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Increase in safety should follow increase in cyclists by Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020 • To “promote and increase bicycling as an energy-efficient, nonpolluting and healthful transportation alternative” has been statutory policy of the state of Minnesota for more than 30 years.

A social neighborhood is a safe neighborhood by Nancy Ward, Uptown Neighborhood News • Walker’s groups, also known as “Stroll Patrols”, are happening in the ECCO neighborhood, and YOU are invited to join them. These groups of neighborhood residents are meeting and greeting and keeping eyes open for both regular and irregular activities as they walk and talk. 911 calls sent from a safe distance by these groups can prevent or interrupt unwelcome activity. Reports sent by Stroll Patrols to MPD provide information that enables them to provide better and targeted service. The more we know each other, the stronger the community, and the safer we all are.

Volunteers cover the world by Lisa Steinmann, The Park Bugle • Britta Hansen, originally from St. Anthony Park, has spent the past year as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia, near the eastern edge of the Andes Mountains, training villagers in apiculture. Family and friends in Minnesota have directly supported Hansen’s efforts by contributing funds to launch a beekeeping business in the village of Paredones.

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ARTS ORBIT | The Genius of iTunes by Jay Gabler • Though I’m an avid iTunes user, I normally don’t rush to download each new release—generally, the primary “improvement” with any given release of the free program is a feature that makes it more efficient for Apple to sell music and videos. That’s true of the most prominent new feature in the latest release (8.0), but the new feature has also changed the way I listen to the music I already own.

HISPANIC FANATIC | Dogma vs. Cheese by Daniel Cubias • Among my numerous flaws is the fact that I’m not very charitable. Yes, I give money to worthy causes and all that, but I’m stingy with my time. My wife does volunteer work, which is one of the eight thousand things that I admire about her. Still, I’ve never found the energy to join her on her endeavors or to paint a dilapidated inner-city house or to devote a holiday to working in a soup kitchen or to do something else community-driven and altruistic.

BY THE PEOPLE | A “citizen naturalist” on St. Paul’s East Side by Ellen Tveit • On a spectacular fall afternoon, Neil Cunningham led me through a planting of native Minnesota hazelnut and plum trees, grasses, and elderberry bushes—not the kind of scenery you’d expect to find across the street from a Burger King in a lower-income neighborhood.

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NEWS YOU CAN USE | Absentee voting: Let the voting begin!
by Mary Turck, TC Daily Planet
Anyone who qualifies for an absentee ballot can vote now—today—at the county auditor’s office in the county of their residence. Voting for the November 4 election has already begun. In Minnesota, voting started on October 3.

Wellstone legacy: Mental health parity bill signed into law
by Kathlyn Stone, TC Daily Planet
The Paul Wellstone-Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 was added to the financial bailout package, passed, and promptly signed into law last week. The mental health parity legislation was added to the package to win support after the House rejected the bailout legislation earlier in the week. The law requires health insurers to provide benefits, co-payments and treatments for mental health services and substance abuse disorders equal to traditional medical coverage.

Dialogue with lawmakers: Minnesota Korean adoptees meet with National Assembly members to discuss rights and roles of adoptees in Korean society
by Martha Vickery, Korean Quarterly
Whether some strategic legislation would make the way easier for the hundreds of Korean adoptees who return to their birth country to live and work, or the thousands who visit there annually, was the topic of a meeting at the University of Minnesota of nine South Korean legislators with representatives of three Minnesota organizations of adult Korean adoptees.

Riders in black honor victims of recent bike deaths
by Chris Steller, Minnesota Independent
Dressed in black and wearing orange armbands, 50 or more bicyclists crowded a traffic median on Snelling Ave. in St. Paul Saturday morning just a few blocks into a 14-mile memorial ride to honor four cyclists killed in collisions with motor vehicles last month. The group set off from Snelling and Summit avenues—near the site where the latest fatality took place a week ago—headed for Gold Medal Park in downtown Minneapolis.

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BLOG OF THE MODERATE LEFT | Battle without honor or humanity
by Jeff Fecke
Johnny Maverick has decided, at this late date, to simply shred any last bit of honor he used to have, and go for broke.

KEEPING THE FAITH | Guns and bombs and things that go boom in the night
by Mary Turck
Over the past month, both Sheriff Bob Fletcher and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman referred to “guns and bombs” that “anarchists” brought to the RNC. The massive local, state and federal security presence is credited by both men with saving the city of St. Paul from the people with guns and bombs. But who were these people and how many guns and bombs did they bring?

THINK FORWARD | A chance to do the right thing
by Allison Page
The Phillips neighborhood (comprised primarly of people of color and low-income households and including a federal superfund site for arsenic) provides a stunning example of what environmental justice means. MORE »

Readers, Writers, and Books

Books for Africa Celebrates 20 Years: 20 million books in 20 Years by Nelima Kerre, Mshale • On September 12th the Minnesota and African communities did more than reconnect at The Minnesota History Center for the Books for Africa 20th Anniversary Gala. They celebrated their connection and renewed their pledge to support each other in the noble cause to end Africa’s book famine. In a jam packed auditorium, attendees wearing brightly colored and beautifully patterned African outfits keenly listened as representatives from Africa and local leaders praised and encouraged the organization for its work.

150 best Minnesota books #24 and #25: Betsy, Tacy, and Emily by Betsy Sundquist, Minnesota Historical Society • Maud Hart Lovelace wrote a series of books set in Mankato, the fictional Deep Valley, about Betsy Ray, Tacy Kelly and their friends, but I—and many other Lovelace fans—believe her best work is Emily of Deep Valley.

Bright lights, small city: David Carr’s memoir recalls fast times in our slow lane. by Craig Cox, Minneapolis Observer Quarterly • I’m pretty sure that I first ran into David Carr sometime in 1986, when we were both guests on Brian Lambert’s cable-access TV show. We were talking about some political difficulties St. Paul Mayor George Latimer may or may not have been facing at the time, and I recall being pretty impressed by how much street-level intelligence Carr displayed. He was not shy about dishing the dirt on players I didn’t even know existed. I was the editor of City Pages at the time and Carr was, I believe, a staff writer for the Twin Cities Reader, our nemesis. The Reader is long gone now, the victim of a 1997 acquisition by Village Voice Media, which turned the local alternative media scene on its head. At least, that’s how I remember it.

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BLOG OF THE MODERATE LEFT | Rich Lowry’s Ejaculation by Jeff Fecke • The right is fond of complaining that feminists and feminist allies hate Sarah Palin because she’s pretty. We don’t. She’s conventionally attractive, yes, but that’s not really surprising. Most politicians are on the pretty end of the spectrum, from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton to George W. Bush to Mitt Romney. Not all of them, of course, but many of them.

CABBAGES AND KINGS | The fascinating historical roots of the “Bailout” package by Myles Spicer • Those who are interested in American history can find some incredibly fascinating roots imbedded in the “bailout” (or so called “recovery”) package now bumping through Congress. Roots which have historical significance in so many different, but relevant ways.

FROM THE SOAPBOX | Come out of the cave by Tom Heuerman, Ph.D. • The election this year is about the transformation and renewal of America so she can evolve and continue to lead the world.

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Rich Broderick • 10/2/08 • Today, the whole elaborate system of easy short-term credit that keeps our version of capitalism afloat is on the verge of a shutdown. And soon.

If that happens, if businesses from auto dealerships to tool-dye manufacturers to dry cleaners cannot order supplies or meet payrolls because the local bank won’t lend the money, the effect on the economy will be akin to driving a car with no oil in it.