August 2005

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How far are you willing to go for cheap gas?

Filed under: Economy

All the way to the depths of your psyche?

In the wake of Highest Gas Prices Ever, the trusty Strib has published a list online this evening of the lowest prices in the Twin Cities metro.

(LIfted from TwinCitiesGasPrices.com)

Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the now-exurban stations are relatively cheap, with the three cheapest locations--at $2.50 to $2.55 a gallon--being in Prior Lake. (Interesting to note that two of those are by Mystic Lake Casino.)

But the two surprises on the list are in what folks in Prior Lake or other outlying areas of the metro would call the "Inner City."

Two Marathon stations on the north side and near north are coming in at $2.62 and $2.63, respectively. The station on Fremont Avenue North and West Broadway is close enough to what's is generally considered to be "the bad part of town"--sometimes translated as "where black people live." Will any suburban commuters swallow perceptions and stereotypes and venture in for cheap fuel?

Even money says they're more likely to drive out to the casino.

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at August 31, 2005 7:12 PM | Comments (1)

 

Minneapolis primary primers

Filed under: Minneapolis

It's less than two weeks before the September 13 political primaries. While Minneapolis isn't quite a one-party town, the DFL is dominant enough for the primaries to be more important than the general election in determining the eventual winner in some races.

Minnesota Public Radio ran an informative, succinct story on how a proposed highrise development in Uptown is affecting the primary race in Ward 10. And the bi-weekly Southwest Journal and its sister publication the Skyway News have put together a strong package of stories for their respective voter's guides. The SWJ features previews of the primaries in Wards 10, 7, 13, and 8. There is only one contested primary race in Skyway's circulation area--Ward 3. But in addition to a preview of that contest, Skyway includes rewarding features that are also in SWJ, regarding cops and public safety, the smoking ban, and the pension mess in Minneapolis. The city's best parks board reporter, Scott Russell, chimes in on relevant park board races. Even the taxing and library board candidates are covered.

Posted by Britt Robson at August 31, 2005 5:08 PM | Comments (0)

 

Whites only in Edina

Filed under: Suburbs

Next month The New Press will publish James W. Loewen's book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. It's an eye-opening account of how hundreds of towns across the country systematically removed blacks and other minorities--often through violent means--during the first half of the 20th century.

What's particularly striking is that the overwhelming majority of these cleansed municipalities were not in the Jim Crow South, but rather spread across the northern half of the country. "While African Americans never lost the right to vote in the North (although there were gestures in that direction), they did lose the right to live in town after town, county after county," Loewen writes in the introduction.

One of the municipalities singled out for particular attention by Loewen is Edina, Minnesota. He points out that prior to the establishment of Edina just after World War I there were quite a few blacks living in what was then known as Richfield Township. This was largely owing to the fact that there was a Quaker village in the area that openly embraced minorities.

Loewen relies primarily on a history of the town written by Deborah Morse-Kahn. Here's the chief passage dealing with Edina:

Then, just after World War I, Samuel Thorpe developed "the elegant Edina Country Club residential district," as Morse-Kahn correctly describes it, "with restrictive deed covenants in place." Now Edina's African American community "would feel estranged. Thorpe Brothers' building restrictions guaranteed to any buyer, in an era when municipal zoning was nonexistent, that their property would be 'safe' from devaluating circumstances, stating that blacks were explicitly ineligible to buy in the district." According to Joyce Repya, associate planner for Edina, deeds carried various restrictions such as "No fuel storage tanks above ground," "No shedding poplars, box elders, or other objectionable trees," and most important, the racial exclusionary clause. ... And unlike all other restrictions, which phased out in 1964, the restriction to "the white or Caucasian race" continued in force forever. "By the late 1930s," in Morse-Kahn's words, "virtually all of Edina's black families had moved into Minneapolis and an historic era had ended for the village." At that point Morse-Kahn goes on, anti-Semitism, which had been virtually unheard-of in Edina before the First World War became a haunting hallmark of Edina life. As late as the end of the 1950s, potential buyers known to be Jewish were often openly turned away by realtors and requested to look for residential property elsewhere."

Loewen does note later in the book, however, that Edina no longer remains all white, as do many of the sundown towns that he chronicles. According to the 2000 census, there were 546 African Americans living in the wealthy suburb, out of a total population of 47,425.

Posted by Paul Demko at August 31, 2005 3:53 PM | Comments (2)

 

Mayor: "most likely thousands" dead in New Orleans

Filed under: National

1:20 P.M. - (AP) Mayor Ray Nagin says at least hundreds of people are dead -- maybe thousands -- in New Orleans. "We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and others dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Asked how many, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

Read the WDSU-TV dispatch here.

Read updates at WWL's blog here.

At this hour, there are 1254 missing persons posts at nola.com.

Posted by Steve Perry at August 31, 2005 1:55 PM | Comments (0)

 

Fox: 17th Street canal levee break now 500 feet wide

Filed under: National

"To repair damage to one of the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, t he Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags Wednesday into the 500-foot gap in the failed floodwall. But the agency was having trouble getting the sandbags and dozens of 15-foot highway barriers to the site because the city's waterways were blocked by loose barges, boats and large debris. Officials said they were also looking at a more audacious plan: finding a barge to plug the 500-foot hole."

Yesterday it was reported to be 200-300 feet. Story here.

Go here to see a very good slideshow posted at WWL-TV's website, including photos of the 17th Street canal levee break such as the one linked above.

Around noon today, the Army Corps of Engineers claimed that water levels between the canal and the city had equalized and that no more water was flowing into the city for the time being.

