of the seizures themselves were improper.

Luger characterized the behavior as “serious misconduct — misconduct that was appalling and outrageous.”

Licensure? We don’t need no licensure! The St. Paul Public Schools said that Suzanne Kelly will continue as superintendent, even though the Minnesota Board of School Administrators refused to reconsider its ruling this spring. In June, the TC Daily Planet first reported the story that the Board said that the Board ruled that Kelley was unlicensed, that she did not qualify for a waiver of licensure rules, and that she was not authorized to serve as an interim superintendent.

According to the Pioneer Press:

Kelly, chief of staff to former superintendent Meria Carstarphen, was selected as interim because of her detailed knowledge of district initiatives and because she made it clear she will not be a candidate for the permanent job, district leaders said.

Two other administrators in the top tier of Carstarphen’s administration — chief academic officer Valeria Silva and chief of schools Nancy Stachel — have superintendent licensure, as do 21 other district employees, according to the state Department of Education

Unemployment down slightly For the first time in 12 months, unemployment fell slightly in Minnesota. Figures from the Department of Employment and Economic Development showed July unemployment at 8.1 percent, down from 8.4 percent in June, with employers adding 10,300 jobs in July, though there are still 7.7 jobseekers for every unfilled job.

Eight of the state’s 11 industry sectors gained employment during the month, led by leisure and hospitality, which added 3,900 jobs. Other gains were posted by government (up 2,800), manufacturing (up 1,700), professional and business services (up 1,700), education and health services (up 1,200), construction (up 700), logging and mining (up 200), and financial activities (up 100).

Job losses occurred in trade, transportation and utilities (down 1,300), information (down 500) and other services (down 200).

AP describes one consumer strategy for coping with the recession: “ditching items before they are rung up.”

Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but Burt P. Flickinger III, a retail consultant, estimates that in 25 percent of shoppers’ trips to the store, they’re ditching at least one item. In the recession of the early 1990s, it was 15 to 20 percent. In good times, it’s more like 10 percent.

The Star Tribune warns that people need to be careful about another recession-busting strategy, selling household surplus at garage sales. A new federal law makes it a crime to resell anything that has been recalled by the manufacturer, and feds are cracking down on resale of children’s toys and other items that could put kids at risk.

Electric Fetus hit hard by tornado Wednesday’s tornado activity damaged the roof of the Electric Fetus, and the store has to reamin closed until the roof is repaired. That’s bad news in tough economic times, but you can still shop online, says the Fetus:

We hope to be at least partially up and running in the next 4-7 days. Web orders will take a few extra days to ship, so thanks for your patience. You can also shop our digital store at Think Indie. Thanks for your support these past 41 years. We couldn’t be here without you!

(Hat tip to Erica at Fresh MN for the heads-up.)

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August 20, 2009 · 7:17 am

NEWS DAY | Tornado touchdown in Minneapolis / UCB up / All the children are above average / Whole Foods, meet Jess Durant and Will Allen

Tornado touchdown in Minneapolis “I heard a loud noise, it got louder and louder, I heard the roof coming up, it was the most weirdest sound I ever heard in my life. My heart was beating so fast, I realized it was a tornado, I dived as fast as I could into my bathtub,” Shane Gillespie told MPR, after Wednesday afternoon’s brief tornado touchdowns in south Minneapolis and downtown. The tornadoes triggered sirens (but not until after the touchdowns), emergency plan activation (“We are locking the doors to the store now. Everyone go to the dress section – that’s the safe zone.”), a mayoral press conference, and frenzied media coverage.

Unemployment claims up-again For a second week, the U.S. Department of Labor reported, “unexpected” increases in unemployment claims, with seasonally adjusted initial claims rising to 576,000 from last week’s 561,000. These are new claims: the total number of workers receiving unemployment benefits and emergency extended benefits is 9.18 million, according to the Star Tribune. Millions more do not qualify for unemployment benefits, or remain out of work even after exhausting the extended benefit period.

