Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/category/uncategorized/page/53/)
by Rich Broderick • 9/11/08 • If there were any lingering doubts about whether the mainstream press, with a decreasing number of honorable exceptions, has ceased to operate as an independent source of news and information, you need look no further than the shameless “embedding” of journalists with the police during the Republican National Convention.
The serpent’s power to charm is hardly a thing of the past. Teenage boys and their ilk perhaps suffer from serpent charm more than any other type. Imagine some good boy, young or old, staring through a keyhole of the mind at some bare-bosomed Geraldine doing a dirty dance with a constrictor chum in Joe’s Last Chance Inn. Oh how he’d love to be that snake. Then imagine me in my writing chair, the rattlesnake wriggling its way out of its old clothes and showing itself off naked to me. Continue Reading
Minnesota unions meet with focus on elections by Barb Kucera, Workday MinnesotaUnion members from across the state, gathered for the biennial convention of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, are focused on one goal: electing worker-friendly candidates in the November elections.Trail of Tears to Sandy Lake by Deborah Locke, Fond du Lac News Sandy Lake burned a resolve into our people never to relinquish hunting, fishing and gathering traditions on ceded territories. Nation-wide, only the Ojibwe retained their traditions on ceded land.African American teacher recalls racism in China by Jennifer Holder, Minnesota Spokesman-RecorderKarla Forrest’s sojourn in the Far East left her with enlightenment, disappointmentNEW IN BLOGSGROUND ZERO | Cry me a river: Time to move from protest to solidarity and beyond by Rich Broderick • If there were any lingering doubts about whether the mainstream press, with a decreasing number of honorable exceptions, has ceased to operate as an independent source of news and information, you need look no further than the shameless “embedding” of journalists with the police during the Republican National Convention.ARTS ORBIT | Trash Film Debauchery: Graduated and ready for the real world by Ian Power-Luetscher, Minnesota Daily • Minneapolis’s native B-film group Trash Film Debauchery will return after almost a year off the indie radar. The film group, which has gained pseudo-celebrity in the Twin Cities through its bizarre and hilarious cinema choices, will return with the so-bad-it’s-good action flick Samurai Cop.FROM THE SOAPBOX | Crazymaking and politics by Tom Heuerman • Have you ever listened to someone talk persuasively and felt confused: suddenly up was down, right was wrong, and you felt the rug was pulled out from under your experience of life?DOWNSTREAM | Snakemate—Part I by Emilio DeGrazia • The serpent’s power to charm is hardly a thing of the past. Teenage boys and their ilk perhaps suffer from serpent charm more than any other type. Continue Reading
by Jim Harkness, 9/10/08 • I wasn’t sure what to expect when I drove out to Western Minnesota to check in on Ms. Shi Yan. She has been working at the Earthrise Farm, an organic CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm, since early April, as part of IATP’s ongoing relationship with the School of Agriculture and Rural Development at People’s University in China. Shi Yan’s blog posts have been wonderful. Continue Reading
I didn’t know what to make of it. Crotalus horridus. Here I am, gazing at the blank page as if waking from a trance, and there at my feet a rattlesnake is writhing itself out of its skin. Yes, fear suddenly freezes in my spine, and I’m too paralyzed to think it through. Pen in hand and writing tablet on my lap, I sit numb as a stone and watch the creature twist and turn itself inside-out until its labor is done. Then, as if I suddenly exist, it fixes me with those eyes for the stillest moment of my life.
NEWS YOU CAN USE | Stop the lies by Mary Turck, TC Daily Planet • As even the New York Times issues warnings about campaign lies, some people are inclined to the “pox on both your houses” stance, disbelieving everything that politicians say. But not all politicians lie, and you may want to find out who’s lying and when. Here are important resources that sort the lies from the truth and even identify some half-truths.$1.3 million put into new Imagine Fund by Heather Sahr and Karen Gregory, Minnesota Daily • Provost Tom Sullivan announced Tuesday that a $1.3 million initiative will provide a new opportunity for University faculty in the areas of the arts, humanities and design. The Imagine Fund will be available to tenured professors at all four University campuses, including Duluth, Morris and Crookston.In selling parkland to pay bills, mighty Duluth joins little Lilydale by Chris Steller, Minnesota Independent • Recent headlines out of Duluth haven’t been pretty — except when they’ve been over pictures of the Tiffany window that the city may auction off to get out of a $6.5 million budget hole. City officials’ efforts to sell off another public asset — parkland along picturesque Park Point — puts Duluth in the same league as one of the Twin Cities metro area’s tiniest towns: little Lilydale, Minn.A scouting party for the future: canoeing the Wakan Wakpa by Aimee Loiselle, The Circle • In June, two Dakota youth from Minneapolis participated in a Healthy Nations canoe trip down the Wakan Wakpa (Sacred River), also known as the Rum River. Continue Reading
Readers, Writers, and BooksBOOK NOTE: Celebrating Saint Paul by Mary Turck, TC Daily Planet • The 2009 Saint Paul Almanac, arrived last week, and it’s just as good as the two previous editions. Besides a calendar of events, with room to enter your own appointments and notes, the Almanac includes stories, poems, articles, and listings of local places of interest. 150 best Minnesota books #17 and #18: The Lindberghs by Patrick Coleman, Minnesota Historical Society • Charles Lindbergh Jr. earned a well-deserved Pulitzer for Spirit of St. Louis. Less known is the work of his father, a United States Congressman from the Sixth District.Aligning personal actions with values by Ami Voeltz-Schakel, Minnesota Women’s Press • I was 15 years old when I went vegetarian because I wanted to be good to the animals, but my A-ha! Continue Reading
Cataloguing the RNC’s journalist detainees by Anna Pratt, Minnesota Independent • Of the 800-plus people who were arrested or detained in conjunction with RNC protests, a good chunk of them — 42, by our count — were members of the news media. Media representatives in town to cover the events, from both big and small presses, were slapped with citations and pending charges ranging in severity, including unlawful assembly, obstructing the legal process, misdemeanor interference with a peace officer and felony to riot plus other riot pretenses. (Notably Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was jailed along with two of the show’s producers.) Many others who weren’t arrested or detained endured pepper-spray and other arms used for crowd-control.VOICES | Question assumptions about school funding by Kerry Ashmore, Northeaster • As Northeast and Columbia Heights voters prepare to elect school board members this fall, voters and candidates need to question even the most basic assumptions about public education, including the funding mechanism. Admittedly oversimplified: Under the current system, we give educators the amount of money people are willing to spend on education, and we tell them to do the best they can with it; knowing full well that we didn’t give them enough to do everything we expect. Continue Reading
Halvor Quie was the kind of immigrant who made Minnesota. Born in Norway, he carved out a farm near Dennison in the mid-19th century. When the Civil War began, he answered his adopted nation’s call and joined the Union Army. He served in Berdan’s Sharpshooters with the 1st Minnesota Regiment, fought in 11 battles and was wounded at Antietam. Almost a century and a half later, in 2001, four of his great-grandsons decided to honor Halvor’s memory by taking part in a re-enactment of the Battle of Antietam. Continue Reading
By Jeff Fecke | September 10, 2008 • Pity the adverb. Once, it was a perfectly respectable part of the English language, one that did unto verbs what adjectives do unto nouns — that is to say, modify them. And such modification was considered understandable — after all, when Hamlet urged the players to “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you, trippingly on the tongue,” he was not speaking idly. He wanted the play to ring true, the better to catch his uncle out in his schemes and machinations. Continue Reading