Posted by Steve Perry at August 31, 2005 12:25 PM | Comments (0)

 

Property Damage: One billion dollars!

Filed under: National

One of the more ridiculous aspects of natural disaster media coverage is the property damage estimates that inevitably emerge within hours of the pertinent event. In the present circumstances the absurdity of such projections has been magnified as the situation has rapidly devolved from a fairly routine hurricane to an emerging national disaster.

A quick search of the Nexis database shows that the figures have fluctuated wildly in the last 72 hours, providing absolutely no useful information to the public. CNNMoney reported on Monday that "risk modeling firm" Eqecat initially estimated that insurance companies would be hit with between $15 billion and $30 billion in damages. But the company then twice downgraded that figure within hours of Katrina hitting land, eventually settling on $9 billion to $16 billion.

By Tuesday morning the media seemed to have collectively agreed-- through some unknown process probably not unlike picking numbers on a roulette wheel--on the figures of $10 billion to $25 billion. Of course this is such an engulfing range that it renders the information completely useless.

Over the last 24 hours, as the situation has dramatically worsened, media outlets have hastened to ratchet up their damage projections. By 6 p.m. yesterday CNN was announcing that damages were expected to top $25 billion, while other outlets reported that the insurance costs could now reach $34 billion. This morning the Philadelphia Inquirer declared Katrina the "most expensive hurricane in the nation's history," with the property damage tally upped to $40 billion.

Perhaps they're taking bets on the final figure in Vegas. For the record, risk modeling expert Paul Demko projects that Katrina will ultimately cost insurance companies $118,434,327,612.43.

Posted by Paul Demko at August 31, 2005 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

 

Superdome refugees to be evacuated to Astrodome

Filed under: National

As late as yesterday afternoon, officials were still saying that non-critically ill refugees at New Orleans' Superdome would likely be there for up to a week. This morning Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco announced they would be moved by bus to Houston, where many will be sheltered in Houston's Astrodome. "Time is of the essence," she said at a press conference that just concluded on WWL-TV. "It's critical that we move quickly."

Regarding the levee breach that has necessitated the immediate evacuations, Blanco said this in an earlier TV interview: "The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Blanco said on morning TV. "The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it, but it's like dropping it into a black hole." [Read the WWL-TV post.]

The sense of urgency is heightened by fears that New Orleans may be hit this morning by a major southbound surge of water from the north side of Lake Pontchartrain, where hurricane winds pushed a great deal of water on Monday.

Posted by Steve Perry at August 31, 2005 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

 

CNN goes off the deep end

Filed under: Media

Lately, CNN has felt like the Democrats of the major news outlets, and that's not because they're supposedly the "liberal" alternative to Fox News. (They're not.) Like the dems, the first 24-hour news channel is struggling with its identity: Who are we? What does "news" mean in the new millennium? How can we compete with the internet and citizen journalists? The answer: Pander to the lowest common denominator and rely on the human element, the "tragedy," if you will, to exploit, err, tell, the real story.

Never has this been more apparent than in the last three days, as the currently self-titled "Hurricane Headquarters" posts videos on cnn.com with slugs like, "Watch the video account of unanswered screams," "See knee-deep and rising water in the French Quarter," and perhaps the most egregious, "Watch the video report of a husband whose wife slipped from his grip." With titles like that, they might as well have exclamation points and be packaged as the first in a series of the World's Most Extreme Videos. That is, after all, what CNN is selling.

In a report by Jeanne Meserve (which has been edited down to a "video account of unanswered screams,") she details horrific stories of victims left alone on rooftops, finding a woman with a severed leg, and spotting dogs, near death, that have been tangled in electrical wire. She tells her account through tears (we can watch this story only after first sitting through a 30-second Ditech commercial), as anchorman Aaron Brown goads her with probing questions like, "Are these middle-class neighborhoods?" and "Are police able to communicate in any way with these people who are stranded, scared, hungry, cold, and desperate?"

He only left out one adjective here, and that's "news." At the end of Meserve's story, Brown prods her further about what she sees: "The crew was extraordinary," she says, crying again. "It was a heroic piece of work by CNN employees." And then the story ends. A perfect kicker to emphasize CNN's commitment to getting the story first. Yes, that's the word to describe the efforts of reporters scrambling to get the most harrowing tale to video as soon as possible while workers try to rescue victims from rooftops: heroic.

Posted by at August 31, 2005 10:20 AM | Comments (0)

 

The worst case after all: we're losing New Orleans

Filed under: National

News outlets have carried almost nothing but Katrina dispatches and video footage since the hurricane came aground Monday morning, but in the past 24 hours they've been surreally slow to elucidate what's going on in New Orleans following the break of a critical levee on Lake Pontchartrain either late Monday or early Tuesday.

That levee break was said to be from 200-300 feet wide at Tuesday midday--as far as I know, no one has broadcast aerial pictures of it, though there have been repeated images of the less consequential Industrial Canal breach, some of them passed off as pictures of the Pontchartrain canal break--and elementary hydraulics dictate that the breach will only widen as long as it's open. The lake will continue emptying into the New Orleans basin below it at an increasing rate until either a) the levee break is closed, or b) the water level inside the basin is equal to the water level in the lake. In that event, the city is a total loss. Forget water damage per se; the toxicity of the former site of New Orleans would be staggering both in terms of chemical pollutants and organic ones--the most virulent and dangerous body of water in the world, sitting in a natural bowl below sea level that cannot drain itself.

