April 6, 2008 - April 12, 2008

« March 30, 2008 - April 5, 2008 | Main | April 13, 2008 - April 19, 2008 »

VP Pawlenty Meter: McCain "made up his mind a year ago" to pick T-Paw

Filed under: VP Pawlenty Watch

Will Governor Tim Pawlenty become our nation's next vice president? It's hard to keep track of all the many factors at play. Each week, the VP Pawlenty Meter (TM) provides an odds sheet to ensure you make your best bet.

When last we surveyed the crowded field of VP wannabes, the nomination seemed to be slipping away from T-Paw. After all, McCain was saying there were as many as 20 potential running mates on his mind, and Condi Rice was loudly squawking that she wants the job.

But this week brought an interview with Atlantic odds-makers Marc Ambinder, helpfully transcribed by Minnesota Monitor, in which Ambinder suggests the decision to go with T-Paw may have been made a year ago:

I think there's a fair chance that John McCain picks Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who is a fabulous surrogate for him. Someone that McCain has grown to really like, brings a lot to the ticket in many ways. And someone who people close to McCain say, quite frankly, he had settled on a year ago, and that's one of the main reasons why I bring up the name, not because of any of the tangential or the political factors. It's just that people close to McCain say that McCain had pretty much made up his mind a year ago. And there's nothing so far as I can tell that would have changed McCain's mind.

A lot has happened in that year, and unlike Ambinder, I'm not so sure it isn't enough to change McCain's mind. I'm less thinking of the 35W bridge collapse here and more thinking of the emergence of the "change" narrative and the historical nature of the Democratic ticket. I think this weighs strongly against going with a "traditional" VP candidate like Pawlenty. That said, Ambinder seems to have better sources than us, so we're officially raising the Pawlenty VP Meter to "Yellow," meaning an "elevated" risk of a Pawlenty vice presidency.

Posted by Kevin Hoffman at April 11, 2008 3:06 PM | Comments (1)

 

Alleged Public Masturbator Charged with Indecent Exposure

Filed under: Crime

U of M police charged a Minneapolis man yesterday with two counts of indecent exposure.

In two separate occasions last week, a pair of U of M coeds claimed a middle-aged man sat next to them in the U's Walter Library and began masturbating. Police arrested David Lee Gatson Tuesday evening after the 39-year returned to the library, presumably intent on repeating his performance.

Gatson faces up to one year in prison and/or a fine of $3,000 for each count.

[Cribbed from the Minnesota Daily]

Posted by Matt Snyders at April 11, 2008 2:38 PM | Comments (2)

 

POTD: this is dedicated to Mayor Rybak

Filed under: potholes

Panic has set in at City Hall. Our relentless (i.e. highly sporadic and rather lackluster) expose on the distressed streets of Minneapolis finally elicited a response yesterday from the city's communications department. Here's the rather tepid acknowlegment of the city's burgeoning pothole crisis:

April 10, 2008 (MINNEAPOLIS) While potholes are a problem every spring in Minneapolis, we're seeing a bumper crop this season. High numbers of potholes are popping up throughout town, often in clusters. City maintenance workers are now busy patching up our streets and smoothing out the ride for drivers.

Crews have already been out putting temporary patches on major potholes
for the past several weeks. Now that warmer weather is here, these crews
can focus on more permanent repairs. These repairs take longer to
complete, so drivers need to have some patience while crews make their
rounds.

Reporting problem potholes

The best way to report problem potholes on Minneapolis streets is to
call 311. Having a single point of reporting helps ensure that the
information gets to the right crews in a timely manner, and helps them
prioritize and manage repairs in the most efficient and effective way.

Calls to 311 are answered 7 a.m. to 1 1 p.m., Monday through Friday. For
those who prefer online reporting, reports can also be made by going to
www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us and
selecting "potholes" on the drop-down menu under "report issues &
complaints."

Meanwhile reader Kelly Neisen sent in some photos of this god forsaken stretch of Penn Avenue South (near Highway 62):

Posted by Paul Demko at April 11, 2008 12:36 PM | Comments (3)

 

Breakfast of Champions 4/11

Filed under: Breakfast of Champions

During the limited onstage banter coming from Tapes 'n Tapes last night, there were references to -- what? Sports? Singer Josh Grier inquired about the state of the Minnesota Wild, declaring to the all-ages crows that "we need a championship in this town."

