Minneapolis / St. Paul News Blog

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Did dinosaurs have a separate brain in their behinds? Why is there a "33" on Rolling Rock beer labels? You've got the questions and Cecil Adams is the man with the answers, as we welcome The Straight Dope to City Pages every Friday.

Will you be Pizzaman's friend? He's got a MySpace page.

Atmosphere, Gay Beast, and Lucero are just a few of the acts performing around town tonight. Check out Chuck Terhark's City Planner at Culture To Go for a complete itinerary.

Corey Anderson has a handy guide to knowing when a GOP convention has hit your town at American Idle.

THESE DAYS

China has fired high-power lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory in what experts see as a test of Chinese ability to blind the spacecraft.

The U.S. Navy is due to leave Iceland by the end of this month, ending an American military presence dating back to 1951.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

You can get to Nordeaster Shyestviolet's blog by googling "look at my cankles" or "Blogspot doodyhead Kermit," or you can just click on this link to Is That All You've Got?

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

50 versions of The Girl from Ipanema [via Golden Fiddle]

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Trailer 1A of Casino Royale

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"The Gap is not going to call that agency and say, 'Can I have a 5-year-old who looks like Dolly Parton?'"

— Monica Daniels, director of the America's Beautiful Faces pageant, on modeling scouts shying away from preteen beauty pageants

Of nanny nutritionists and our collective disdain for generation next

One of the "most e-mailed" stories in today's New York Times is an examination of the tension parents and nannies must navigate over the provenance and nutritional sanctity of the little loveys' breakfast bowls and snack packs. The story feints at edginess, making cursory nods at the inevitable class elements and the fact that as cultural currency the topic is firmly wedged between right-thinking and hand-wringing.

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Vampire Hands, Birthday Suits, and Pigeon John are just a few of the acts worth catching tonight. Check out Chuck Terhark's City Planner at Culture To Go for a complete itinerary.

THESE DAYS

The Washington-based Lincoln Group, known for its role in a controversial U.S. military program that paid Iraqi newspapers for stories favorable to coalition forces, has been awarded another multimillion dollar media contract with American forces in Iraq.

The NY Daily News is reporting that "Screech," from the 1990s teen sitcom "Saved By The Bell," is shopping around a 40-minute sex tape in an effort to reignite his career.

ESPN has been accused of covering up jeers directed at former President George H. W. Bush by football fans in New Orleans during the September 25th Monday Night Football broadcast. The 24-hour sports network denies the allegation.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Kevin, Matt, and Ted blog on astronomy vs. astrology, dropping things into the toilet, and post-sex pancakes at Rambling Men.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

Why aren't the youth-size Koren Robinson Vikings jerseys on sale? Or will they be collector's items now that he's a Packer?

Silence of the Lambs bloopers

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"This type of gauze dress... was typical of the kind worn in early 16th century Italy by women who were pregnant or who had just given birth. This is something that had never been seen up to now because the painting was always judged to be dark and difficult to examine."

— Bruno Mottin of the French Museums's Center for Research and Restoration, announcing Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was painted to commemorate the birth of the second son of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Florentine merchant Francesco de Giocondo

The Associated Press is reporting the GOP has chosen Minneapolis-St. Paul as the site for the 2008 Republican National Convention. Also in the running were New York City, Cleveland, and Tampa/St. Petersburg. The convention itself will be held at the Xcel Energy Center, September 1-4. The Twin Cities was rumored to be a leading candidate, along with Denver, for the Democratic Convention, with MSP gaining an edge due to the Mile High City's dearth of union hotels. The DNC has not announced their site choice. State government officials predict a national convention would boost the local economy by about $150 million.

Perhaps the most interesting item in this Minnesota Monitor profile of Minnesotademocratsexposed.com blogger Michael Brodkorb is Brodkorb's admission that he is paid $4583 per month--which works out to four bucks less than $55,000 per year--to be a part-time press consultant for U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kennedy's campaign.

Brodkorb frequently cites his role in Kennedy's campaign when posting items about the U.S. Senate race that polls show Kennedy is losing by a wide margin to DFL challenger Amy Klobuchar. And while the MDE blog is appropriately regarded as place where no attack seems too petty or vile when it comes to belittling Minnesota Democrats, Brodkorb should also be credited with providing a forum for some of the most spirited, and occasionally enlightening, political debates regarding state political issues and candidates. DFL empathizers frequently weigh in to defend their side.

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Chuck Terhark has your Wednesday night all planned out for you at Culture To Go.