Where all the children are above average Or at least our Minnesota children are above average on the ACT tests. Or at least above average (best performance in the nation!) on the ACT tests taken by students in states where more than half the students take ACT tests. Our kids score 1.3 percent higher than second-place Iowa students and 1.8 percent higher than third-place Wisconsin students and a whopping 2.7 percent higher than the national average.

So what does it all mean? Perhaps that the ACT PR folks know how to time news releases for maximum ink and column inches in a slow news month. They got a nice headline in the PiPress, Minnesota retains top spot in ACT scores; Wisconsin ranks third, a more skeptical and nuanced read from Bob Collins at MPR, and a lengthier analysis at the Star Tribune, which pointed out that overall numbers of ACT test-takers are up this year because Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, Kentucky and Wyoming require 100% of their grads to take the test.

The ACT has pages and pages of data that can be sliced and diced six ways from Sunday. (So does the SAT, though it does not have 2009 information posted yet.)

Two items stand out as real news:

• According to ACT, more students–by a slight margin–seem prepared to succeed in college in the crucial areas of English, math, reading and science than in previous years, but more than 75% nationally and 68% in Minnesota are unprepared in at least one of these areas. (Of course, a skeptic might ask whether ACT can really judge, for example, college preparedness in science with a 35-minute, 40-question test.) The report that scores continue to rise even as more students take the test indicates that educational outcomes are improving.

• The ACT and SAT tests are locked in a neck-and-neck battle for the lucrative testing market. According to the Strib, “The number of ACT test-takers is on par with the number reported by the rival SAT exam last year, and the exam appears on track to surpass the SAT in popularity.”

SAT scores come out next week, and it’s a safe bet that they also will show Minnesota’s children above average. But above average overall is not good enough when a serious achievement gap leaves students of color struggling below the average. We know how to fix that. Geoffrey Canada described the practices and investments needed for success to a Minneapolis Foundation’s Minnesota Meeting earlier this year — practices and investments that have proven effective in the Harlem Children’s Zone that he founded. As Wilder Foundation Executive Director of Research Paul Mattesich observed in his blog:

Through our Twin Cities Compass initiative, we have documented the poor mathematics proficiency of our region’s high school students and the gap in skills that begins early in elementary school for our fastest growing group of students – students of color. If we want to preserve jobs and preserve our quality of life, we need to make some changes.

Harlem Children’s Zone demonstrates that low achievement, even for children from the poorest economic and community circumstances, does not have to occur; also, it can be reversed with sustained effort.

Whole Foods, meet Jess Durant and Will Allen Jess Durant tells her personal story in MinnPost to show why and how Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s rejection of health care reform is just plain wrong. Her thoughtful, persuasive analysis of why we need health care reform should be broadcast far and wide, and it’s going in my files, so I can send it to the naysayers among my family and email friends.

Will Allen also brought a message about health to the Twin Cities this week, advocating urban farms and vermiculture. Allen came to town to kick off the Urban Farm Project at Little Earth, reports the Daily Planet, with a message that combines work for healthy food and against racism. MPR also has a report on Allen’s visit and message.

World/National News

UnitedHealth organizes Astroturf The Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo that UnitedHealth sent a letter to employees urging them to get active in opposing health care reform:

[A] source who’s insured by UHG–and who also obtained the letter–called the hotline on Tuesday and says the company directed him to an events list hosted by the right wing America’s Independent Party, and suggested he attend an anti-health care reform tea party sponsored by religious fundamentalist Dave Daubenmire, scheduled for today outside the office of Blue Dog Rep. Zack Space (D-OH).

Daily Kos says, “A representative of UnitedHealth Group’s Corporate Communications office said they would call back with a reaction to the story. They didn’t.”

MinnPost reports that UnitedHealth officials are denying that they told people to get involved in tea parties.

War Reports

Iraq A wave of bombings and explosions in Baghdad killed at least 95 people and wounded more than 400 others. NPR reported:

It was the deadliest day in the capital since U.S. troops largely withdrew from cities on June 30 and a major challenge to Iraqi control of Baghdad. A steady escalation of attacks this month has sparked fears of a resurgence of violence ahead of next year’s national elections.

