In a bid to honor Faribault's favorite son Herbert Sellner, Rep. Patti Fritz (DFL-26B) has proposed a bill (H.F. No. 2354) in the Minnesota Legislature creating a State Amusement Ride, akin to the state flower, drink, muffin, etc., with Sellner's invention, the Tilt-A-Whirl, as the choice. Sellner created the ubiquitous fair ride in his backyard in 1926, and it made its debut at the Minnesota State Fair the following year, one of only nine rides on a Midway that 80 years later would be touted as one of the world's largest.

Herbert's great-granddaughter, Erin Sellner Ward, currently oversees the manufacturing company he formed following the success of the Tilt-A-Whirl. The Sellner Manufacturing Co. produces, on average, 50 rides a year, including other spinning rides, kid-powered mine cars, track rides, and swing rides, for amusement parks around the country. Each Tilt-A-Whirl takes six weeks to construct and costs $375,000. A perfect addition to that water garden in the backyard, next to the cotton candy machine.

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Catwalk Confessional p. IV, Mary O'Regan's online diary about her experiences modeling for next month's Voltage fashion show, has been posted in our Gallery section.

Peter Scholtes has the latest on KMOJ's quest for a new home at Culture To Go.

We remember Saul Swimmer, the director of The Concert for Bangladesh, at Corpus Obscurum.

Cast your ballot now for the Best of the Twin Cities 2007

The City Pages Media Taster lets you actually hear the great music you read about in City Pages—just launch, click, and listen. Simply download the Media Taster and you'll automatically receive a digital mixtape of music on a semi-regular basis (including free MP3s), legal and free of charge.

THESE DAYS

Thousands of harp seal pups have died in eastern Canada due to a lack of ice floes, caused by global warming, conservationists say.

A receptionist for the Affordable Suites of America hotel chain told a South Carolina TV reporter that it's company policy to not rent one-bed rooms to same-sex couples. [via AmericaBlog]

Republican State Sen. Dan Patrick of Texas has proposed that pregnant women considering abortion be offered $500 not to end their pregnancies.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Mike Lyon blogs about his history with the Presidents of the United States, suffering from the Norwalk virus, and buying director Kenneth Anger's camera at Fourteen Seconds.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

Quiz #1: Christian band or Star Trek episode?

Frank Zappa, Charles Grodin, the Replacements, and other celebrities banned from Saturday Night Live

Quiz#2: Arial or Helvetica?

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"I actually buy my own clothes. It's kind of a drag. But I have a new philosophy, now I always wear whatever I'm wearing, the same outfit, for four days, and then I never wear it again. I do change my underwear though."

— actress Cameron Diaz, in case she gets in a car accident

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Cast your ballot now for the Best of the Twin Cities 2007

We remember the monk who helped rebuild Buddhism in Cambodia following the downfall of the Khmer Rouge at Corpus Obscurum.

Download free MP3s from local artists such as Askeleton, the Hopefuls, Chris Koza, M.anifest, the Plastic Constellations, and more at Music To Go.

THESE DAYS

A life-size marble statue of the former glamour model Samantha Fox is to be erected in Serbia after she agreed to sing at a pop festival.

Lawrence Roach agreed to pay alimony to the woman he divorced, not the man she became after a sex change, his lawyers argued Tuesday in an effort to end the payments.

The U.S. is now ranked seventh in the World Economic Forum's league table measuring the impact of technology on the development of nations.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Bob Johnson blogs on east metro politics, civil rights, and the real estate market at A Democracy.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

A CBS News clip on Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign featuring a brief interview with a boyish Karl Rove by Dan Rather [via Norwegianity]

The USPS rolls out its rate hike with 30th anniversary Star Wars stamps. Do they break the rule about living persons appearing on U.S. stamps?

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Undercover Brother's good at karate and all the rest of that, but the Brother can't drive."

— actor/comedian Eddie Griffin, referring to his crashing of a $1.5 million Ferrari Enzo while practicing for a charity race

In this week's cover story package, editor Kevin Hoffman profiles the Minnesota Wild's Derek Boogaard, one of the fiercest players in the NHL. An excerpt: "The Boogeyman streaks at his target like a heat-seeking missile. But then the other player somehow manages to slip out of the way. The Boogeyman slams the glass, shatters it, then continues his trajectory like a passenger ejected through the windshield... The Boogeyman gathers himself, dusts glass shards off his uniform, and looks up at the camera. Although his face is cast in shadows, if you squint, you'd swear he was smiling." Check out the main story here, as well as an extended Boogaard interview, videos of his greatest hits, a photo series of a fight from a recent game, and a Q&A with The Code author Ross Bernstein, them come back here to join the discussion.

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Stephen Litel is left practically speechless after last night's Timberwolves loss at Balls.

Cast your ballot now for the Best of the Twin Cities 2007

The City Pages Media Taster lets you actually hear the great music you read about in City Pages—just launch, click, and listen. Simply download the Media Taster and you'll automatically receive a digital mixtape of music on a semi-regular basis (including free MP3s), legal and free of charge.

THESE DAYS

Authorities have given preliminary approval to grow rice plants that include human genes involved in producing breast milk in the state of Kansas.

In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the United States, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed "Purity Balls."

Philippine police issued a warning to gay officers to not sway their hips or display other suggestive behavior while on duty—or they could risk losing their jobs.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

PiedPiper, Ilya, Anti-Everything, Xtrachromosomeconservative, Mandingo, Archduke F. F., and a Green Cowboy blog about handicapping the presidential race, the Iraq war, and the gas tax at the Pie-Eyed Picayune.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

The Top 15 Unintentionally Funny Comic Book Panels

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Ten Favorite Movie Posters

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Lady, fuck off."