So how are efforts to close the levee going? Late last night the cable networks reported that an initial effort to dam the breach with sandbags had failed, and that heavy military equipment was supposed to arrive on-site late in the night and begin work today. A regional Homeland Security official, Mark Smith, told the Shreveport Times on Tuesday, "That breach is not going to be fixed today, tomorrow, or the next day." (See this MSNBC dispatch.)

There is no overstating the magnitude of this disaster. Those $25 billion damage estimates still being circulated are ludicrous--a Mississippi congressman told Fox News there is that much damage in his state alone. Fifty billion won't begin to fix New Orleans. Much of the city is already destroyed, many of its buildings structurally undermined and the rest so profoundly contaminated they will have to be razed in any event. And if the basin keeps taking on water, the same will eventually be true of all but the tiny portion of the city that is above sea level, mostly at the southern edge along the Mississippi River levee.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has stood head and shoulders above practically every other official in the clarity and candor of his public comments. Last night on CNN, he said simply, "This is the bowl effect that you hear people talk about... and now the bowl is filling up."

We will post more notes and links about storm damage, and particularly the levee breach in New Orleans, through the day today. Here's a note from New Orleans TV station WDSU on the levee-plugging effort this morning.

And here are the NYT and WashPost's pretty-good levee break stories from this morning.

Watch the WWL-TV live feed here.

Posted by Steve Perry at August 31, 2005 9:05 AM | Comments (0)

 

8/31: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Former New Orleans resident Peter S. Scholtes has Katrina updates, including an interview with Phil Frasier of the Rebirth Brass Band at Complicated Fun.

THESE DAYS

In 2004, the ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of a production (i.e., non-management) worker was 431-to-1, up from 301-to-1 in 2003, according to "Executive Excess," an annual report released Tuesday by the liberal research groups United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies.

You can follow the New Orleans/Katrina tragedy at the WWL-TV blog.

Pope Benedict XVI faces his first controversy over the direction of the Catholic church after it was revealed that the Vatican has drawn up a religious instruction preventing gay men from being priests.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

If you're interested in conservation, birds, blowers, gardening, and bat houses, check in with St. Paulite Darlene at Nature Info.

TIME WASTERS

Minnesota State Fair photos at Flickr

Steve Gilliard at his News Blog hands out Kombat Keyboard Badges to those pundits who advocate the Iraq War, but refuse to serve or have family members serve, when eligible.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"None of your fucking business."

-- a patron at the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, to FOX News anchorman Shepard Smith, when asked on live television what he was still doing at the hotel as Hurricane Katrina was approaching

"What are these Bush Republicans afraid of? Dirty looks from the help at the country club?"

-- Pundit Pat Buchanan on Bush's stance on allowing Mexican immigrants to cross into the United States illegally

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 31, 2005 6:47 AM | Comments (0)

 

Meth: Is it really Minnesota's biggest drug problem?

Filed under: Crime

That's what the Star Tribune wants readers to believe. It's right there in the lede to today's explainer piece about about meth lab toxicity. Without citation, reporter Karen Yousa bluntly asserts that meth is "Minnesota's biggest drug problem." Sounds scary. But is it true?

Not by most available statistical measures. Consider, for instance, the Hazelden Foundation's most recent report on drug abuse trends in the five county metro area, home to about half the state's population.

According to the June 2005 survey, meth addiction accounted for approximately ten percent of all admissions to treatment programs in 2004. That's a record high for meth. But it is still 3 percent less than the admissions attributed to cocaine and almost 10 percent less than those attributed to marijuana. Meanwhile, the survey found that cocaine abuse resulted in some 3,046 metro area emergency room visits, compared to just 874 for meth. As to fatal overdoses, the state's "biggest drug problem" produced just 20 deaths, which places it far behind both opiates (72) and cocaine (49).

Of course, any honest reckoning of the relative menace posed by various drugs ought to take into account alcohol. In 2001, according to a Minnesota Department of Health report, the adult beverage industry claimed more than 1,300 lives (and cost the state more than $4.5 billion).

One final note: according the Hazelden report, meth overdoses, meth lab busts and reports of children affected by meth labs all declined slightly in 2004.

Posted by Mike Mosedale at August 30, 2005 2:19 PM | Comments (1)

 

New Orleans: levee breaks swamping city

Filed under: National

You've probably already heard or seen coverage of the two levee breaks in the wall separating Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans; the rupture in the 17th Street Canal levee is now over 200 feet wide. The best continuing coverage we've seen--besides Fox News, which has roundly kicked the asses of CNN, MSNBC, and the broadcast networks--is from New Orleans' CBS affiliate, WWL-TV. The station's website is here; its live blog is here.

Posted by Steve Perry at August 30, 2005 1:25 PM | Comments (3)

 

8/30: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Steve Monaco has last week's Monday Movie Quiz winners at Couch Pundit.

THESE DAYS

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has filed a lawsuit to force top makers of potato chips and french fries to warn consumers about a potential cancer-causing chemical found in the popular snacks.

A former Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.

David Smith Sr., who already holds a world record for the longest distance traveled by a human fired from a cannon, added to his list of cannonball coups Saturday by shooting across the U.S-Mexico border.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

A Minnesota family joins Cindy Sheehan at Camp Casey. Follow their story at EllaGoes. [via Norwegianity]

TIME WASTERS

Hurricane Katrina photos at Flickr

Why do they do it? Cuz they're cool and kitty-shaped: Cats in Sinks

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"I want to live a nice life, have money, be rich, have a BMW and cellphone."

