10/23 Morning Communiqué

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Joan Jett, Edie Brickell, and the Roe Family Singers are just a few of the acts around town tonight. Check out Chuck Terhark's City Planner at Culture To Go for a complete itinerary.

Jim Walsh remembers Runaways drummer Sandy West at Culture To Go.

THESE DAYS

Boy Scouts in the Los Angeles area will now be able to earn a merit patch for learning about the evils of downloading pirated movies and music.

A study comparing wheat grown organically and conventionally found that chemically they were virtually indistinguishable.

Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials contacted the FBI after a former legislator received an anonymous package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland's polls in 2004.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Kevin Anthony Kautzman, Nate, Lennon, Valerie Borey, mnflasher, Michael Medrano, Sal Riley, and Jason Kruger "flash write" about impressions of Minnesota, including working on an assembly line, treasure hunting near Central Avenue, and helping ungrateful mothers at MN Flasher.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

Reduce the saccharine in your system from Cute Overload with a shot of Ugly Overload.

Do the Lurch

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat."

— Iraq war veteran Kevin Tillman, brother of the late Arizona Cardinal and Army Ranger Pat Tillman, in a recent editorial concerning the November 7 elections