Then, he dedicated a song to the single best hope for that to come true in the immediate future. The band sent "Demon Apple" from their latest release Walk it Off out to Adrian Peterson. Which is funny, because "Walk it Off" was what everyone was thinking when the running back out of Oklahoma went down clutching his knee last year.

DAILY DISH: WHAT'S NEW AROUND THE SITE

Portland alt-folkies Blitzen Trapper and Fleet Foxes came through. Reviews were generally positive, even if the guy from Fleet Foxes hadn't paid much attention to personal grooming. Word is singer Robin Pecknold hadn't removed his hat for three days until just prior to the show. He said this, not me. God, how I miss the West Coast.

At Joystick Division, one thing we're trying to do is offer "Director's Cut" versions of the Game On columns, with added material that is only available online. Here's Gary Hodges' extended remix on a new Viking game.

Tap water, as Aesop Rock once put it, builds character. Local restaurants and Rachel Hutton seem to agree. Give it a try -- it's got to stop smelling like fish soon.

Kerfluffle! I call kerfluffle! There's a gossip columnist in a flap with a MinnMon reporter. Beth Walton and Jonathan Kaminsky (in the comments) have the breakdown. I think Kaminsky's scoreboard contains a sentence of devastating summation ("Writing about this makes me sad and makes a little bit of my brain rot off and drain out through my nose"), even if I don't agree with him that Paul Schmelzer comes off poorly.

All you need to know about the Wolves is contained in this e-mail exchange. I am serious.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 11, 2008 6:45 AM | Comments (0)

 

The Real Scoop: Strib Columnist C.J. doesn't know how to use spellcheck?

Filed under: Media

In a time when news is unfortunately judged by what organization is quickest to the web, Minnesota Monitor has published a spirited e-mail exchange between its writer, Paul Schmelzer, and the Star Tribune’s gossip columnist, C.J., over who scooped whom.

It’s pretty funny considering the lackluster news value of the actual "scoop" itself.

The debate: Who was first to publish that WCCO meteorologist Paul Douglas’ bio was taken off the station’s website?

from Paul Schmelzer
to CJ
4/7/2008 3:19 PM

Hey C.J.
With all due respect, I'm wondering if maybe you didn't break news about Paul Douglas' bio being scrubbed from the 'CCO site. Maybe Strib timestamps don't work properly (or maybe the timestamp changes when you make updates?), but I mentioned it at 2:45 on Friday (yours says 4:47). At any rate, it's a minor scoop either way, and congrats on your recent coverage of the shakeup there.
http://minnesotamoni...
cheers,
Paul

from CJ
to Paul Schmelzer
Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 11:14 AM

I broke it.
Don't believe me. Ask my editor Kathleen Clonts 673.7301.
One colleague congratulated me on the scoop as I was walking down the hallway, about 15 minutes before CBS confirmed it for the story Justin posted. ...

You, do realize the last sentence of your e-mail is charmingly passive-aggressive.

With all the blogs and monitors out there, I'll take a minor scoop. Were it truly "minor" you would not bother to minimize it. Based on the reactions of readers, it was not exactly minor. Excuse my typos. I don't know how work the e-mail spell checker. ~ C.J.

And it goes on and on. "Aggressive aggressive" C.J., as she calls herself, writes three more e-mails to Schmelzer and threatens to put the exchange in her next column.

Nonetheless, C.J.'s column published Thursday mentions nothing of the sort, giving the Monitor the "Scoop" in the latest round of this downright silly journalistic race.

Maybe C.J. was too busy trying to work her spell check?

Minnesota Monitor: 1
Star Tribune: 0

Can't wait for C.J.'s next column.

Posted by Beth Walton at April 10, 2008 10:19 AM | Comments (4)

 

Breakfast of Champions 4/10: That's the breaks

Filed under: Breakfast of Champions

Talking to Marc Bamuthi Joseph, you can feel his sincere passion for art, community engagement and micro-politics. When I say "micro-politics," I mean it in the sense of personal empowerment and liberation.

That can take place on an individual level, with art feeding the soul. It can take place between individuals, as when an accomplished artist like Joseph works with young people. And it can take place on a whole community level, in what Brazilian educator and Joseph influence Paolo Freire calls liberatory pedagogy.