-- 16-year-old Zodwa Mamba, vying to become the King of Swaziland's 13th wife

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 30, 2005 6:49 AM | Comments (0)

 

Jobs Scam: A Q&A With Greg LeRoy

Filed under: Q&A

Greg LeRoy is the founder of Good Jobs First, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that works to insure that companies receiving public subsidies create decent jobs. His latest book, The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation, was published last month. LeRoy will be in town on Monday for a Labor Day event. I caught up with him by telephone this morning.

Paul Demko: You're going to be here for Labor Day? What's the purpose of the visit?

Greg LeRoy: I'm going to be speaking to the Labor Day rally, which I guess is the big statewide hoo-hah sponsored by the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. And then I'll be giving a workshop the following morning, Tuesday morning, to groups in the Twin Cities area about community benefit agreements.

PD: What are community benefit agreements? Why are they a good thing?

GL: These are project specific contracts between developers and local coalitions, usually composed of both community and labor groups, to make sure that big new development projects really benefit the local neighborhood. They provide for things like local hiring, living wages, maybe affordable housing set asides. There could be environmental cushioning, if you will: traffic management, open spaces, environmental design concessions. Depending very much on what the community identifies as needs there could be set asides for particular kinds of services, like a child care center or a community medical facility or other things that the community may identify as underrepresented in the community. They're quite flexible.

PD: Is there an example of a municipality where these have been effectively implemented that comes to mind?

GL: Los Angeles has done it eight times now. There's a group called the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy that really pioneered these things starting several years ago. The two biggest deals they've done involved the expansion of the Staples Center, the big entertainment sports complex where the Lakers play. And more recently the expansion and modernization of LAX International Airport. Two really big projects, one all private sector, one a public authority. But typically it's a deal between a private developer and a community coalition. What happens is the community coalition does not support any economic subsidies for the project until they get their agreement with the developer. Then they publicly support the assistance from the city for the project and the community benefit agreement is actually appended to the redevelopment agreement between the city and the developer so that it becomes legally enforceable. So there's really a triangular relationship here. The trouble is, historically, it's just a bi-lateral relationship. It's just a developer dealing with the city. There's no real formal community input.

PD: You detail at the start of the book 14 different scams by which businesses basically soak the taxpayers in the name of job creation. Number four on the list is "Take the Money and Run," where you highlight the exploits of Sykes Enterprises, which operates call centers across the country. One of those facilities was in Eveleth, Minnesota, where the company got more than $4 million in public assets in 2000 and then turned around and closed the call center two years later. Explain how this scheme works.

GL: They pretty much state publicly that in order to get them to locate a call center you have to give them free land and incentives of at least $2.5 million. The problem is call centers are not capital intensive. You're bringing in switchboards and headsets and linking up a fiber optic phone line. Which makes them incredibly easy to shut down and move. If the community doesn't have a claw-back in place--if there's no safeguard attached to the money saying if you don't stay for X number of years and create X number of jobs for X period of time--then it's all a wing and a prayer, so to speak. It appears to us that that's what's happened over and over again. It just looks like a lot of communities got burnt.

PD: Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has implemented the Job Opportunity Building Zone Program. It's basically an empowerment zone program. Are you familiar with it? What to do you think of that program?

GL: I'm quite critical of it. The main concern we have is that it's pro-sprawl. We did a study called, "Another Way Sprawl Happens," where we chronicled 29 corporate relocations from Minneapolis and other inner-ring suburbs to the very fringe of the metro area in Anoka County. Well now with the JOBZ program why wouldn't a company looking for another sweetheart deal leapfrog yet again to the next county north if that was a JOBZ eligible county?

Enterprise zones, even at their best, if you're being intellectually honest about them, are simply designed to move activity around within a metropolitan area. There's no claim of net new creation of economic activity. You're talking about rural areas that are already hard hit and aren't experiencing a lot of job growth doing something to simply move them around and then reduce their tax liability for moving. It strikes me as a double loser. You could be dislocating workers at existing workplaces and you're reducing your tax base that's there to sustain the pubic goods that you need to attract other employers. To me you want to focus on making the county a more attractive place to do business--to grow your existing job base and to attract new employers--not just shuffle the deck and deplete your tax base at the same time.

PD: You say in your book that in the last three decades in particular we've seen the proliferation of these sweetheart job-creation deals. Is there anything in particular that changed nationally that allowed this to happen?

GL: I think it was a raft of things that came together. It was the beginning of the issuance of business studies, especially coming from Grant Thornton. It was the maturation of the site location consulting industry, with Fantus Company and it's competitors that really had matured by then and were moving hundreds of companies a year by then. I think it was the ramp up activity of the Council on State Taxation, dueling with the Multistate Tax Commission. From the mid-70s through the mid-80s, you had this very heightened debate. Basically Grant Thornton said to states like Minnesota, We will rate you negatively until you get more like the south, until you enact more giveaways and get rid of your labor friendly legislation. I think a lot of damage got done in that period. The number of states with a lot of giveaways on the books really mushroomed in that 10-year period.

PD: We have a Ford plant here in St. Paul that builds Ranger pick-up trucks. Ford generally has had a horrible year, in terms of sales, and the Ranger in particular has suffered. There's a discussion going on about how to keep this manufacturing plant open and talk about what kind of subsidies the state might provide to Ford. What would your advice be heading into this process?