The deadliest of the attacks hit near the Foreign Ministry, killing at least 59 people and wounding 250. Officials said the toll may climb as rescue workers dig through rubble and debris.

Hiring mercenary assassins? The New York Times reports on connections between the CIA and Blackwater (which has now changed its name to Xe Services):

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Current CIA director Leon Panetta insisted on briefing Congress on the program, which has since been canceled – or so we are told.

Afghanistan Today is the day for Afghan elections. The Taliban threatens violence, the Afghan government tells the media not to report violence … and President Hamid Kharzai is expected to win an easy victory over the 41 opposition candidates.

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August 19, 2009 · 8:39 am

NEWS DAY | Dog days of summer / Archie proposes / Stinking up Hutchinson / Slumlord sightings / Zombies redux

The dog days of summer are traditionally a very slow news season. Are you are tired of the currently loudest news stories–locally, that would be the F-guy and nationally, the gun-toting “protesters” dogging the President’s trail? If so, today’s News Day has some lighter-weight stories for your reading enjoyment – from “kinda funky” festival in Hutchinson to 95 Lutherans in Minneapolis to zombie research in Canada.

Archie proposes The Washington Post reports that Archie, the 70-year-old perpetual teenager, is proposing to “that shallow, conniving, materialistic tease,” Veronica — today.

Stinking up Hutchinson No, this is not more news about off-shoring operations by Hutchinson Technology – it’s the genuinely high-smelling Garlic Festival, with 2,000 people turning out last weekend, reports MPR.

“It’s kind of funky, it’s kind of spicy, it’s got a little bit of a reputation — undeserved — for being stinky,” [fesitval director Jerry] Ford said. “What better catch? And we looked at models of garlic festivals around the country and we couldn’t find one that had failed.”

Among the more unusual offerings: garlic ice cream.

Slumlord sightings Two bloggers take on North Minneapolis slumlords, with Johnny Northside naming four owners of 107 rental properties, and Ed Kohler of The Deets creating Googlemaps of the properties they own. In his usual inimitable style, Johnny Northside identifies “the House of Poop” and other neighborhood landmarks.

Drunk as a Doe? The PiPress’s Usual Suspects blog reports that police were called to Rumors and Innuendoes bar to arrest a drunk and disorderly man, who refused to identify himself. That made him “John Doe” for purposes of arrest, with one officer writing in the official report, “Doe was as drunk as anyone I have ever encountered in my 10 years of being a licensed peace officer.” (Doe wouldn’t talk, but his cell phone eventually gave up his real name.)

Did everybody go to the bathroom? I remember that line from childhood, and it’s soon becoming much more relevant to Minnesota drivers, as MnDOT closes 13 rest stops and travel information centers. Some of the closures will be relatively short-term, but others will last more than a year. MPR reports that the rest stops, which are closed by construction projects, are around Albert Lea, Avon, Duluth, Forest Lake, Harris, Owatonna, St. Charles, Stillwater and Worthington.

95 Lutherans Echoing Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, nailed to the door of a church in Wittenberg in 1517, 95 Lutherans distributed their personal stories of life as gay and lesbian pastors to the ELCA assembly in Minneapolis. The group includes 17 Minnesotans, reports Minnesota Independent, which published the list of Minnesotans “taking a stand on the ELCA vote on ordaining openly LGBT clergy in committed relationships.”

Finally, just in case you missed this post yesterday, here is the Dog Days Zombie Report:

The august BBC reports that two Canadian universities teamed up on research showing that:

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively. …

To give the living a fighting chance, the researchers chose “classic” slow-moving zombies as our opponents rather than the nimble, intelligent creatures portrayed in some recent films.

