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.
A string of sugar crystals: Greenway inspires a new model for urban development by Jason Ericson, Uptown Neighborhood News • Before Tina Nelson started working for the Midtown Greenway Coalition back in 1999, she worked for years as a community organizer in the Seward neighborhood. She toyed with the idea of going back to school for urban planning, but remained uncertain.NEWS YOU CAN USE | Green means go by Bruce Cochran, Uptown Neighborhood News • “Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance Everybody thinks it’s true” – Paul SimonWell, yes and no. Not everybody likes the sound of the southwest light rail project but most are coming around to support it. This is the current thinking of citizens in the Southwest, confirmed by Gail Dorfman, Hennepin County Commissioner, at the last Southwest Transitway Project Public Meeting. At Calhoun Square about 40 people gathered to listen to details and ask questions of Dorfman and Project Manager Katie Walker.Interview: “Rasta Bard” David Daniels makes Magic at the Acadia Café by Dwight Hobbes, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder • David Daniels has to be one of the most unlikely success stories imaginable. Continue Reading
Music note: Rosalie Sorrels releases tribute to Utah Phillipsby Dwight Hobbes, TC Daily PlanetOn hearing Rosalie Sorrels had a new album out on nationally-lauded, St. Paul-based Red House Records, yours truly hurried up and got nosy. Turns out Rosalie Sorrels has got a thing and a half for her fellow folk legend, the late Utah Phillips.Food and RestaurantsLocal food’s toughest customersby Brian DeVore, Land Stewardship ProjectOn an overcast fall day, I got a tour of the Meat Center of Appleton (population: 2,871) in the heart of western Minnesota’s wild goose and domestic corn country. If an extensive local food system is to take root throughout the Midwest and beyond, its reach can’t be limited to hip urban neighborhoods and earnest college campuses. It also has to catch on in places like Appleton—and it starts with people like Alyce Fust.Mango Thai Cuisineby Jeremy Iggers, The RakeStrictly speaking, I am not sure the dishes I sampled the other day at Mango Thai Cuisine at Selby and Dale in St. Continue Reading
Theater note: A tedious Life in the Theatreby Dwight Hobbes, TC Daily PlanetThe Jungle Theater is the Twin Cities’ lone professional, Off-Broadway-caliber venue devoted to white theater. The company produces white playwrights, works with white directors, and, with rare exceptions, employs white actors. Which is fair, since places like Mixed Blood Theatre, Penumbra Theatre Company, and Pillsbury House Theater make it their mission to hire professionals of color. After all, white is a color too, and Caucasian folks are entitled to have an intimate, quality house in which to see their culture and sensibilities reflected.VOICES | First Ave’s lesson well-learnedby Almostred, Rift MagazineThere used to be a homeless shelter across the street, before the bus depot moved a third time. On cold nights it would fill up fast, leaving a hobo convention milling around outside the club. Continue Reading
NEWS YOU CAN USE | Egal Shidad: Stories of Somali health to air October 6 by Mary Thoemke, TC Daily Planet • Every culture has its fairy tales and story tellers, and in Somali folklore, Egal Shidad is a character that is known as a “wise fool.” Now Egal Shidad is the star of a new production that focuses on mental health issues in the Somali communities of Minnesota. The program airs Monday, October 6 on both radio and TV. While the program uses the Somali language, it will also be translated into English, and will be available online.Lawyer turned social designer: Pro-democracy advocate and reformer Won Soon Park by Martha Vickery, Korean Quarterly • At age 53 after building his third social reform organization in Korea, Won Soon Park has lately added a new title to his business card, “social designer.” It’s as though he finally has arrived at some terminology to describe the ways he continues to strive to move South Korea closer to the just, tolerant and progressive society he knows it could be. Continue Reading