GL: Fuel efficiency, fuel efficiency, fuel efficiency. Long ago I think any incentives granted to any auto plant by any level of government should have been conditioned on development of more fuel-efficient models. It's so predictable watching Ford and GM lose market share now with hybrids. It's like this slow motion train wreck playing out over the last 30 years. I just think supporting a retooling effort that speaks to a more fuel efficient future is huge right now. If you agree with the analysis that we're headed toward permanent price pressure on gasoline because of rising demand in places like China I just don't see how you survive without a more fuel-efficient model.

Posted by Paul Demko at August 29, 2005 5:10 PM | Comments (0)

 

"A health care system that leaves its citizenry pulling out their teeth with pliers"

Filed under: Health Care

Anyone who pays much attention to such matters knows that there are terrible problems with the American health care system. But nobody explains it any better than the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell. In "The Moral Hazard Myth," the redoubtable Gladwell dissects the flawed theoretical underpinnings of the private insurance model, which, as he explains, rests chiefly on an exceptionally dim view of human nature. Gladwell's treatise ought to be required reading for every member of the U.S. Congress; check that, it ought to be required reading in every high school civics class. But if you are in a rush to get your blood boiling, this stat-laden excerpt should tide you over until you have a chance to read the story in its entirety.

Gladwell writes:

[T]he United States has opted for a makeshift system of increasing complexity and dysfunction. Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world’s median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries. American life expectancy is lower than the Western average. Childhood-immunization rates in the United States are lower than average. Infant-mortality rates are in the nineteenth percentile of industrialized nations. Doctors here perform more high-end medical procedures, such as coronary angioplasties, than in other countries, but most of the wealthier Western countries have more CT scanners than the United States does, and Switzerland, Japan, Austria, and Finland all have more MRI machines per capita. Nor is our system more efficient. The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year—or close to four hundred billion dollars—on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita. And, of course, every other country in the industrialized world insures all its citizens; despite those extra hundreds of billions of dollars we spend each year, we leave forty-five million people without any insurance. A country that displays an almost ruthless commitment to efficiency and performance in every aspect of its economy—a country that switched to Japanese cars the moment they were more reliable, and to Chinese T-shirts the moment they were five cents cheaper—has loyally stuck with a health-care system that leaves its citizenry pulling out their teeth with pliers.

Posted by Mike Mosedale at August 29, 2005 1:50 PM | Comments (0)

 

New Times to take over City Pages?

Filed under: Media

According to new documents obtained by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, "The nation's two largest alternative newspaper publishers have been in intense negotiations over a merger that would create an 18-paper chain controlled to a significant extent by venture capitalists." Click above for the article, and here at Culture to Go for more background.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at August 29, 2005 1:25 PM | Comments (0)

 

Katrina Update: From New Orleans to the Mississippi coast

Filed under: National

Hurricane Katrina, now a Category 2 storm, has moved past New Orleans and is heading toward the Mississippi coast. Early reports from New Orleans include the previously mentioned pump failure, leading to water six feet deep on the east side of the city. In the French Quarter, water is pooling in the streets, but it appears to have escaped the catastrophic flooding that was predicted last night. Breitbart.com reports: "On Jackson Square, two massive oak trees outside the 278-year-old St. Louis Cathedral came out by the roots, ripping out a 30-foot section of ornamental iron fence and straddling a marble statue of Jesus Christ, snapping off only the thumb and forefinger of his outstretched hand."

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 29, 2005 12:56 PM | Comments (1)

 

Katrina Update: Water rises in NOLA as pumps fail

Filed under: National

Parts of New Orleans are flooded with up to six feet of water after some of the pumps that protect the low-lying city failed under the onslaught from Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin stated the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, on the east side of the city, was under five to six feet of rising water after three pumps failed. National Weather Service has also declared "total structural failure" in some parts of metropolitan New Orleans. About 50 minutes ago, as the western eye wall was passing over the city, Katrina was downgraded to a Category 3 storm with winds up to 120 miles per hour. The storm's eastern eye wall was approaching Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi, where roofs were being pulled off of structures and boats were floating in the streets.

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 29, 2005 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

 

Katrina Update: Category 4 storm hits New Orleans

Filed under: National

Better news for New Orleans as Katrina hit landfall this morning as a Category 4 versus Category 5 hurricane. National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield warned that New Orleans would be pounded throughout the day, but Katrina would most likely unleash a 15-foot storm surge, down from the feared 28 feet. Mayfield stated this surge would still cause extensive flooding. The wind continues to damage the Lousiana Superdome, tearing pieces of metal from the roof, exposing the 10,000 non-evacuees to daylight and rain. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, however, does not consider the dome a "dangerous situation" in which to weather the storm.

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 29, 2005 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

 

Katrina Update: Hurricane crashes ashore, Superdome roof leaking rain

Filed under: National

Hurricane Katrina reached land about an hour and a half ago near Empire, Louisiana, 55 miles southeast of New Orleans. The storm is moving north at 15 miles an hour and, while New Orleans will take a hit, coastal Mississippi is expected to bear the brunt of the storm. The latest news from CNN is that the roof of the Louisiana Superdome, a shelter for 10,000 residents who couldn't evacuate, is leaking rain.

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 29, 2005 8:40 AM | Comments (0)

 

8/29: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Steve Monaco has your Monday Movie Quiz at Couch Pundit.

Jack Sparks responds to Diablo Cody's State Fair post at the Other Side of Country.

THESE DAYS

Thailand's leader is trying to ferret out a government minister who allegedly had a penis enlargement, saying news of it is affecting the Cabinet's reputation.