And the Pioneer Press reports that a Minnesota woman once arrested at a “Zombie Dance Party” is now charged in Texas with sending an email threatening the life of an FBI snitch Brandon Darby, the community activist-turned-informant. No info available about what the email actually said, but the PiPress has fascinating detail about the 2006 zombie arrest during the Aquatennial Parade:

Members of the group said they intended the display as performance art and social commentary on “what they believed to be the mindless nature of consumer culture,” U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen later wrote in a court ruling. They used their sound system to broadcast “silly mock advertisements like ‘brain check on aisle five,’ ‘get your brains here,’ and ‘brains,’ ” Ericksen wrote.

Police originally told them to turn down their music, but the confrontation escalated into arrests. The zombies were taken into custody for alleged disorderly conduct and for allegedly violating a law passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that made it a crime to alarm the public with simulated weapons of mass destruction.

They were never charged, but they sued the city and Hennepin County for false imprisonment, assault, battery and defamation.

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August 18, 2009 · 11:25 am

Zombie News Day

The much-esteemed BBC reports that two Canadian universities teamed up on research showing that:

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively. …

To give the living a fighting chance, the researchers chose “classic” slow-moving zombies as our opponents rather than the nimble, intelligent creatures portrayed in some recent films.

And the Pioneer Press reports that a Minnesota woman once arrested at a “Zombie Dance Party” is now charged in Texas with sending an email threatening the life of an FBI snitch Brandon Darby, the community activist-turned-informant. No info available about what the email actually said, but the PiPress has fascinating detail about the 2006 zombie arrest during the Aquatennial Parade:

Members of the group said they intended the display as performance art and social commentary on “what they believed to be the mindless nature of consumer culture,” U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen later wrote in a court ruling. They used their sound system to broadcast “silly mock advertisements like ‘brain check on aisle five,’ ‘get your brains here,’ and ‘brains,’ ” Ericksen wrote.

Police originally told them to turn down their music, but the confrontation escalated into arrests. The zombies were taken into custody for alleged disorderly conduct and for allegedly violating a law passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that made it a crime to alarm the public with simulated weapons of mass destruction.

They were never charged, but they sued the city and Hennepin County for false imprisonment, assault, battery and defamation.

And I thought August was a slow news month!

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August 18, 2009 · 7:47 am

NEWS DAY | FBI in MPD video beating case / Dead trees in St. Paul / How health care works

mpd-patchFBI to investigate in MPD video beating case Invited in by Minneapolis police chief Tim Dolan, the FBI will investigate the February police beating of a man who had been thrown to the ground by an officer after a traffic stop. The chief’s invitation looks like damage control, after the release of the squad car video shows the apparently unresisting Darryl Jenkins being kicked, punched and tased by six cops.

MPR interviewed a former MPD officer, who confirmed that the use of force shown in the video looks “completely out of line:”

Mike Quinn is a retired Minneapolis police officer. During his 23 years on the force, he spent four years as head of the police academy. Many of the officers he trained are still on the force.

Quinn reviewed the video of Jenkins’ arrest and immediately saw some red flags.

“You’ve got a guy who’s down on the ground — passive resistance. He’s not fighting back. He’s not punching or kicking at anybody,” said Quinn. “Clearly there’s multiple punches being thrown by the officers, and kicks. From what I can see and just from the video, I would say somebody needs to investigate this because that appears to be completely out of line.”

Rhetorical question: How long will it take for the Minneapolis Police Department to change the departmental culture that tolerates and excuses this kind of behavior?

What’s with the dead trees? Unseasonably brown trees are one sign of stem girdling roots, which are killing hundreds of St. Paul trees, reports the TC Daily Planet. Maples are especially hard-hit, and the cause is bad planting practices. Because trees were planted too deep, roots are now choking the trunks, shortening life spans and thinning the urban forest:

Life for a street tree is tough. The average life for a boulevard tree is 25-35 years, a number Johnson calls terrible. “Box elders, in their native sites, live to 100-125 years,” he said. “Silver maples live 125 years or more. Burr oaks live 250-450 years and we have trees dying in 25-30 years. That is such a waste of time and money.”

