Thanks to the climate of political correctness, it seems like every time someone black gets a burr under his or her saddle and puts it between book covers, he or she is heralded as a brilliant pen and a great shining voice of undeniable consequence. Usually, it’s some inept writer but a savvy hustler who made the right insider connections, got on the good side of a grant committee and, presto, ascended to prominence, a feted prize-winning darling of the “cutting edge” status quo. Thank God, every once in a blue moon, somebody comes along who isn’t selling a bill of goods. MORE »

You don’t often hear state representatives called “heroic” by members of the public, particularly when they propose to increase spending.

At South High School on October 6, though, the members of the K-12 Education Finance Committee were bombarded with “bravos” for their efforts to craft the New Minnesota Miracle bill, which proposes to restore and simplify much of the public financing for schools that has bled away over the last 15 or more years. MORE »

An Oct. 9 press release from campaign staffer Tom Erickson said that Sen. Norm Coleman would “hold a media availability” Friday morning. But when I arrived, Chuck Olsen of the citizen-videoblogging group The Uptake had already been refused entry. When I tried to walk in, Erickson barred me entry as well, stating that the event, held in Coleman’s campaign office was for “credentialed” media only. When I asked how one gets such credentials, he said that only “legitimate” media were welcome. As journalists from local media filed past — Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman, MinnPost reporter Joe Kimball, TPT host Eric Eskola — Coleman staffers refused to share what criteria it used to determine what makes a news operation legit. MORE »

Americans watched intently last week as Congress worked diligently, with pressure from constituents, to come to an agreement on how to address the financial crisis. MORE »

This week I received a phone call from a reader. She read my paper on weak family systems in Liberia and urged me to address the subject of teen pregnancy in a follow up article. She told me: “My teenage son is now a father. I am not working and many of his friends are also becoming fathers. The burden for caring for these children, then falls on the girls or their parents. I want you to please write something about this issue. But I do not want for you to address this issue like other people do. I want you to find a way and focus heavily on the boys and the men.” MORE »