All of which are fine words, but just words. Joseph's work is about action, about combining multiple disciplines into a mixtape for the stage. I spoke with him this week about his show, the break/s. It blends hip-hop music with poetry, dance, film and theater.

His performance premieres tonight at the Walker and runs through Saturday. Don't miss it.

DAILY DISH: WHAT'S NEW AROUND THE SITE

If you're not too depressed over the Wild loss yesterday, check out the various liveblog posts from the game by Ben Palosaari (live at the game) and Kevin Hoffman (from home).

My favorite Alex P. Keaton moment had to be either the time he lip-synched to the Doors, or when he admitted to having a picture of Pat Nixon in his locker. Jeff Severns Guntzel brings back the quintessential Young Republican in a post that adds ... a third candidate for "favorite Family Ties plotline of all time": Alex gets jacked up on amphetamines.

More news from the housing market, with graphical representation.

Hey, that's a nice cheese knife.

If you're the type that listens to the radio, I've got my "what to do over the weekend" spot on 107.1 today at 2 p.m.

Another winter storm watch offers up the following:

"Issued at: 12:46 PM CDT 4/9/08, expires at: 9:00 PM CDT 4/9/08

Winter storm watch in effect from Thursday afternoon through saturday morning, The NWS in the twin cities/chanhassen has issued a winter storm watch, which is in effect from Thursday afternoon through Saturday morning.
A winter storm watch has been issued by the national weather service in chanhassen for central Minnesota and a portion of southern Minnesota, as well as the u.s. Highway 8 corridor in west central Wisconsin, from 1 pm Thursday afternoon through 7 am Saturday morning. This watch includes the communities of alexandria, appleton, fairmont, hutchinson, ladysmith, mora, redwood falls, rice lake, st. Cloud, and the twin cities metropolitan area."

Guess I can't put away the heavy coat yet.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 10, 2008 7:43 AM | Comments (0)

 

Look at that pretty housing map

Filed under: Economy

Yikes. I suppose we can be glad that we aren't Detroit, or one of a number of California or Florida cities. But this is still a cavalcade of lost equity.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 10, 2008 5:28 AM | Comments (0)

 

Breakfast of Champions 4/9: Into the Wild

Filed under: Breakfast of Champions

An elite cadre of City Pages bloggers will descend up the Wild game tonight, like beer-powered locusts. Who knows what carnage, er, coverage will ensue? Prepare yourself with a preview by ESPN.com's Jonah Keri.

Is now the time to tell you about the bet we have with our sister paper, Denver's Westword? No? OK, I'll save it for after we win.

DAILY DISH: WHAT'S NEW AROUND THE SITE

Is Salvia divinorum really such a threat to public health that the currently-legal hallucinogenic plant ought be criminalized? Matt Snyders gave it a whirl. You know, for research.

This week's feature finds a Minneapolis author collaborating with James Earl Ray's brother on a new book -- claiming that the King assassin did not act alone.

While we make the transition between music editors, I'm writing a few features for print. This week's story is about the Twin Cities Battle League, a rapstravaganza at the Blue Nile that I blogged about a few weeks back. There's plenty of fun to be had in the Web extras with this one, including audio, video, Truthmaze's list of some legendary Twin Cities battle rappers, and of course the photo slideshow.

I'm in ur streetz, fixin ur potholez. Look on me, ye mighty holes in the road, and despair. Now taking requests. Demko might have some ideas.

Gossip columnist C.J. ably tackles Paul Douglas' ouster, writes Jonathan Kaminsky. There's some shit-talkin' in the comments, too.

Ward Rubrecht reviews the Eels show at Pantages on Monday.

I have never been to a Minnesota Thunder game, but I imagine they must use AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" as introductory music. Paul Demko doesn't mention this in his preview, but I imagine it's just taken as a given.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 9, 2008 7:46 AM | Comments (2)

 

POTD: Let's hear it for the 651

Filed under: potholes

I've discovered one absolute truth during the last two weeks of (admittedly sporadic) pothole-ology: Minneapolis has a lot more craters in its streets than St. Paul. My efforts to find suitably impressive potholes in the 651 have largely been unsuccessful, while the 612 offers an abundant array of distressed streets to choose from. But in the name of diversity, here's a reasonably formidable swath of destruction discovered on Pascal Street near the Midway Shopping Center.