NEWS YOU CAN USE | Coping with recession by Maura Youngman, TC Daily Planet • In times of economic downturn, some Minneapolis residents are generating creative solutions to help their families save food, fuel, and money.Police cite public’s help in aiding Cedar-Riverside investigation by Jeremy Stratton, The Bridge • One week after the murder of 20-year-old Augsburg student Ahmednur Ali, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) announced the arrest of a suspect in the case.Southeast Como encourages stormwater management by Tiffany Smith, Minnesota Daily • Today, it’s hard to point fingers at large specific sources of water pollution, as most of it is no longer due to direct dumping of waste.NEW IN BLOGSCABBAGES AND KINGS | A healthy serving of politics at the Swedish Inn by Jon McBride • If you’d like a lesson on how to speak your mind about politics or how you think things should be run, then you should stop by the quaint little town of Lindstrom and go to the local diner, The Swedish Inn.THINK FORWARD | A 21st Century New Deal? by Mark Muller • I’ve probably heard and read dozens of times over the past two weeks that this is the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. Our stock market and confidence in the banking system are allegedly on the brink of a 1929-style collapse.ARTS ORBIT | Tha Cutt: Tha Remix by Jay Gabler • TruArtSpeaks, the non-profit organization run by St. Paul poet/performer/educator Tish Jones, has just announced that “Tha Cutt”—the youth-oriented spoken-word open mic series that formerly met in North Minneapolis‘s now-shuttered Bean Scene—is being reborn as “Tha Remix.”ARTS ORBIT | Video of Atmosphere on Jimmy Kimmel Live by Chris DeLine • Also, a link to a free Atmosphere MP3.And again – the link to Rich Broderick’s blog was broken in yesterday’s newsletter, so we are sending it again, with a working link. GROUND ZERO | Second Time As Farce: Russia, America’s Economy and the Presidential “Debate” by Rich Broderick • Maybe it’s the time of year – the cusp of October, the approach of yet another anniversary of the Bolshevik’s 1917 coup d’etat — but Friday night’s surreal “debate” between Barack Obama and John McCain reminded me of _A People’s Tragedy, The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924_, Orlando Figes’s magisterial history of Russia’s epic revolutionary era. Continue Reading
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NEWS YOU CAN USE | Give your candidate $50, get your money back by Paul Purman, TC Daily Planet • It’s the political season and you know that means money talks. But you may not know that you can give money to a state-level candidate or party of your choice and be reimbursed by the state. Minnesota’s Political Contribution Refund Program allows eligible U.S. citizens over the age of 18 to recoup up to $50 a year in contributions (and married couples up to $100.)Media Monitor: KTLK talker likens Obama to the antichrist by Paul Schmelzer, Minnesota Independent • Jason Lewis wannabe Chris Baker is again looking for attention. As Media Matters reports, the KTLK radio host has been likening the Democratic presidential candidate to the antichrist. “I’m getting really sick of being told that if I disagree with Barack Obammy, the Nicolae Carpathia candidate, that I’m a racist,” he said on his Sept. Continue Reading
Readers, Writers and Books150 best Minnesota books #22, #23, and #24: Frontier dispatches by Patrick Coleman, Minnesota Historical Society • Although these books are from three different centuries and three different nationalities, the theme of exploration connects them. These books could hardly satiate the old world’s hunger for accounts of this strange new world and its exotic inhabitants.Author Helene Cooper (House At Sugar Beach) Receives Rousing Welcome in Minnesota by Wokie C. Freeman, The Liberian Journal • As Helene Cooper–diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times and author of “The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of A Lost African Childhood”–began speaking to a crowd of about 150 people on Tuesday evening, a hush settled over the media center of the North View International Baccalaureate World School in Brooklyn Park. But not for long.New book documents Prospect Park resident’s part in famed 1961 civil rights campaign by Chris Steller, The Bridge • The honor roll of Freedom Riders, those young heroes of the 1960s civil rights movement, includes a local man who says he joined the momentous integration campaign on a momentary impulse.NEW IN BLOGSARTS ORBIT | LIVE a little! Vänskä commands it. by Jay Gabler • My life isn’t perfect, but I never feared that I was somehow failing to live it fully…until, that is, yesterday morning at 10 a.m., when I received an e-mail from the Minnesota Orchestra. Continue Reading
NEWS YOU CAN USE | Bike basics from bike guru Grant Armour by James Sanna, TC Daily Planet • Wheels. Tires. Pedals. Fenders. Bike guru Grant Armour explains the basics of bicycles.Man to file first lawsuit following RNC by Joshua Katzenstein, Minnesota Daily • The Anti-War Committee is announcing a lawsuit regarding police violence during the Republican National Convention at a press conference in front of St. Continue Reading
