VOICES | Excellent news today, a warning for tomorrow

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Our schools are facing hard financial times. Almost every school district in the state is laying off faculty, cutting programs or plotting strategy to win levy elections in November, or all three. That’s why it came as a breath of fresh air last week when the 2008 ACT results showed Minnesota students doing quite well on the standardized entrance exam. Minnesotans scored higher than any other students in states where half the students took the test. Our scores went up over last year’s scores and we did better than the national average in all four testing areas – English, math, reading and science. Continue Reading

VOICES | Flawed journalism misses MPD conspiracy against Black officers

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The St. Paul Pioneer Press, as the Star Tribune does, engaged in another mugging of journalism with the headline question above its August 13, 2008, front-page story: “Does it take a criminal to catch a crooked cop?” The more accurate question is: When will the White media stop substituting creative writing for fact-checked investigative reporting? For the first time, we learn the name, Mr. Trump, of the informant the feds used to expose alleged Black corruption in the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). That, along with the informant’s birthday, other names he has used (Vallachi was left out), and how long his criminal record actually is (since the early 1990s not 2002), the PiPress got wrong. But the big “error” is that it was the MPD that initiated the investigation, not the feds. Continue Reading

VOICES | Behind Alex Jackson, a long struggle

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Alex Jackson has certainly earned kudos from all of us for having reached the top rung of the ladder of the Minneapolis Fire Department, being sworn in asMinneapolis’ first Black fire chief. His rise to the top represents a long and daunting struggle for racial equality in that department of city government. Over the years, that department has not been without victims and casualties in that struggle. Its history cites many well-qualified Americans of African American heritage with dreams of service in the capacity of firemen having their dreams shattered. I cite here just one such case that exemplifies those frustrations. Continue Reading

VOICES | 15,000 reporters, but will we get the true story?

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In the years I’ve lived in the Twin Cities, I’ve witnessed some pretty high-profile events: a Super Bowl and the visit of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. But nothing compares to the hype surrounding the upcoming Republican National Convention. The official count is that 45,000 people – including 15,000 members of the media – will descend on St. Paul for the four-day convention Sept. 1-4. Continue Reading

(Off) Rez adventures: Madeline Island

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Months ago the Indian Scout started to talk about Moniwunakauning, known to some as Madeline Island. We’ll go there, he promised. After a few false starts we went to the island north of Bayfield, Wisconsin – the Scout, Marilyn and me. We went because the Indian Scout is drawn to the earliest settlements of the Ojibwe people and whoever preceded them. On a beautiful July day after a drive and a ferry ride, the Scout caught up with me as we explored an old missionary-established Ojibwe graveyard near the island marina. Continue Reading

VOICES | Obama and McCain are players; the election for president is about us

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The polls are now calibrating the presidential election as a dead heat, or approaching that. The fallout on the eve of the conventions is predictable: The wingnuts are gloating, and Democrats are blaming each other. With the country in the midst of a massive economic breakdown, high prices, millions of lost homes, schools impoverished, pensions facing liquidation, low-income taxpayers bailing out bankers and hotwired Wall Street speculators, with China flourishing on clouds of American debt and the Republican presidential candidate exploring the lively prospect of more wars, it is a fairly legitimate moment to ask:
What’s happening? Why is America considering putting the keys to power back into the pockets of the same criminal gang that has systemically raided the public treasury of trillions of dollars over the last eight years, exported millions of jobs, hidden corporate profits, brazenly enriched the rich, stomped on the working class, lawlessly thumbed its nose at the American Constitution and needlessly killed thousands of America servicemen and women in a bloated campaign for empire and legacy. A reasonable response to that question is to return to the wisdom of Thomas Frank. Continue Reading

New state health “reform” law destroys patient privacy in the name of improving care

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Should your medical records be protected from prying eyes? Huge majorities of Americans think so. According to a Gallup Poll, 92 percent of Americans oppose government agencies looking at their medical records without their permission, and 82 percent oppose insurance companies pawing through their records without their permission. Sixty-seven percent even oppose researchers looking at their records without their consent. We think of our medical records the way we think of our homes—unless there is a compelling public interest at stake (such as solving a crime or stopping an epidemic), we believe our homes and our medical records should not be invaded by state officials or private parties unless we say it’s OK. Continue Reading

VOICES | Our public schools are still a good investment

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The “Strong Schools, Strong City” levy referendum on which we will vote in November is a call for a breakthrough in Minneapolis education. Imagine this: we invest in our community schools and the growing needs of our urban students, and Minneapolis holds its own as one of the most highly educated populations in our country. We have high numbers of high school and college graduates. According to the Brookings Institution’s 2005 “Mind the Gap” report, the latter has held true. In 2000, the Twin Cities ranked high for median income (14th) among the 100 largest metro areas. Continue Reading

VOICES | Dazed & Confused at Farmfest

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Late last Tuesday afternoon I and around a dozen crop farmers emerged from the air-conditioned confines of the “Biofuture” trailer. Like abductees departing an alien mothership, we blinked in the bright hot light of a southwest Minnesota August. I looked around to get reacquainted with my surroundings: big tires, bigger iron, seed plots, debating politicians, a helicopter buzzing overhead. Oh, that’s right, I’m in the midst of the 2008 Farmfest, the state’s largest agricultural gathering. I’d just spent 20 minutes or so in front of a flat screen monitor being bombarded with messages about the future of farming as Channel Bio Corporation sees it. Continue Reading