The 43-year-old virgin

Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, wants a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to apologize for Pat Robertson's assassination remarks. I'd run him through the metal detector at the airport a couple times, just to make sure.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

A Minnesotan currently living in Australia authors a blog, the title I keep misreading: pantryraider.

TIME WASTERS

The Cyborg Name Generator. Construct Optimized for Repair and Efficient Yelling at your service.

Mark your calendars, October 9 is National Porn Sunday. The anti-porn event includes prayer and the viewing of a film called "Missionary Positions."

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"The president has been anti-science for a long time. This is the most antiscientific regime that I've seen in America in my lifetime. I'm a trained physician, as you're aware. I'm insulted by that. It's going to harm America. What serious business is going to invest in America if a scientific education is influenced by politics? Science ought to be taught as science. If you want to teach religion, that's a separate debate. But science should be taught as science."

-- DNC Chair Dr. Howard Dean, weighing in on the Intelligent Design/evolution debate

"We'll hunt down your king. It doesn't make any difference where he tries to hide... You're doomed to spend eternity in hell. All you Swedes and your Swedish king and his family."

-- radical cleric Fred Phelps, declaring a war on the gay-friendly Scandinavian country

"This lady (Sheehan) and the groups that have been demonstrating in front of the president's ranch in Crawford and following him around are the very same people that were the dropout, turn-on, anti-war peace activists back [in the Vietnam War era]. They still have this crazy notion that by just being peaceful and maybe toking up or something like that -- it's like an ostrich with its head in the sand -- maybe the danger and the bad guys will go away and leave you alone, which is not gonna happen."

-- Pop music dinosaur Pat Boone, calling Cindy Sheehan a pot-smoking hippie

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 29, 2005 6:46 AM | Comments (1)

 

Out to the ballgame

Filed under: National

Sam Smith at Undernews led us to a Philadelphia Inquirer story about going to a baseball game where a culture war broke out. For the past three years, the Phillies have sponsored Gay Day at Citizens Bank Park, this year featuring the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus performing the National Anthem and Cyd Ziegler of Outsports.com throwing out the first pitch. A confrontation erupted in the upper deck between a fundamentalist Christian group, Repent America, and fans from a gay pride group. Repent America's Michael Marcavage and another man held a sign that read, "Homosexuality Is a Sin, Christ Can Save You" at the top of Section 303 in right field. Fans in the section stood up in an attempt to obscure the banner. Police officers and Phillies officials escorted Marcavage out of the grandstand at the end of the sixth inning in accordance with the Phillies policy of forbidding banners that contain "fighting words likely to provoke a breach of the peace." Read the complete story here.

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 26, 2005 9:52 AM | Comments (0)

 

8/26: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

THESE DAYS

Punk legends John Lydon and Jimmy Pursey got into a fist fight outside the U.S. embassy in London as they waited in line for visas along with The Proclaimers.

A New York man who was ordered to transfer the domain name fallwell.com to the Rev. Jerry Falwell will be allowed to keep the Web site, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled Wednesday.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

The Minnesota State Fair is in high gear, which means time to check in with Brian at My Pronto Pup.

TIME WASTERS

Just in time for Christmas, McFarlane Toys is putting out some sweet Napoleon Dynamite action figures.

Nerd Boot Camp Huzzah!

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies."

-- Thomas Cadmus, American Legion national commander, encouraging Cindy Sheehan to write to her member of Congress

"You're always going to have nutcakes out there, no matter what you do."

-- Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), describing the participants of a recent Salt Lake City anti-war protest

"This is really the dream team of airline maintenance groups."

-- Northwest chief executive Doug Steenland, touting the quality of the airline's replacement workforce

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 26, 2005 6:24 AM | Comments (0)

 

8/25: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

THESE DAYS

The current warming trends in the Arctic may shove the Arctic system into a seasonally ice-free state not seen for more than one million years, according to a new report. The melting is accelerating, and a team of researchers were unable to identify any natural processes that might slow the de-icing of the Arctic.

Volvo is experimenting with a built-in breathalyzer and speed governor to reduce road accidents.

A 73-year-old veteran wore a stylish "Bullshit Protector" over his ear during President Bush's VFW speech in Idaho recently.

There are 490 female students at Timken High School, and 65 are pregnant, according to a recent report in the Canton (Ohio) Repository.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

A critical view of local and national politics can be yours from a Democrat named Fang at The Minnesota Critic.

TIME WASTERS

Nizlopi have a somewhat cheesy father-son song called "JCB" with a kickin' flash video.

Audio hilarity ensues when five of the most-recognized movie trailer voice-over artists get together to promote the Hollywood Report Key Art Awards.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"When we came back from exile, we thought we were going to improve rights and the position of women. But look what has happened -- we have lost all the gains we made over the last 30 years. It's a big disappointment."

-- Safia Taleb al-Souhail, Iraq's ambassador to Egypt, on the proposed Iraqi constitution

"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States."

-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, target of televangelist assassination plot

"The picture of marriage is the picture of Christian salvation. Any diminishing of that notion - whether homosexual marriage or any other degradation of marriage - is something we must fight in public policy."

-- Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN), speaking to an Indiana Family Institute program, declaring that divorce on demand is as dangerous as gay marriage

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 25, 2005 6:48 AM | Comments (0)

 

The Ugly American

Filed under: International

It didn't take long for United Nations Ambassador John Bolton to remind us all why even a Republican-dominated Congress refused to confirm him, compelling President Bush to ram him down the throats of the people of the world via a recess appointment. In his first public initiative in his new job, Bolton wants sudden, major, and wholesale revisions in a draft document of U.N. reforms that have been the subject of intense negotiations for nearly a year.