Posted by Paul Demko at April 8, 2008 6:23 PM | Comments (3)

 

Covering Her Beat

Filed under: Media

C.J. is well known for her prickly--some might say tacky, others might say merely annoying--on-the-clock behavior. I tend to think of her as the Sid Hartman of local TV news coverage: Been doing it forever, bullies people into talking, and is a total suckup to power.

(Sid, by the way, wrote an absolutely amazing column a few weeks back about how he singlehandedly brought the Lakers to Minnesota in the late 1940's, and how it was really he who was running the team as the general manager spent all his time vacationing in Hawaii.

And when I went to Minneapolis Tribune editor Gideon Seymour and sports editor Charles Johnson and told them that the area could get its first major league sport and that Chalfen and Berger weren't going to be interested unless I was a part of it, they said to go ahead, but don't write about the Lakers. Max Winter was brought in as general manager, but everybody knew I was involved, and since Winter spent most of the winter in his Honolulu home, I ran the team.

Score-settling with some dude who's probably been dead for 30 years. Honestly, it's like the most amazing thing ever.)

C.J., like Sid, takes her beat seriously. Unlike Sid, whose books are ghostwritten and whose columns are choppy at best, C.J. seems to be something of an actual writer.

To wit: When the biggest story on her beat in decades went down--the summary firing of the most celebrated local TV news personality of the last twenty years--she was there first to break it (noting that Paul Douglas' name had been taken off the WCCO website's masthead), and then to follow up with a funny, revealing, and forward-looking piece on the man himself.

Douglas said that when Black Monday first happened, his and Laurie's first reaction was: We're moving.

Then they got "stuck in a massive two-hour traffic jam on the Washington beltway after landing at Dulles, and took it as a sign," he wrote.

"We both love to travel, but Minnesota will always be our base, where we hang out most of the year. Too many friends, too many business partners, too good a work ethic, weather far too interesting for me to ever leave again."

Basically, the point here: C.J. wrote a nice column.

It should be said, for the purposes of full disclosure, that I may be biased: When I was in probably third grade, Paul Douglas came to my school and gave a speech to the gathered assembly. Afterward, he took questions. Someone asked him what they should do to get to where he was.

"Honestly," I recall him saying, "and my bosses would be furious if they knew I was telling you this, but read a book."

I've had a soft spot for him ever since.

Posted by Jonathan Kaminsky at April 8, 2008 11:16 AM | Comments (8)

 

I am a powerful man in this town

Filed under: potholes

Yesterday.

Today:

I would like to say that this was me, David Brauer, a wheelbarrow and two shovels. But that would be untruthful, and I want to use my powers for good rather than evil.

Commuters: you're welcome. Next, I would like the ramps at 46th to be re-opened, tap water to stop smelling like fish, and a pony.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 8, 2008 9:12 AM | Comments (4)

 

Breakfast of Champions 4/8: Newspapers are dead (long live the newspaper)

Filed under: Breakfast of Champions

Everybody's talking about media layoffs lately. With good reason: the news has generally been bleak, the country's in a recession, and journalism is in a state of flux. Witness Eric Alterman's long piece on the fate of newspapers in this month's New Yorker, "Out of Print: The death and life of the American newspaper."

(Though this isn't an issue just for newspapers. Check out Jason DeRusha's recent "Good Question" segment for a discussion of layoffs in the TV industry.)

It seems like every time we write about layoffs at the Strib or someplace, people want to know about how alternative weeklies like City Pages are doing. Turn to the Project for Excellence in Journalism report about alternative weeklies for a balanced perspective. Shorter version: no media organization is exactly crowing about the state of the industry, and newspapers generally continue to hemorrhage ad revenue, but alt-weeklies are in less dire shape.

This isn't to say our papers aren't buffeted by the prevailing winds. With the rise of the Web, papers are facing more and more competition for eyeballs -- the eyeballs that are in turn sold to advertisers for profit. Blogs have certainly cut into the core of newspaper audiences and revenue streams, and papers have been slow to adapt.

In general, weeklies have been better about transitioning to the new journalism economy -- because, I think, of our necessarily local focus, our easy embrace of the give-the-paper-away-for-free mentality, and our slightly better attitude toward online media -- but we're still behind, too.

That means the revenue isn't what it was, which in turn means fewer jobs. The effects include creating a freelance economy with more and more writers not protected by health insurance -- which also highlights how scandalous it is that we're the only industrialized democracy without national health care.

