National

by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet • 11/30/08 •

This Wednesday, December 3, CBS will rebroadcast the 1964 holiday special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

by Beth Hammarlund, A Tiny Machine • 11/18/08 •

I wanted to like Twilight. I hadn’t heard much of the books, but once the movie buzz began I decided to give the series a try. Now I’m as into hot marble-bodied vampires as much the next girl, but wow, I hated that book. Don’t get me wrong, I finished it in like a day and a half.

NEW YORK CITY—One song deep into the set at the Bowery Ballroom and Craig Minowa leans into the mike, his signature green visor with eyes stenciled into the brim reflecting the red light hanging above the crowd, and points at the glockenspiel to his left. They are improvising a bit tonight. Their keyboard has gone M.I.A., but true to form, Cloud Cult find a way for this to become a positive thing. Instead of cutting songs or trimming the set, they try to make the show something special, something different. The bells will replace the keys. MORE »

by Colette Davidson • 11/23/08 • Back in France. It was only a week but it felt like a time warp. Just as always, going home to Minnesota brings me back to a time when I was still bringing my laundry home, or living at home, or wishing I could get the hell away from home.

The way Sen. Barack Obama ran his campaign was thoroughly discussed in a series of panel discussions and other presentations at “The Obama Effect” conference held October 23-25 at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication. MORE »

UPDATED 6 p.m., 11/15/08 • Senator Norm Coleman’s lead over Al Franken shrunk again from 206 to 204 votes after counties from all over Minnesota turned in their audits Friday. The hand count audits were only of 3 to 5 precincts in any given county and are done after every election in Minnesota to check the accuracy of the voting machines. MORE »

In the absence of federal leadership, Northeastern and Western states have implemented regional cap and trade systems, and now a consortium of Midwestern states has signed an agreement to develop a cap and trade program. Minnesota is part of that agreement. As debate over capping and trading greenhouse gas continues, there will be concerns about the economic impact in Minnesota. This report assumes any Midwestern cap and trade system would be similar in scope to the Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and would be limited to greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. MORE »

Now that Barack Obama has been elected president of the United States of America by a substantial majority of the population; now that this young African American has overcome every obstacle and barrier that could possible be put in his way; now that he has successfully managed to scale the peak of political ambitions; now that he has proven to the satisfaction of a majority of the American people that he is the best person to lead the greatest industrialized country in the world at a time when it is undergoing the most challenging times of its existence; now that Barack has defied every myth that our society has perpetuated regarding the inherent limitations of the African American genome; now that for the first time in history residents of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., will not be White; now that an entirely new era will be ushered into American leadership; now that the country will be led by a descendent of those brought here shackled in chains in the hulls of ships to do the grudging work of settling this country; now that Air Force One and all its amenities will be the exclusive possession of the Obama family; now that the entire Armed Services personnel will have to stand at attention and salute when Obama is in their presence; now that nations throughout the world must accept him as leader of the most influential nation; now that the Obama triumph should obfuscate every stereotype perpetuated on his race; now that the pioneers of the long and arduous Civil Rights Movement will no longer have to say, “I never thought that I would live to see the day”; and now that, after 45 years, Barack Obama has been unveiled as the second coming of Martin Luther King’s dream, America is at a new crossroads. MORE »