Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/sally-jo-sorensen/page/15/)
Sally Jo Sorensen publishes Bluestem Prairie for those who prefer take their corn with a progressive chaser.
In a 3-2 decision, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled yesterday that locked-out American Crystal Sugar workers are owed unemployment benefits. Total benefits owed to workers may be $4 million dollars, but some fear the state legislautre may act to block the payments. Continue Reading
On February 14, Republican Senators Bill Ingebrigtsen (Alexandria), Julie Rosen (Fairmont), Bill Weber (Luverne), Karin Housley (Stillwater) and John Pederson (St. Cloud) sent a Valentine’s Day card in the form of a resolution to TransCanada, the corporation building the Keystone XL pipeline to move oil extracted from Canadian tar sands to Steele City, Nebraska. Continue Reading
While Southeastern Minnesota’s bluff country from Red Wing to the Iowa border and the placid little Minnesota River from the metro to Mankato may have been strangers to the sort of divisions with which mining politics have cursed Northeastern Minnesota, a joint hearing on frac sand mining appears to have lifted that blessing. Continue Reading
Alarmed by the transformation of Southwest Wisconsin into sand pit corridors of Mordor, Minnesotans began organizing grassroots resistance to industrial scale silica sand mining in 2011, demanding that city and county government place moratoria on new mines and processing. Continue Reading
An “Earth Train” carrying 70 Minnesotans heading to Washington to ask President Obama and his administration to lead a clean energy transformation made an impromptu stop in Winona to meet local activists–and pick up another passenger. Continue Reading
A new bill would make “Minnesota Blue”by Keith Haugen our state poem. Bluestem objects on aesthetic grounds, while a student critic, Joshua Preston, praises the text as a post-modern masterpiece. Continue Reading
The strange case of Fracsandville Lobbyist/ Red Wing Mayor Dennis Egan and the request by Minnesota state agencies for an EIS for two related frac sand mines in Winona County are both grabbing headlines in the Star Tribune. Continue Reading
Between the unprecedented call by state agencies for Winona County to draft a frac sand EAW and outrage over the hiring of Red Wing Mayor Dennis Egan to lobby for the Minnesota Industrial Sand Council (MISC), momentum is growing for state-level action on the problems posed by the growth of industrial-scale sand mining. Continue Reading
When Bluestem first started publishing, organized anti-immigrant activity ran high, with Minutemen giving talks and Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform (MinnSIR) rallying up to near one hundred people and Neo-Nazis using the issue in an attempt to recruit members. Continue Reading
One of the storylines Bluestem has been following since 2009 is that of Southern Minnesota’s neo-Nazis. Led by Samuel Johnson, formerly of Austin, Minnesota, the white supremacist group tried to use anti-immigrant sentiment to recruit new members. Continue Reading