The main potential for growth lies online. Given how you're reading this, that should be a fairly easy sell. People are always, I hope, going to want to read. It's more a question of the medium adapting to the audience. Where print readership is down, online readership is way up and continuing to grow. Ad revenue has yet to catch up, but that's why they call it a "transition."

As a sidenote, I've often thought that the blogs-vs.-papers dichotomy was largely false. The reality isn't so stark as one outlet being good and another being worthless. It's a question of what blogs do well, and what papers do well, and how to maximize the strengths of each while undermining the weaknesses. One fact Alterman cites that I think is underreported:

And it is true: no Web site spends anything remotely like what the best newspapers do on reporting. Even after the latest round of new cutbacks and buyouts are carried out, the Times will retain a core of more than twelve hundred newsroom employees, or approximately fifty times as many as the Huffington Post. The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times maintain between eight hundred and nine hundred editorial employees each. The Times’ Baghdad bureau alone costs around three million dollars a year to maintain. And while the Huffington Post shares the benefit of these investments, it shoulders none of the costs.

Tempting as it is to rail against the mainstream media, this is a fair point. Everyone benefits from having original reporting to draw on, which is why it's great to have multiple media outlets covering the same locales. Even if we disagree. Let a thousand bickering flowers bloom as we slouch toward the new media economy.

So how is that new media economy going to look? No one is 100 percent sure, but we can be certain that online media will continue to grow in importance. With less print advertising, there will be less of a "news hole" in the print paper, meaning more and more content will find its way online.

Which is actually good, since papers should have been doing that long ago anyway. From Alterman:

Arianna Huffington and her partners believe that their model points to where the news business is heading. “People love to talk about the death of newspapers, as if it’s a foregone conclusion. I think that’s ridiculous,” she says. “Traditional media just need to realize that the online world isn’t the enemy. In fact, it’s the thing that will save them, if they fully embrace it.”

That's just right.

The newspaper industry is changing, but the "newspaper" as we know it is far from dying. Papers have unique staff resources to offer, especially local papers that focus on stories that matter in their communities. Almost everyone has been late to the dance on the Internet, but embracing Web-based reporting just might be the best hope for the American newspaper's future vitality.

Of course, I would say that, now, wouldn't I?

Speaking of getting more content online, here's what we've got today.

DAILY DISH: WHAT'S NEW AROUND THE SITE

Originally, I thought of making a list of potential names for the Twins stadium would just be a one-off joke. But I actually think Paul Wellstone Park is a pretty good idea.

Our special guest, ESPN.com columnist Jonah Keri, breaks down the Wild in advance of their playoff run.

Neither the Strib nor the Pi Press reached the Pulitzer finals.

The moral of this story, as it often is: fuck Matt Drudge.

Me and MinnPost's David Brauer are going to fill up the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon in this case is at 36th and Nicollet.

Benjamin Polk is back, writing about Rudy Gay's evisceration of the Wolves.

Nate Patrin on stories, tropes and video game narrative.

James Norton relates an amazing moment related to Thai cuisine and dance.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 8, 2008 7:51 AM | Comments (0)

 

Pothole of the day: 4/7

Filed under: potholes

Look at this fucking monster. When I drove my car toward it, I didn't anticipate a bump -- I anticipated a visit to Land of the Lost.

Watch out for Sleestaks, Rick Marshall. We're going in!

When the 46th Street ramps were closed until 2010, I was mildly nonplussed. Little did I know that driving an additional 10 blocks might send me to my subterranean demise, pothole style.

This beauty at 38th and Nicollet is a hole like the Grand Canyon is a hole. The scope, scale and majesty of the crater is so much more. It looks like Paul Bunyan formed it while skipping a rock, likely a meteor. Also, it is in Kingfield, so I'm sure it is somehow Neighborhood Association President David Brauer's fault. But sabotage will not keep me from my appointed rounds. No sir.

Look at the expanse of it! The breadth! While I was taking this picture I saw three small children, a Roosevelt elk and an endangered Minnesota lynx disappear into its surly clutches. I probably should have helped out, but I figured I'd just call Geist instead. So I just drove on, having missed my opportunity to spelunk with the Sleestaks.

