Minneapolis / St. Paul News Blog

In a move that has baffled everyone from bloggers to the Star Tribune editorial board, the Republican Party has selected a soulless, Machiavellian huckster to deliver the keynote speech at the state GOP convention in Rochester tomorrow.

What would possess a party comprised of intellectually crippled closet-perverts to select Karl Rove remains unclear at this point, though many have speculated that the Party’s shadowy culture of backroom dealing and raging cronyism may have had a hand in the selection. Or maybe it’s Rove’s ability to cut a rug that so entices the party faithful. Dude's considered something of a rock star amongst bullshit peddlers.

In a new study, The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) has found that reports of violence, harassment, and intimidation against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in Minnesota spiked in 2007. Nationally, overall reports went up by an average of 24%. In Minnesota: 135%.

Some additional findings:

You and nearly one million other Internet users have already seen the YouTube video "Why every guy should buy their girlfriend Wii Fit." Perhaps, like me, you immediately assumed this was a callow ad agency attempt at viral marketing.

Our Gary Hodges tracked down the boyfriend behind the video, and turns out you might be surprised by what he has to say. Also, he subscribes to the Joystick Division RSS feed, so we love him already.

A school board in western Minnesota is still torn as to whether its students should be forced to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, reports the AP.

Officials at Glyndon's Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton school—located just east of Moorhead—suspended three eighth graders earlier this month for refusing to pledge their commitment to a red, white, and blue pennant.

Think when you hand over that extra 6.5 percent sales tax to store owners they are giving it directly to the state government? Think again.

Last week The Minnesota Department of Revenue launched an Internet database to brandish companies delinquent on their payments with the online scarlet letter of of tax evasion. (Once the tax is paid, the company's name is removed from the list and its sales tax permit is reinstated.)

Since the website's debut last week at least four companies have paid their debt to the state, allowing the agency to collect $124,000 -- small change compared to the upwards of $2 million the remaining some 64 businesses owe.

Consultant and former journalist Mark Potts has done a lot of thinking about the future of the newspaper. Last year, he did a study into advertising trends that found a gap between that falling rate of print ads and the rapid growth on online ads. He predicted it would take five years or more for the Web-based revenue stream to catch up.

Turns out, as a new American Journalism Review story makes clear, that this was wildly optimistic.

Earlier this month, we learned that the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists had awarded City Pages honors in 11 categories of writing, photography, online journalism, and multimedia production. It turns out that our Jeff Severns Guntzel is up for a 12th award.

Severns Guntzel's piece "The Wedding Crashers," about churches' response to gay marriage, is a winner in the "Short Feature" news category for papers with a circulation of 50,000 or higher.

The order of finish will be announced at the 2008 awards banquet on June 12. In 2005, CP won six SPJ awards, and in 2006 the paper won eight.

Food writer Rachel Hutton was on the Stephanie and Meredith show's "Foodie Tuesday" segment earlier this week. I'm back on the airwaves this afternoon at 2 p.m., talking about what to do over the weekend. But there are always potential surprises at FM 107.1 -- last time a caller asked me about phone sex. Remarkably, I didn't vapor-lock: thanks, years of doing debate! If you're so inclined, listen live here.

I had been reading criminal complaints at the Hennepin County Courthouse for about an hour when I stumbled upon a Minneapolis Police officer's report of a drug bust on 9th & Hennepin. The inevitable happened: as I scanned the report, I started hearing the Tom Waits song. Then the improbable happened: the officer's narrative and the lyrics to 9th & Hennepin started to seem a little bit like the same story. Back at my desk I tried stitching them together. Here's what came of it. I cut a few lines from the song here and there but the police report is exactly as I found it:

A new study published in the Public Library of Science found that journalists are getting a failing grade in their coverage of the latest health treatments and interventions. The author of the study argues that consumers getting bad information from the mainstream media could be harmed.

"The stories that we reviewed for the most part paint a sort of kid-in-the-candy-store picture of the U.S. health care system, whereby everything looks terrific, everything looks risk-free and nothing has a price tag associated with it. And nothing could be further from the truth," says Gary Schwitzer, a University of Minnesota journalism professor who has spent the last two years rating the quality of health intervention stories and authored the analysis. More information about Schwitzer's research is available on his personal health blog.

Recently interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio, Schwitzer is most critical of the media’s failure to address cost and safety.

End-of-the-month roundup time, and it's an especially strong Month in Photos, I think. Wolf pups and gimp masks and lowriders, bands like M.I.A. and Rilo Kiley, and much more.

There's also the new issue to consider. The GOPFathers is our featured list of 10 influential Minnesota Republicans you may not have heard of.

Speaking of slideshows, we covered the Latino festival Vive Minnesota in pictures, and Rachel Hutton's food feature about the International Marketplace is accompanied by pictures of the Hmong market. Plus, check out the recipes.

Chris Chike, the teenage gamer whom City Pages profiled after he set the Guinness World Record for highest score on Guitar Hero, has been signed to an endorsement deal.

The exclusive, longterm contract makes Chike an official spokesman and consultant for The Ant Commandos, a company that manufacturers the plastic guitar peripheral and other videogame accessories.

When I was first coming up in the journalism business, I worked as the sports editor of a small twice-weekly paper in Washington state.

We did a lot of work at that paper that I'm still proud of today -- printing the first gay wedding announcement in the rural county where we published, doing award-winning investigative work about crooked politicians, digging deep into the role of the military industrial complex in the local economy -- controversial stuff.