How health care works The Minnesota Independent reports on one of the current health care “systems” identified by Ed Kohler who blogs at The Deets: “Tack up a poster for a fundraiser at a local cafe.”

MN (sort of) military news In Fridley, a defense contractor will lay off 314 of its 1,319 workers, reports the Star Tribune. BAE Systems said that, “These layoffs come as a result of the partial termination notice and stop-work orders the company received for its Future Combat Systems (FCS) manned ground vehicle program contracts.” BAE is a subcontractor for Boeing.

And in Arden Hills, the city council now supports making most of the four-square-mile Army munitions site into a regional park, reports the Star Tribune. The mayor opposes the plan, saying that more of the site should be redeveloped into manufacturing uses, though no new developer is in sight after the pullout of Ryan Companies earlier in the year. The flat parcel of land now has Army buildings on it, which would have to be torn down, and a contamination clean-up is also needed.

World/National News

Largest identity theft U.S. authorities have arrested Albert Gonzalez, 28, and two un-named Russian co-conspirators in the theft of 130 million credit card numbers, reports BBC. The trio used something known as the “SQL injection attack.”

According to BBC, consumers can do little to protect themselves from this kind of attack. The best advice is to check bank and credit card statements carefully and report suspicious transactions immediately.

Honduras Protests against the de facto government installed after the June coup continue, and so does violent repression of protest. In recent days:

• August 11-12 – “The armed forces and police attacked tens of thousands of Hondurans in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, the industrial center of the country, resulting in two days of terror and fear in Honduras. Hundreds of people have been arrested, beaten, and many are wounded, according to reports from different human rights organizations. The nation’s two principal cities have been militarized.”
• August 12 – After curfew, unidentified individuals drove past the office of Vía Campesina located in the Alameda neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, shooting into the office.
• August 14 – Protesters blocked vehicle traffic along the highway between San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortés. After protest leaders and police reached an agreement to disperse peacefully, police instead chased protesters, arresting 27 severely beating many of them. Five protesters were hospitalized.

War Reports

Afghanistan A suicide attack on a NATO convoy on the outskirts of Kabul killed seven people and injured 50, reports NPR. The Taliban has denounced national elections, which will take place Thursday, and warned that people going to the polls will be putting themselves in danger. Rockets also hit the presidential palace and police headquarters in Kabul, according to the New York Times, which said those attacks caused no injuries.

President Hamid Karzai, who faces 30 opposing candidates, is seen as the front-runner.

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August 17, 2009 · 7:24 am

News Day: Chicken towns / Hot property / Lutherans come to MN / Police violence on video

Photo from video by Ashley Siebel Chicken towns St. Paul may soon have more chickens, reports the Star Tribune. A proposed new ordinance would allow St. Paul residents to keep three or fewer hens without getting permission from their neighbors, and with a reduced license fee of $25. The Strib quotes St. Paul city environmental manager Bill Gunther: “I’m a city kid, and I’m thinking they’re an agrarian animal that belongs on a farm,” he said. “But there’s a shift in thinking. Chickens are nothing more than a big bird.”

Of course, St. Paul already has some backyard chickens. So do Minneapolis, Anoka and Burnsville (but not Hastings.) Minneapolis even has a chicken rescue operation. And, unlike St. Paul, Minneapolis allows roosters in its backyard flocks.

Hot property The Star Tribune tagged Lake and Knox in Minneapolis as a “hot property:”

Details: Minneapolis property owners Nick Walton and Daniel Oberpriller have gotten approvals for a two-part development at a highly visible “gateway” into the Uptown neighborhood.

The article did not mention the strong community opposition to the development, or the protest resignation of Lara Norkus-Crampton, ECCO resident and Minneapolis Planning Commission member for the past three years, when the Planning Department and Planning Commission overruled the Uptown Small Area Plan (USAP).

More unallotments Late on Friday, Governor Tim Pawlenty released notice of another round of unallotments. The $13.6 million comes from agency operating budgets for FY 2011. Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson’s letter and accompanying documents (PDF) list all of the agencies that will be affected.