Send us your worst potholes. If I get enough, I'll Google Map 'em.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 7, 2008 1:13 PM | Comments (3)

 

Partial Pulitzer list leaked: Strib gets no love UPDATED

Filed under: Media

The Pulitzer Prize committee, which usually leaks like a sieve, has managed to keep the nominations relatively close to the vest this year. But Editor & Publisher did manage to obtain a list of the finalists in four categories, including "Breaking News," for which the Strib was hoping to get honored for its 35W bridge coverage. Somewhere, Nancy Barnes is angry.

Investigative

1. The New York Times -- Toxic Pipeline
2. Chicago Tribune -- Product Safety
3. The Denver Post -- Destruction of Evidence

Explanatory

1. The New York Times -- DNA
2. The Boston Globe -- Global Warming
3. The Oregonian -- Computer chips

Breaking News

1. The Washington Post -- Virginia Tech
2. The New York Times -- Bronx fire
3. Idaho Statesman -- Larry Craig

National Reporting

1. The Washington Post
2. The New York Times
3. Chicago Tribune

Update: It's official, the Strib loses to Washington Post in Breaking News, one of six Pulitzers taken home by the D.C. daily.

Confirmation neither the Strib nor Pi-Press were finalists for Breaking News category:

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: The Idaho Statesman Staff for its tenacious coverage of the twists and turns in the scandal involving the state's senator, Larry Craig, and The New York Times Staff for its swift, penetrating coverage of a fire in the Bronx that killed nine persons, eight of them children.

Posted by Kevin Hoffman at April 7, 2008 10:22 AM | Comments (0)

 

NYTimes "Blogging Kills" article misses key point: health insurance

Filed under: Media

I noticed this New York Times article reprinted in today's Star Tribune. It essentially argues--with much hemming and hawing--that the demands of trying to keep up with the fast-paced world of being a professional blogger are driving people into an early grave.

Here's the nut, where the reporter marshals his (flimsy) evidence:

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

This is by far the most arresting quote:

“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

OK, I think the overall premise of this article is total hooey--to argue that blogging is somehow more physically demanding and health-destroying than, say, working at the dock, building a home, driving a commercial truck, or any one of a thousand other careers is ridiculous. But I do think that blogging has the potential to cause health problems, just for different reasons.

The Times article is all about the rise of the professional class of bloggers. It claims there are "several thousand, even tens of thousands" of professional bloggers who are potentially at risk. But I would argue they're not at risk from the job itself, but rather from the lack of health care coverage that is often the case with being a freelancer.

The rise of blogs--and with it the diminishing of traditional journalism outlets which has led to widespread layoffs throughout the industry--has essentially turned many formerly health-insured journalists into freelance and contract workers who aren't given health insurance unless they pay steep premiums for it out of pocket. The local examples are numerous, whether it be MinnPost or Minnesota Monitor. This mirrors a national trend--correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that major blogs that offer health insurance coverage comparable to what one would find working at a newspaper are the exception rather than the rule.

This issue hits home for me, because one of our writers recently suffered a health issue and had to be immediately hospitalized. Recovering from surgery required a week of convalescence, during which blogging or any other kind of work was virtually impossible (and who wants someone blogging on Percocets anyway?)

Because he worked for a "traditional media" outfit, he had health insurance that covered him, and he was able to take sick days and continue to get an uninterrupted weekly pay check. I can only imagine the impact this health crisis--relatively minor, in the grand scheme of things--would have had on his young family had he been a blogger.

Posted by Kevin Hoffman at April 7, 2008 9:37 AM | Comments (1)

 

Breakfast of Champions 4/7: Viva la Feministas

Filed under: Breakfast of Champions

Last night was the first of three dates Nellie McKay will play at the Dakota Jazz Club this week. Check out my review for a full recap.

I thought Jon Bream of the Strib's profile of Nellie and his review of her show were pretty good, but there's one passage I can't let pass:

McKay was consistently at her best when she was most quiet, on the blithely romantic standard "If I Had You" (done Tiny Tim-style on ukulele) and her feminist-lampooning "Mother of Pearl."

"Mother of Pearl" is not a "feminist-lampooning" song. When you lampoon something, you direct a harsh satire against it. She's lampooning anti-feminists, not feminists. When she says "feminists don't have a sense of humor," it's satire, and it's not exactly satire with a light touch, either.