According to a piece in today's N.Y. Times, among the things Bolton objects to-- speaking to the world's diplomats as the representative of you, me, and the rest of the American people--are support for the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and an emphasis on disarmament rather than nonproliferation.

If we are ever going to declare victory and get out of Iraq with even a smidgen of national dignity remaining, we are going to need the goodwill of many in the international community who might consider the whole Iraqi thing a tad hubristic and would like nothing better to see us hoist on our own petard. Putting an ass like John Bolton in the mix, demanding that the rest of the world officially acknowledge the right of American empire to destroy the ozone and to stockpile nukes while denying them to others; well, it probably won't help "the reality on the ground" when we haul our tails out of Baghdad come 2006 or 2007.

Posted by Britt Robson at August 24, 2005 11:55 PM | Comments (0)

 

Crazy Like a Fox

Filed under: Economy

Why Northwest Wanted a Strike, and its Mechanics Had No Choice

Here we are in day five of AMFA's strike against Northwest Airlines and, as anticipated, there have been some blown tires and cancellations and safety-related intakes of breath, but the planes are mostly flying, and the mechanics are looking like the house band on the Titanic. For my money, the only real question unanswered is why is it that today Nick Coleman looks like the only member of the local mainstream media establishment who has strapped on any reportorial cojones at all. That this is noteworthy is telling.

Since the strikewatch clock set up by virtually every news outlet of record in these good cities ran down to zero and started ticking upward again, precious little has been reported that goes beyond handicapping the number of planes grounded and local travelers disrupted. Today's Star Tribune does carry one analysis of Northwest's "hardball" position, but it's written by an Associated Press staffer and we're hard-pressed not to conclude that it was plucked from the wires because the New York Times--which Twin Citians can have delivered to their doorsteps, remember--Monday ran a revealing, disturbing background piece.

Over the last 18 months, the airline analyzed every job represented by the mechanics' union at every airport and calculated the skills required to fix each of its planes. It then decided how many of those workers it actually needed and what kind of replacements it would require in the event of a strike.

Northwest officials at each airport were given plans at the beginning of the year spelling out how the airline wanted jobs to be performed. Then, three months ago, the airline began hiring replacement workers, who received extensive classroom and hands-on training in Tucson...

...Northwest also began an effort in Washington to convince federal officials that its plan would work, according to people involved in the discussions.

The airline's management assured the Bush administration that it did not want the president to convene a Presidential Emergency Board, which could order workers back to their jobs in case of a strike, as outlined in the Railway Labor Act. Instead, the airline said, it wanted the chance to carry out its plan.

In other words, the airline saw a chance to get rid of the peskiest of its unions, send a message to the others not to rock the boat, and reinvent its workforce. Not only do the airline's very well compensated brass envision breaking the mechanics union, they envision kicking JetBlue's tailfins when it's all over. No wonder Northwest set terms that were so drastic there was no way, even pride aside, the mechanics could accept them. (On the off chance the mechanics had agreed, the airline wouldn't have had to honor its contracts for long: Following the last round of layoffs, so many AMFA members had been laid off that the average Northwest mechanic is now eligible for AARP membership.)

Mr. Steenland, the Northwest chief executive, said the company would decide over the next week whether the temporary workers hired by the airline would be offered permanent jobs.

Under federal law, the two sides in the strike must be open to continued negotiations. But no matter whether AMFA returns or the replacements stay on, the new work methods "absolutely" will stay in place, Mr. Steenland said.

Now, in a previous era this might very well have caused folks to describe the union work-stoppage as a lockout, a strike that management, by its inflexibility or its refusal to honor the union's contract, makes inevitable. And once upon a time the National Labor Relations Board, which is supposed to sort out labor disputes, would call a lockout a lockout, which is one way (albeit the hard way) pickets would win a strike. Alas, like most everything else about these good United States these days, the NLRB has become captive to the flow of political money and, well, if you've made it this far in this post you read the snippet above where the New York Times reports that Northwest asked the White House not to intervene and, never mind that the rationale for the president's ability to quash airline strikes is the vital importance of unfettered transportation, the White House complied.

No wonder Northwest has been willing to spend more on lobbying and strike preparations than it wants in concessions from its mechanics. Just like the billions it has been willing to spend in a recession to replace its creaky DC-10s and DC-9s, the strike is nothing more than a business expense associated with a long-term restructuring. Northwest has already announced a plan to begin replacing members of the flight attendants' union with much cheaper foreign stewards.

Why haven't the full-time transportation reporters at our local dailies--who certainly read the New York Times--reported this much? Why hasn't the Strib's Mike Meyers, a terrific enterprise reporter with serious airline and business chops? Huh. Maybe Coleman was telegraphing something when he noted that a striking airline mechanic makes about what the Strib's unionized reporters make, and that the captains of industry would like to paint that $60,000-$70,000 salary as luxe living.