MPR reports that the biggest cuts come from a Revenue Department account, the Human Services Department, and Metro Transit aid. The cuts are widespread, ranging from the governor’s office to public health outreach and education. the Natural Resources Department also received more than a million dollars in cuts.

Lutherans come to MN You thought they were already here? Well, that’s true, but this week, Minnesota’s home-grown Lutherans will be supplemented by 1,000+ delegates to the national gathering of the 4.8 million member ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The most controversial item on the agenda is “rostering” of openly gay, non-celibate pastors. While some gay and lesbian pastors already serve congregations, the synod does not officially recognize them.

The Minnesota Independent reported on leading voices on both sides of the issue last week, and the Star Tribune reported yesterday that, although a close vote is expected, the Lutherans insist that a tradition of politeness will prevail.

Episcopalians also face issues over gay and lesbian clergy, with breakaway groups trying to recruit more congregations to their ranks, as dioceses in Minnesota and Los Angeles plan to consecrate gay or lesbian bishops.

So far, the defections represent only about 5 percent of the 2.3 million total membership. But in July, the spinoff denominations announced an aggressive plan to launch 1,000 congregations in the next five years. …

On Aug. 1 — less than a month after the end of a moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops that was put in place to appease restive congregations — the Diocese of Minnesota announced that one of its three nominees for bishop is the Rev. Bonnie Perry, a Chicago priest who is in a long-term same-sex relationship. The next day, the Diocese of Los Angeles included two openly gay priests on its list of nominees for assistant bishop.

Circus tumble The young performers at Circus Juventas flew through the air with their usual aplomb, but spectators tumbled to the ground last night as half of the bleachers collapsed at the end of the performance. Half of the audience of 900 fell with the bleachers, and seven people were hospitalized. Broken wrist or ankles were the most serious injuries expected, according to the Pioneer Press. The collapse happened as the audience rose to applaud the end of the final performance of the three-week run of “YuLong: The Jade Dragon” at the Circus Juventas academy’s Big Top, in St. Paul’s Highland Park.

Violent police video Minneapolis police say that they used reasonable force in a February traffic stop, but the defendant, David Jenkins, his lawyer, and the squad car video tell another story, according to a report in the Star Tribune. The county attorney’s office dropped assault charges against Jenkins “in the interest of justice” after they reviewed the video, which can be viewed on the Star Tribune website. Jenkins was stopped for allegedly going 15 miles over the speed limit. He was also charged with refusing to submit to a blood or urine test, but a judge dismissed those charges.

After being thrown to the ground by the first police officer on the scene, Jenkins was beaten and kicked and tasered three times by police.

He required seven stitches above his eye after six officers punched and kicked him while he was face-down in a snowbank. He was treated at the hospital and then jailed for four days.

Jenkins said he was the victim of an unprovoked attack simply because he had vigorously questioned Officer Richard Walker about why he was stopped and asked to talk to his supervisor.

Police chief Tim Dolan said he would review the video on Monday.

World/National News

Public option going down? The New York Times says that the “public option” for health care reform may be abandoned by the administration in favor of nonprofit health care co-ops.

On Capitol Hill, the Senate Finance Committee is expected to produce a bill that features a nonprofit co-op. The author of the idea, Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, predicted Sunday that Mr. Obama would have no choice but to drop the public option.

Former Vermont governor and Democratic party chair Howard Dean disagrees, reports AP:

“You can’t really do health reform without [a public option],” he said. Dean maintained that the health insurance industry has “put enormous pressure on patients and doctors” in recent years.

He called a direct government role “the entirety of health care reform. … We shouldn’t spend $60 billion a year subsidizing the insurance industry.”

Gaza Some 13 people were killed in clashes between Hamas government forces and an extremist religious sect, reports the Washington Post:

According to wire service and eyewitness reports of Moussa’s sermon, the cleric said the group drew its inspiration from al-Qaeda, demanded that a strict Salafi form of Islam be imposed in Gaza, and criticized Hamas for its occasional meetings with Europeans and Americans, including former president Jimmy Carter.