I mention this because -- amazingly -- I've seen others miss the song's ironic nature, and because I saw this gem of modern gender relations on the ride home from the show:

Buy an engagement ring and leave her speechless. Because you want to marry her. You don't want to listen to her.

I tried to parse this in some way that didn't mean "Your woman talks too much -- purchase her a $5,000 hunk of glass-like material that probably cost some African guy his arm, and buy yourself five minutes of blissful silence."

Could it mean, "your loved one usually leaves you speechless with joy, so you should return the favor?" Maybe? Could it mean ... you're usually the strong silent type, but the moment of asking someone to marry you will make you effusive with joy?

I'm reaching here.

This is an odd strategy for getting someone to buy an engagement ring, and the whole "speechlessness" theme seems to conflict with the URL LouderYes.com. Do you want her speechless? Or just speechless in between loud loud expressions of "yes"?

Oh. OK.

Here's the thing: if you want to marry someone, you want a partner. If you want to pay large sums of money so that someone will have sex with you when you want them to, and not talk when you don't want them to, you want a sex worker.

This is generally cheaper than marriage anyway, unless you happen to be Eliot Spitzer.

DAILY DISH: WHAT'S NEW AROUND THE SITE

Oakland's Why? and locals Heiruspecs tore it down at the Entry last night, and Andy Mannix was there. His breathless 3:30 a.m. after finishing the review contained all the wonder associated with a transcendent show, and made me forgive the Anticon group for their search-engine unfriendly name.

Kevin Hoffman's ethanol post citing a Time article sparks controversy in the comments.

Regarding Condoleezza Rice's reported interest in the VP slot: this isn't the job she really wants. She wants to be commissioner of the NFL. It sounds like a joke from that news release, but more than one friend at one of the country's service academies (West Point, USAFA) has met Condi, and sworn up and down that it's true.

Here's the Wild's playoff schedule. Our preview of the playoffs will be up tomorrow.

I for one am shocked that there's an unsportsmanlike thug in MMA.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 7, 2008 5:08 AM | Comments (0)

 

VP Pawlenty Meter: Condoleeza Rice says she wants the job

Filed under: VP Pawlenty Watch

Will Governor Tim Pawlenty become our nation's next vice president? It's hard to keep track of all the many factors at play. Each week, the VP Pawlenty Meter (TM) provides an odds sheet to ensure you make your best bet.

Recently, T-Paw's frontrunner status seems to be slipping away. There was McCain's recent off-hand mention that he had at least 20 names on his not-so-short list. There's also been rumblings of making a devil's bargain with Mitt Romney, enough so that conservative Christians have come out against it.

Now comes the most devestating blow of all to T-Paw's chances: A top Drudge Report headline suggesting that Condoleeza Rice is interested in the job.

ABCNews’ Mary Bruce Reports: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is actively courting the vice presidential nomination, Republican strategist Dan Senor said.

“Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” Senor said this morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

Rice could make a potent and tempting ticketmate, not least because she simultaneously neutralizes the "historic" nature of the Democratic ticket regardless of whether its Obama or Hillary--indeed, she trumps both!

All things considered, Pawlenty is looking dead in the water. VP Pawlenty Meter puts his current odds of winning the job at 1/60.

Posted by Kevin Hoffman at April 6, 2008 9:43 PM | Comments (0)

 

U of M: Worldwide leader in ethanol debunking

Filed under: Education

Time has a great story debunking the clean energy myth. Several studies at the University of Minnesota are cited to show the impact of widespread Ethanol demand.

One of the studies revealed that we're digging ourselves a 400-year-hole with ethanol:

A study by University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman concluded that it will take more than 400 years of biodiesel use to "pay back" the carbon emitted by directly clearing peat lands to grow palm oil; clearing grasslands to grow corn for ethanol has a payback period of 93 years. The result is that biofuels increase demand for crops, which boosts prices, which drives agricultural expansion, which eats forests.

The U of M also established that converting food into fuel is leaving more people hungry:

Four years ago, two University of Minnesota researchers predicted the ranks of the hungry would drop to 625 million by 2025; last year, after adjusting for the inflationary effects of biofuels, they increased their prediction to 1.2 billion.

Posted by Kevin Hoffman at April 6, 2008 1:49 PM | Comments (10)

 

« March 30, 2008 - April 5, 2008 | Main | April 13, 2008 - April 19, 2008 »