Videos: Lorna Landvik & John Marty

By |

Author Lorna Landvik reveals that her recent novel best to Best to Laugh borrows some from her own life in Hollywood.  Minnesota’s most gifted humorist, like the Korean-American protagonist of her book, had been a stand-up comedy hopeful in L.A. who supported herself with a series of eclectic temp jobs and a residential complex injected with LaLa Land characters and urban legend.  Landvik also tells of her real-life adventures on the 3,700 miles long Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament from L.A. to D.C. in 1986.  Landvik’s quick, sharp and easy wit is a delight that is rarely seen on home flatscreens. I consider her Dem Vis appearance a satisfying stew of sly insight on being Minnesotan. State Senator John Marty, Minnesota’s leading progressive law maker, here makes a solid case to Democratic Visions host Tim O’Brien for SF 890 the “Worker Dignity Bill.”  Marty (DFL, Roseville) and co-author Senator Chris Eaton (DFL, Brooklyn Center) proposed legislation would extend the phased-in minimum wage increase; increase the working family credit to exceed the federal earned income tax; provide increased child care assistance to all low-income workers and, among other actions, would reform MinnCare.  SF 890 was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Human Services and Housing on February 16 where it awaits further action. The full version of the current Democratic Visions includes a short segment on the St. Olaf College dedication of its memorial to civil rights martyr James Reeb.  Rev. Reeb, a 1950 graduate of the Northfield school, was murdered in Selma, Alabama fifty years ago.  He and two other activist clergy had been beaten on the evening of the “Turnaround Tuesday”  march led by Dr. Martin Luther King.  This demonstration had concluded with prayer on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the highway to Montgomery, the Alabama State Capitol. Lorna Landvik on Dem Vis -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv7-quYbWXg John Marty on Dem Vis -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG_Gp8M90U0 Full Democratic Visions programhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAgWRNasNKo CABLE TV SCHEDULEEden Prairie, Richfield, Minnetonka, Edina and Hopkins Comcast Channel 15 – Saturdays 2:00 p.m.. Sundays 9 p.m., Mondays 10 p.m., Wednesdays 5:30 p.m., Bloomington – BCAT Channel 16 — Tuesdays at 2:00 p.m. & 10:00 p.m.; Fridays at 9:30 p.m.; Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. & 2:30 p.m.Minneapolis – MTN Channel 16 — Sundays at 8:30 p.m., Mondays 3:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m.  Program is streamed at the MTN website during cablecasts.Champlin, Anoka,Ramsey, Andover – QCTV Channel 15.  Click here for schedule. Democratic Visions is produced by Eden Prairie, Minnetonka and Edina volunteers at the Bloomington Community Access TV studio. Continue Reading

The hands that feed us: Workers at the Minnesota State Fair

By |

Every year crowds of people head to the Minnesota State Fair, thinking about the food they’ll eat, the rides they’ll take and the people they’ll watch. But how often do we notice the people who make this whole thing happen? From the people who make and serve us the food, to the ride operators, to the folks who clean up after us — who’s working behind the scenes at the fair? This photo essay is just a start in telling the story of the many people who work behind the scenes to give us the Minnesota State Fair. Continue Reading

May 1 marchers demanding immigration reform block Minneapolis intersection

By |

Members of Asamblea de Derechos Civiles (“Assembly for Civil Rights”), faith and labor groups, civil rights activists, including American Indian Movement leader Clyde Bellecourt, and a host of others, gathered at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis May 1 to call for comprehensive immigration reform and the end of deportations. The event kicked off in the morning with a bus tour of congressional offices aimed at pressuring key U.S. Representatives to sign the discharge petition for immigration reform legislation in order to allow a vote on comprehensive immigration reform. The demonstrators came together at the Hennepin County Government Center in the afternoon. Native American drumming and dance, and singing and chants in Spanish and English, helped warm up the crowd, as banners and flags blew in the biting wind. The size of the rally, roughly 100 people or so, didn’t match the groundswell at the St. Paul rally the same day. But what the marchers lacked in numbers they made up for in determination and grit, evidenced by the event’s dramatic close, an act of civil disobedience.Protesters took to the streets, shutting down the intersection of Fourth Street and Fourth Avenue during rush-hour, to the chagrin of police and commuters. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Gripping collection transcends domestic life: Event features volume that is “gift to women’s history”

