Inside the Daily Planet, 12/1/08

A painting, a garden, a documentary and 120,313 paper cranes – tributes to Japanese Americans by Dean S. Potter, Asian Pages • The Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) recently received a triptych portrait of the late Japanese American activist Ruth Tanbara by Virginia artist Hiro. Mrs. Tanbara’s nephew Tom Kurihara commissioned Hiro to do the portrait showing the many accomplishments of his aunt on the three-panel painting and presented it to MHS as a gift.

THEATER | Guthrie’s Christmas Carol plays to the peanut gallery by Jean Gabler, TC Daily Planet • I’m a huge fan of Christmas. I start secretly playing Christmas music as soon as I blow out the candles in the jack-o-lanterns. I pull out my stack of holiday books and supplement those with more from the library. I have my list of must-see holiday shows, and the Guthrie’s Christmas Carol is always included. It’s always the same—for better and for worse.

Screw U: Students in Dinkytown turned away from polls on Election Day by Chris Steller, Minnesota Independent • As of Tuesday night, Hennepin County officials had yet to recount ballots from Minneapolis’ Precinct 1, Ward 3. But when they do, there likely won’t be as many ballots to count as there were voters who tried to cast them. Residents of a student cooperative high rise called The Chateau, which towers over the Dinkytown neighborhood at the edge of the University of Minnesota campus, weren’t able to register at their polling place this year like they did in past elections.

Two sons of Northfield remember Malt-O-Meal’s good ol’ days by Ryeon Corsi, TC Daily Planet • “I don’t have anything against partying, but if you can’t party and work in the same day, then maybe you should give up one of them,” said the Glenn Brooks of Bill Stanton’s memory.

NEW IN BLOGS

ARTS ORBIT | Santa the fascist and his sexualized reindeer by Jay Gabler • This Wednesday, December 3, CBS will rebroadcast the 1964 holiday special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. In a 2002 paper titled “If Barbie Were a Reindeer: How Gender Representations in Rudolph Exemplify the Need for Teaching Media Literacy,” Katie Beck righteously eviscerates the program’s gender representations.

GROUND ZERO | Dark Knight: The strange destiny of George W. Bush by Rich Broderick • 11/30/08 • In a notebook he kept as a student, Napoleon Bonaparte, future Emperor of France, wrote, “St. Helena, a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic.”

CINNA.MN | Because gays can’t get family fishing licenses by Erica Mauter • 11/24/08 • Doug Grow has a great article at MinnPost about the marriage equality fight in Minnesota, highlighting the step-by-step legislative approach recommended by our state’s big LGBT advocacy organizations. It’s long-ish, but a pretty simple-yet-thorough overview of the current legal landscape and the considerations we have to take on the path to equal rights for gay Minnesotans.