The price of Northwest's stock rose yesterday by more than 5 percent. Our stock as a society that values hard work and industry plummeted.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at August 24, 2005 3:42 PM | Comments (0)

 

Ponch and Jon versus the Geek Squad

Filed under: Crime

The black and white "geekmobiles" driven by Geek Squad techs have been a familiar site on Twin Cities streets since 1997. In California, however, the highway patrol believes the black and white paint jobs on the bugs too closely resemble those on California Highway Patrol squad cars. (The black and white VW Beetle became the Geek Squad's official vehicle in 2000.) Geek Squad tech Mark Reardon was recently pulled over near Walnut Creek and fined. The officer cited a state law that prohibits the painting of a privately owned or commercial vehicle to resemble a police car. "Obviously it would be a pretty far shot to mistake a Volkswagen Beetle for a cruiser, but it comes down to protecting our unique color scheme," said Officer Steve Creel, a spokesman for the CHP's Dublin office. All 150 Geek Squad Beetles in California are currently being painted to the CHP's satisfaction. Kevin Cockett, a spokesman for Best Buy, the local electronics giant that purchased the Geek Squad in 2002, stated he was unaware of similar run-ins with the law in other states.

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 24, 2005 1:38 PM | Comments (0)

 

Targeted for termination

Filed under: National

John Wildermuth of the San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday on the efforts of a California consumer group to encourage citizens of that state to boycott Target stores because of their donations to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cory Black of California Consumers United states that while Target is trying to attract more seniors and families by putting pharmacies in their larger stores, the Minneapolis-based corporation also spent $250,000 to back a referendum that erased a law that would have required many California businesses to provide health care for their workers. Since 2004, Wildermuth reports, Target has given $100,000 to Citizens to Save California, which worked to qualify the governor's initiatives for the special election ballot, and $210,000 to the governor's California Recovery Team, a 501(c)(4) public benefit corporation which supports Schwarzenegger's political aims. Target spokesperson Lena Michaud finds the consumer group's radio ad campaign and boycott a bit unusual. "We contribute to political candidates based upon our corporate business agenda and that support is not tied to any one issue," she said. Read Mike Mosedale's previous post on political contributions made by Target and Wal-Mart here.

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 24, 2005 9:55 AM | Comments (0)

 

8/24: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

THESE DAYS

Republicans have scheduled a golf tournament next Wednesday to benefit a legal defense fund set up for DeLay fundraisers Jim Ellis and John Colyandro, both of whom have been indicted on money-laundering charges.

The federal government has cut off funding to a nationwide program that promotes abstinence to teens through skits and music videos, saying the group in charge of the campaign did not adequately separate religion from its message.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Twin Citizen Anne Frasier, the bestselling author of such books as Sleep Tight, Play Dead, and Before I Wake, is blogging at static.

TIME WASTERS

Klingon Fairy Tales

The Beastie Boys have about a dozen a cappella tracks for you to download and mix to your heart's delight.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"It was an incredibly stupid statement and has no reflection on reality... I met with President Chavez on my last visit a couple of months ago and he related that concern to me, about how the U.S. was out to assassinate him. I told him not to lose any sleep about it."

-- Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman reacts to Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez--and not because the U.S. means to kill him in his sleep, honest.

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 24, 2005 6:34 AM | Comments (0)

 

Land of 10,000 french fries

Filed under: Health Care

When it comes to porking out, Minnesota squeezes into the top half of the nation's most obese states, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Trust for America's Health.

Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the group noted that 22.7 percent of the nation's adults could be considered obese during the period from 2001-04, up from 22 percent during the period 2000-03.

Minnesota is almost exactly in the bulging middle of these statistics, ranking 25th nationally among the 49 states surveyed (Hawaii was not counted), with a obesity percentage of 22.6 among its adult population. When you add in people who are overweight but not obese, Minnesota's national ranking rises to 22nd, although its overall percentage of obese/overweight adults, 60 percent, is less than the national average of 64.5 percent. (Here is America's Trust look at Minnesota's specific obesity data, and here is the group's page for Minnesota health in general.)

The report indicates that among regions of the country, Dixie is tubby and New England is svelte. The top five is percentage of obese adults are Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Tennessee. The five least-obese states are Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and Montana. Oregon was the lone state not to see its percentage of obese adults rise from last year.

Posted by Britt Robson at August 23, 2005 5:26 PM | Comments (0)

 

Crime blotter: Pipe jobs

Filed under: Crime

On July 10th, at about 10:30 p.m. St. Paul police officers were called to the former Stroh's Brewery on Minnehaha Avenue to investigate a burglary.

When officers entered the facility, according to a criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court earlier this month, they observed a man inspecting some copper piping running along the ceiling. The suspect was wearing a hard hat, headlamp, and gloves. There were broken hacksaw blades on the ground around him.

The man was eventually identified as Michael Dean Wright, a 38-year-old unemployed resident of Newport. He was subsequently charged with third degree burglary and possession of burglary or theft tools.

Such scenes have become commonplace at the long-defunct East Side Brewery. "I believe this is the sixth case in the last three months and we prosecute all of them," says Curt Lange, administrator for Everest LLC, which owns part of the roughly 25-acre facility. "Many of them have been caught."

Police have been called to the facility 18 times so far this year. Lange estimates that two to three times a week someone breaks into the brewery with the intention of stealing either copper, brass, or steel piping. Local scrap metal yards will pay these freelance entrepreneurs up to a $1.20 a pound for the metals. (See Mike Mosedale's July, 2004 piece for more on this phenomenon.)

Lange attributes the problem primarily to drug usage and slum properties in the surrounding neighborhood. "Most of these people are just crackheads," he says. "It's the absentee landlords; it's the drug dealers. You can not go up Payne Avenue at night without running into drug dealers."

The company has taken numerous steps to try and secure the brewery. They've welded doors shut so that burglars can't enter from the municipal sewer system. Razor wire tops the fence surrounding the facility and logging chains have been attached to the doors. But somehow people continue to find a way in.

On February 7th, for instance, Michael Gilday was in Swede Hollow Park shooting a film with friends when