By |

Miriam Barber Judd was a prolific letter writer. She could pour out her feelings and experiences much more easily on paper than propriety allowed her to in daily life. The result is an amazing collection of letters (she left almost 2,000) and private writings that give a real-time, first-person account of the life behind a public servant. The Pioneer Press calls it “a gift to women’s history.”Now her daughter, Mary Lou Judd Carpenter, has put these together in a volume called Miriam’s Words: The Personal Price of a Public Life. This selection gives a chronological, well-written, insightful account of the life of the spouse of a public servant, Dr. Walter Judd, who was a medical missionary to China in the 1920s and 1930s, a 20-year Congressman and a delegate to the United Nations. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Letters of wife of MN Congressman Walter Judd to be published as book

By |

Miriam Barber Judd was a prolific letter writer. She could pour out her feelings and experiences much more easily on paper than propriety allowed her to in daily life. The result is an amazing collection of letters (she left almost 2,000) and private writings that give a real-time, first-person account of the life behind a public servant.Now her daughter, Mary Lou Judd Carpenter, has put these together in a volume called Miriam’s Words: The Personal Price of a Public Life. These selections give a chronological, well-written, insightful account of the life of the spouse of a public servant, Dr. Walter Judd, who was a medical missionary to China in the 1920s and 1930s, a 20-year Congressman and a delegate to the United Nations. Miriam kept the home fires burning, and was an undaunted masterful manager of the many worlds she inhabited.What is seldom heard is the price of such service. Continue Reading

MN VOICES | Kathy Tunheim tells a new jobs story in Minnesota

By |

CORRECTED 6/29/2012: A year and a half ago, Governor Mark Dayton asked Kathy Tunheim to serve as a senior adviser, working to generate a public discussion on jobs and job creation. Tunheim is the principal and CEO for Tunheim Associates, a public relations and media firm and is the president of IPREX, a worldwide network of public relations firms. Her job as senior adviser to the governor for job creation is a part-time, volunteer position.When asked what she and the administration hoped to accomplish, Tunheim said that they want to start a discussion that asks: “What do facts and analysis say about what will drive job growth and economic vitality in Minnesota; what kinds of jobs should Minnesota focus on creating and where is our competitive advantage; and what are the specific opportunities before us and how do we seize them?” One year later, said Tunheim, “We thought the most important thing was to listen.” Since January 2011, when Dayton took office, she and her colleagues working with the administration asked, “What are you seeing that is creating jobs? What’s working? What are the things that really get in the way?She said different parts of the state are facing different challenges and are facing different economies. “In the metropolitan urban core, there is a misalignment between the jobs that employers are trying to fill and what the skill sets are,” Tunheim said.  The challenge in northwest Minnesota  is quite different. Continue Reading

What to do about jobs: “I’m trying to reinvent myself” and “We need to organize”

By |

With unemployment in the Twin Cities still high, it’s hard to believe that it’s workers—not jobs—that we’ll be short of in the next ten to twenty years. It’s especially hard for some one like John Kunesh, one of thirty participants at the Twin Cities Daily Planet’s community conversations on the future of work and jobs. Kunesh worked at a private law firm as a paralegal for 25 years, but lost his job when the economy slowed down. He recently lost his house and moved in with a friend, and is still looking for work. “It’s the epitome of what can happen even though I was good at my job,” Kunesh said. Continue Reading

Bernie Hesse: Seeing hope in young organizers at Jimmy Johns

By |

Bernie Hesse is the Director of Special Projects and Political Director at UFCW Local 1189. Hesse took a break from contract negotiations for grocery workers to talk to the Twin Cities Daily Planet about the future of unions and jobs in Minnesota.  “We believe that working people should be paid a good and fair wage,” he told the Daily Planet. “Nobody should have to worry about whether or not they can afford health care or put food on the table.” TCDP: So where are unions going? The labor movement that we’re going to see down the road is much less bureaucratic. Continue Reading