THESE DAYS

New Hampshire state officials say a teddy bear dropped into a pool at a Fish and Game Department hatchery earlier this month clogged a drain causing the deaths of 2,500 trout.

"The Boondocks," the comic strip by Aaron McGruder that's currently in reruns, will end in November, Universal Press Syndicate has announced.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Jodi's truck is named Ruby, her iPod's name is Kathleen Turner Overdrive, and her hilarious blog is named I Will Dare.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

Submit a photo of your messy workspace to Uneasy Silence and win an Omni lounge chair.

Knight Rider bloopers

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Literally one moment before you go on, he comes and says hello, and it's like 'Oh, my God,' because he's six feet five, and I find that to be a turn-on—my boyfriend at the time was six four. So unfortunately, the first time I met Bill O'Reilly, it was an attractive thing. I guess I assumed he was a short guy, because he's so pugnacious. He still has the Napoleon complex while being six five—that's what kind of an asshole he is."

— comedian and radio host Janeane Garofalo, recalling her first stint on The O'Reilly Factor, in the October issue of GQ

Poor Rod Grams. He got bounced from the U.S. Senate by daft Mark Dayton, had that Bush brown-noser Mark Kennedy cut in line ahead of him to challenge Amy Klobuchar when Dayton predictibly crashed and burned, and was left with the boobie prize of waging a longshot, not to say hopelessly Byzantine, campaign to try and unseat U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar up in the 8th District, where Iron Rangers have been voting the 78-term incumbent back to Washington ever since he invented the taconite pellet and rode beside Ulysses Grant in the Second Battle of Bull Run.(Actually, Oberstar has served only 16 terms, a period in which he has always received at least 59 per cent of the vote. And, to further set the record straight, he has graciously never claimed credit for inventing taconite.)

So Grams has gone from being a talking head on Channel 9 to one of the silver spoons in the U.S. Senate to persona non recogniza, more invisible than Chevy Chase in that horrible movie with Darryl Hannah, everywhere but a few fur-trapping precincts up in 8th. Until this weekend, when, wonder of wonders, he finally scores a little national pub. And what does it turn out to be for? Casting aspersions on former President Clinton's attempt to kill Osama bin Laden eight years ago. This is one of those cases where the "as long as they spell my name right" rule does not apply.

With the mounting hysteria over lawlessness in Minneapolis, it seems like there are now more new crime fighting proposals in town than crack dealers. Some of the ideas--such as adding more cops--have the virtue of common sense. Others--such as decriminalizing drugs or figuring out how to close yawning economic disparities between the races--seem worthy of consideration. Unfortunately, those seldom gain much traction because the issues raised are too complex and too radioactive.

And then there are the poorly reasoned approaches so often favored by the political class. For instance: the city's unprecedented crackdown on north side housing code violations--things like chipped paint, insufficient driveway gravel and the like--all of which was initiated under the theory that evil-doers will surely be demoralized by a sudden proliferation of well-manicured lawns.

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Chuck Terhark on the Twins clinching a playoff berth at Balls!

Corey Anderson remembers the saxophonist who shouted "Tequila!" in the famous song at Corpus Obscura.

Will Jim Walsh have another Song Du Jour for today at the Walsh Files? Yeah, probably.

THESE DAYS

Disappearing wetlands, pollution, and fungal disease are threatening almost one-third of the world's 5,918 amphibians with extinction.

A Missouri man in Austin, Minnesota, for the "National Barrow Show" is going home without his vanity license plates, which read "PIGGIN," after they were stolen in broad daylight. (scroll down)

NBC has come under fire from the Parents Television Council for editing out some references to God from airings of the Veggie Tales video series.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Andover blogger Chris DeLine posts on music videos, reviews, bootlegs, and concerts, with a ton of MP3s thrown into the mix at Culture Bully.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

A Bag of Leaves for Senate... after awhile the candidate starts to stink, but that's when it actually becomes useful.

The Danielle Steel Book Title Generator

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"That was totally tongue-in-cheek and everyone in the building knew that and everyone laughed."

— Televangelist Jerry Falwell, discussing the Washington breakfast last Friday where he stated a Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential candidacy would energize his constituency more than if Lucifer were running

To every blogger and right-winger concerned with howling over the Old Gray Lady's sins of omission (strange bedfellows are often aligned on this one), Sunday's Op/Ed pages of the New York Times must have seemed like more MSM business as usual. Even so, the paper's round-up of pivotal Senate races around the country was a sign of sorts.

"While my assignment was to write about Minnesota's important Senate race," begins Charles Baxter, a Minneapolis-born author who teaches at the U of M. "I think there's more to be learned right now from the far closer contest in Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District."