July 19, 2015 · 9:53 pm

Trash talking in the Twin Cities

Eureka Recycling graphic for St. Paul recycling

Eureka Recycling graphic for St. Paul recycling

People have lots of questions about recycling. Should you wash out beer bottles and jelly jars? Paper is good — but what about shredded paper? And what about light bulbs? Or window glass? What kind of plastic can you put in the blue box? And then there’s the big question: is recycling really worth it?

The Washington Post recently reported that recycling isn’t profitable any more. Whether recycling turns a profit is the wrong question. As a recent Mother Jones article points out, recycling succeeds financially if it just costs less than burying stuff in landfills. But financial success isn’t even half the story. Recycling succeeds by keeping trash out of landfills. Continue reading →

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July 14, 2015 · 2:55 pm

Welding or history: What will MnSCU teach?

Welding vs. writing, machine shop vs. history — the battle for the souls of community colleges and state universities is on. The Star Tribune recently published a column by Fred Zimmerman, professor emeritus of engineering and management at the University of St. Thomas, who advocates an end to liberal education. Zimmerman urges legislators to:

“Work with the thoughtful MnSCU educators to improve relevance by shifting educational resources away from delusional and non-substantive, less-important general programs with questionable placement records toward the more sought-after technical programs such as welding, machinery and manufacturing, which are highly regarded by industry.”

Yep, that’s what I always thought college was about: welding and machinery and manufacturing. (Note that Zimmerman is not advocating that the University of St. Thomas or the University of Minnesota — both of which enroll students with substantially higher average incomes — abandon liberal education.) Continue reading →

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July 11, 2015 · 8:24 am

Stopping Bee-pocalypse

Milkweed blooming in my garden

Milkweed blooming in my garden

An Eden Prairie Boy Scout’s bee houses, pollinator gardens across the Twin Cities, and a bee highway in Norway highlight the urgency of preserving endangered native bees. Recent studies show that climate change, as well as pesticides and habitat loss, threatens native bees. This ongoing bee-pocalypse goes far beyond the colony collapse disorder of commercial honeybee hives that first hit the news a couple of years ago. Wild bees, hundreds of native species from big, furry bumblebees to solitary, ground-nesting andrenid bees, pollinate most of our plants, including food crops. Continue reading →

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July 9, 2015 · 12:47 pm

Sun shining, solar power coming in St. Paul

IMG_4973

From the Saints stadium to Ray Pruban’s Energy Challenge homes, St. Paul is getting its solar energy game on in a big way. Continue reading →

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July 7, 2015 · 6:05 pm

Privatizing public housing in Minneapolis: the Glendale problems

With average apartment rent in the Twin Cities at a record-breaking $1018 a month, Minneapolis Public Housing plans to send 184 families out looking for new places to live. That’s just one of the problems with the Minneapolis plan to knock down Glendale public housing and replace it with 550 new units that will mostly rent for market rates. Continue reading →

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July 7, 2015 · 10:09 am

Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air

As smoke from drought-driven Canadian wildfires flows into Minnesota skies and lungs, Tom Lehrer’s “Pollution” reminds me of the work we’ve done and the work we have to do.

If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air!

Lehrer sang about pollution back in the 1960s, when rivers still burned and air-polluting, smog-generating particles poured out of every industrial smokestack and auto exhaust pipe. We cleaned up the rivers and air then. We can and must do it again. Continue reading →

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July 6, 2015 · 3:10 pm

What’s wrong with part-time jobs — and what we can do about it

Photo by photologue_np , published under Creative Commons license.

Photo by photologue_np , published under Creative Commons license.

Almost one in five U.S. workers has a part-time job. Some people work part-time because it suits them, like a $100 an hour computer programmer. But more of them are like the part-timers featured in a 2014 New York Times article, and the 400+ people who wrote in to comment on it. Liz from Wheaton, Illinois, commented:

“As an RN with a master’s degree, you’d think I would fare better, but no. One Christmas Day not so long ago I was scheduled to work the 3-11 shift at the local hospital. I showed up for my shift but was told, “Didn’t someone call you? Our census is down and we don’t need you. But stay by your phone because you are on call for the next four hours” (without pay).”

Continue reading →

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July 3, 2015 · 9:19 pm

Save the flying penises

Wild bees may be in even more peril than managed honeybee colonies, and they are essential to food production.

Because bees pollinate or fertilize crops, entomologist Thomas Seeley called them “flying penises” for plants. Bees are essential for our food supply and our ecological health. According to a May 13 USDA report, summer losses of honeybee colonies now exceed winter losses, for first time. Honeybees not the only, and maybe not the biggest problem: wild bees are in even greater peril than managed honeybee colonies. Continue reading →

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June 30, 2015 · 8:18 pm

Immigration news – June 30, 2015

I publish an immigration newsletter about once a month. You can subscribe to this newsletter by clicking here. I also use Flipboard to collect immigration stories throughout the month. Just click here and bookmark the link to see these stories every day.  Continue reading →

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June 30, 2015 · 3:24 pm

Learning from Irish farms

IMG_4777With stone walls and grazing cattle, Irish farms look like tourist attractions, but farming is still serious business here.

Imagine being paid to maintain fragile land as permanent pasture. Imagine a farm subsidy program designed to support young farmers, small farms and organic farms. Imagine a farm program that declares that 30 percent of direct payments are conditioned on compliance with “greening” criteria, such as crop diversification and crop rotation. All that is part of Ireland’s agricultural economy, where agriculture and food produce 25 percent of the country’s export earnings. Continue reading →

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