Hamas officials said they dealt with the sect as an illegal group possessing guns and weapons.

Suicide bombing in Russia A suicide bomber in the violence-plagued North Caucasus region attacked a police station in the city of Ingushetia, killing 20 and wounding many more, reports the New York Times:

The attack seemed to further undermine the authority of Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, Ingushetia’s populist president who came to power last October vowing a softer approach in dealing with rebel violence than Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of neighboring Chechnya. It was the bloodiest single attack to hit Ingushetia for some time, though violence against police and government officials in this and other North Caucasus republics occurs almost daily. Mr. Yevkurov himself announced last week that he would soon return to work after he was seriously wounded in a suicide attack on his convoy in June. Ingushetia’s construction minister, Ruslan Amirkhanov, was assassinated in his office last week.

Iran Accusations of jailhouse violence, beatings and sexual abuse continue, reports the New York Times. Reformist cleric and presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi refuses to back down despite calls for his arrest by conservative clerics and politicians.

War Reports

Afghanistan Five days before national elections, reports the Washington Post, s suicide bombing in Kabul killed seven people and wounded dozens more.

Iraq A “witch hunt” against gay men in Baghdad has killed 90 since January, reports BBC, which says that “Mehdi army spokesmen and clerics have condemned what they call the ‘feminisation’ of Iraqi men and have urged the military to take action against them.”

Afghanistan drug money A new Senate report says that the Taliban is getting only about $70 million of the estimated $400 million in drug profits each year, reports the Los Angeles Times. According to the Times:

Al Qaeda’s dependence on drug money is even less, according to the report by the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which found that “there is no evidence that any significant amount of the drug proceeds go to Al Qaeda.” …

In one of its most disconcerting conclusions, the Senate report says the United States inadvertently contributed to the resurgent drug trade after the Sept. 11 attacks by backing warlords who derived income from the flow of illegal drugs. The CIA and U.S. Special Forces put such warlords on their payroll during the drive to overthrow the Taliban regime in late 2001.

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August 16, 2009 · 9:51 pm

Spinning the news

This weekend Paul Krugman blogged about “one of my biggest gripes: reporting that focuses on the political game without ever informing readers or viewers about the actual facts.”

Too much news reporting is about spin and who’s spinning which directions and which spin is working. It’s about tactics and winning and losing and the horse race — and not about the issues and facts. From newspapers to TV to the internet, there’s far more reporting on how big or how loud the town hall forums are, than on what the thousand-page bill actually would do, or how many families have been driven into bankruptcy by medical bills in the last year.

Speaking on Meet the Press, NY Representative Charles Rangell listed questions that the media should be asking – and answering:

“What does the Congressional Budget Office count as being a savings? Is it people–what happened to the last few years of someone’s life? Is it the overcharging that the pharmaceuticals and doctors have? Is it the number of people that go in and out of hospitals and we don’t reward those who do the right thing? These are questions we should be talking about.”

Writing in Media Matters, Jamison Foser pointed out that people need more information, not more spin:

[O]verestimation of how much knowledge most people possess is one of the causes of the media’s failure to clearly and consistently report the facts about health care. They don’t understand how necessary it is. They think they can focus on horse-race political coverage of the debate. They think if they report the facts once, that’s often enough….

So the public, which — again, understandably — doesn’t know much about a complex policy and lacks the time and resources to find out for itself, is exposed to a nonstop barrage of spin, misinformation, and outright lies about health care. And the media, overestimating how much people actually know, don’t think they have to make the facts clear every day, over and over again. Is it really any wonder that people believe things that aren’t true?

The problem is not limited to health care: the Daily Kos reported that the oil companies are underwriting the next wave of illogical, off-topic screamers, mobilizing the astroturf against environmental restrictions or cap and trade.

Krugman has it right — journalism should be about facts. Reporting should be much more than regurgitation of he said/she said arguments, or counting how many people turn out on each side of a town hall forum, or what the latest opinion poll says that people think.

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