— actor/director Mel Gibson to Alicia Estrada, an Assistant Professor of Central American Studies at Cal State University at Northridge, after she questioned the racist and incorrect depictions of Mayans in Gibson's movie Apocalypto during a film class

Someone just installed a giant window into the corridors of power. The new website OpenCongress.org offers easy access to the entire voting records of America's representatives in Washington—something government websites never really managed to do. Now you can read bills and track their histories, run down campaign contributions, follow legislators in the news, and look up stats such as "Republican most often votes with" (for Democratic Representative Keith Ellison [pictured], one of the site's most viewed lawmakers, that would be fellow Minnesota Representative James Ramstad).

In theory, all this was online already. But the site's one-stop-browsing makes it easier than ever to connect the dots between dollars and votes. Two years ago, the currently tough-on-Mastercard Norm Coleman gave his "aye" to a reform bill making it harder for people with huge credit card debts to file for bankruptcy; the Minnesota Senator called it a "pro-consumer bill" with "overwhelming and bipartisan support in the Senate"—and, indeed, a quick search of OpenCongress.org confirms that just 25 Senators voted against the bill before it passed through the House to become law. One was California Democrat Barbara Boxer, whose own "Republican most often votes with" is—none other than Norm Coleman. No doubt, deeply held moral principles divided these two in this rare instance. But clicking through OpenCongress.org to the pair's respective profiles on the related OpenSecrets.org, you'll notice the RBC Financial Group ($20,625), U.S. Bancorp ($28,600), and Wells Fargo ($40,600) among Coleman's "top contributors." Boxer's list, on the other hand, looks comparatively light on commercial banking interests.

Hillary Clinton, whose No. 1 campaign contributor is Citigroup, Inc., courageously abstained from voting.

With the attention paid to the hazards of coal-fired power plant recently, you asthmatics might want to blame Xcel Energy and other power producers for your hacking and wheezing. Think again. According to a report released last week by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the big bad utilities don't top the list when it comes the release of so-called "respiratory toxicants" in Minnesota.

That dubious distinction belongs to an agricultural outfit, CHS Oil Seed Processing in Mankato. In 2004, according to U.S. PIRG's review of the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory data, CHS released a total of 520,000 pounds of respiratory toxicants at its Mankato plant. Statewide, the report says, industrial facilities released almost 12 million pounds of respiratory toxicants.

Meanwhile, Flint Hill Resources, an oil refinery in Rosemount, tops the list for reproductive toxicants, release an estimated 10,561 pounds of the worrisome chemicals. Another Rosemount company, Spectro Alloys Corporation, which manufactures aluminum alloys, is the state's leading emitter of dioxin (at a modest 2.4 grams). Super Radiator Coils in Chaska leads the overall carcinogen release category at 125,250 pounds.

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CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Cast your ballot now for the Best of the Twin Cities 2007

Download free MP3s from local artists such as Askeleton, Malachi Constant, Hockey Night, Telephone! featuring Lolly Pop, Mach Fox, and more at Music To Go.

THESE DAYS (WILD KINGDOM EDITION)

A woman with three crocodiles strapped to her waist was stopped at the Gaza-Egypt border crossing after guards noticed that she looked "strangely fat."

The orangutan could be virtually extinct within five years after it was discovered that the animal's rainforest habitat is being destroyed even more rapidly than had been predicted.

A specific group of cells in the brains of mice becomes active when they see a potential nesting spot—but only if it perfectly matches their size.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Gomer and Opie are a couple of adopted rescue dogs who, even though they lack opposable thumbs, blog about their lives in Minnesota at Dogs' Aye View.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

Important guidelines to follow if you're a Christian clown in a nursing home

The Millennium Falcon cookie goes great with a tall glass of tauntaun milk [via BoingBoing]

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Any president who says, I don't care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed—if a president really believes that, then there are—what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that... You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment."

— Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

This month the Twin Cities became a safer place for migrating birds. The Department of Natural Resources' Nongame Wildlife Program, in cooperation with other conservation groups, launched the Lights Out Twin Cities Project, an effort to reduce building collisions from birds that migrate during the night in the spring and fall. According to the DNR, millions of birds die each year from flying into highly reflective or brightly lit buildings, or drop dead from exhaustion after circling a bright lights for hours.

The project, similar to programs in New York, Toronto, and Chicago, asks that tall buildings dim or turn off all unnecessary lighting during peak nighttime bird migration hours—midnight until sunrise from March through May. Minneapolis' Wells Fargo Building and the Accenture Building have both signed on. Street-level lighting would be unaffected.

"Reducing bird deaths from collisions will have a positive effect on bird conservation," states Mark Martell, director of Bird Conservation for Audubon Minnesota. "The Lights Out program costs building owners or managers little or nothing to implement and will save energy and money at the same time it saves birds."

Volunteers will also be collecting dead birds around highly trafficked buildings along the West Bank and both downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul for further research.

From the headlines, you'd think there was an epidemic of child abuse going on. Not just child abuse, but fatal baby and toddler abuse. Every week or two this winter, a new account has shocked readers from the pages of the daily papers.

The Star Tribune headlines feel appalling and yet almost monotonous:
"Police investigating death of 5-week-old" (March 21)
"Police investigating baby's death in St. Paul" (March 6)
"Baby Dies From Injuries; Dad Arrested" (February 14

Then there are the old court cases—grievous wrongs that are only now coming through the system:
"Mom Admits Letting Boyfriend on Drugs Care for Son Who Died" (March 6)
"Mother sentenced in toddler's suffocation" (January 27)

Throw in the Mankato parents charged with battering a once-conjoined twin—an headline-grabber if ever there were one—and you'd be forgiven for wondering if it's open season on little children.

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