Amid all this impactful journalism, though, an item I thought was pretty middle-of-the-road got me what is to this day the only open death threat I have ever received.

Racist graffiti including swastikas appeared on the University of North Dakota's campus in Grand Forks, and many thought the school should have acted more swiftly. An MPR report last week includes a quote that is absolutely correct about the issue's trees, but misses the forest.

"But we also have problems on this campus," says [Marcia Mikulak, an anthropology professor], "and those problems need to be addressed when they occur. Whenever something like a swastika or any other symbol of oppression appears on a campus, we need to push back very quickly, very firmly." [Emphasis added]

Personally, I couldn't agree more. Let's ask someone close to the university: the mascot. What say you, Fighting Sioux guy?

Suggested listening for today: "Memorial Day" by the Perceptionists. More music in mere moments, as photos come in from Soundset.

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.

T-Paw isn't able to attend this week's Veep barbecue at the McCain homestead, but that hasn't stopped speculation that he's the frontrunner in the veepstakes.

Republicans are hitting Al Franken below the belt, literally,circulating a fictional sex story he wrote for Playboy.

Yesterday the GOP circulated a letter calling on Franken to apologize to women for the January 2000 column, called "Porn-O-Rama!" In the article, Franken imagines visiting a sex institute that offers all manner of virtual sex. Here's a sample:

My nervousness disappeared, and I sat back and enjoyed the amazingly realistic cyber job. It was every bit as good as the last real blow job I had gotten 23 years earlier-if not better-because when I shot my wad, the virtual mouth swallowed.

Minnesota has long prided itself as a leader in higher education. The government-issued Minnesota Measures report released last month calls that perception into question.

One barometer of success in higher education is the rate at which students complete their degrees. In 2005, 34 percent of students attending Minnesota's two-year schools graduated within three years. While that's good for 24th place overall (we did mean barely above average), it's nearly 30 points lower than first-place South Dakota, as noted here.

A mere day after I warned against playing the Summon Paulbots card, Kevin Hoffman tempted fate by doing just that in a post that asked whether the FBI should be watching vegan potlucks or the Paul supporters.

The whole comment thread is gold, but I'm already giving this the early nod for comment of the year:

"Ron Paul's people are not vegans and neither is Ron Paul. He's a red blooded meat-eating American veteran and I can vouch for that personally."

Not only has this commenter had barbecue with Ron Paul, he evidently cut Ron Paul open just to make sure his blood was the crimson-hued type we expect from a non-Vulcan.

I hope they make another CGI ad of Ron with the text underscore: "Not a vegan. Suck it, Kucinich."

After you read Moles Wanted, our story about a local man recruited by the FBI to infiltrate vegan potlucks, listen to author Matt Snyders discuss the story on Air America Radio. Snyders will be on the Rachel Maddow show tonight at 6:30 local time.

Snyders is on the show for just under 10 minutes, discusses past Republican National Conventions and the scene on the ground here.

You can listen live on the Web here. Or if you're in the car, the local affiliates are KTNF AM 950 and WWWI AM 1270.

The new issue of U.S. News (& World Report) has a prominent article on the Senate campaign pitting Al Franken against Norm Coleman. Since nobody reads U.S. News anymore, we'll summarize it:

Obligatory SNL joke in headline/subhed: "Not a Laughing Matter / Comedian Al Franken's Minnesota Senate campaign is no joke." Somewhere, originality is rolling over in its grave.

How we look from New York: "With 5.2 million people, Minnesota boasts the nation's highest voter turnout--officials say 80 percent could cast a ballot November 4--and has not gone for a Republican presidential candidate since Nixon in 1972, longer than any other state." Oh, you plucky Midwesterners, way to stick with the whole "Democrat" thing.

I like nature more than the next guy, but have turned a skeptical eye towards "natural" sweeteners. Nightshade's natural, and so are box jellyfish. You won't catch me putting either in my yerba mate. But now a Minnesota company is hoping I'll sweeten the beverage with a new "natural" product that has inspired past concern over health effects.

Yerba mate's my beverage of preference because I'm allergic to coffee, and because I enjoy its unique, bracing taste. For years, people have been drinking the South American tea -- and masking the taste with leaves from a plant called stevia, an herb that's sweeter than sugar.

Do you believe in Magic? I do. At least, I believe in this card.

The Summon card is like Colt .45. It works every time. Just check the thread.

If you thought faulty gusset plates were going to exonerate Governor Tim Pawlenty and former transportation chief Carol Molnau from blame, think again.

A new report released today lays the blame squarely at the feet of cheap fiscal policies. From the AP's article:

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Transportation officials' concerns that fixing or replacing a Minneapolis bridge would be a "budget buster" may have led to bad maintenance decisions before its deadly collapse last August, a report released Wednesday concluded.

The report, commissioned by the Legislature, also criticized the Minnesota Department of Transportation for bridge inspections that were mishandled or not acted upon over the years, even when they called for immediate repairs.

The department has come under sharp criticism for its upkeep of the 40-year-old Interstate 35W bridge, even as an ongoing federal investigation has highlighted a design flaw and the weight of construction materials on the bridge, rather than maintenance, as critical factors in the collapse that killed 13 people.

"Financial considerations, we believe, did play a part in the decision-making" over repair of the bridge, said Robert Stein, who oversaw the report prepared for lawmakers by the law firm Gray Plant Mooty.

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.

The New York Times is reporting that McCain is meeting with potential running mates on Friday. Pawlenty isn't going, but supposedly has other commitments (yeah, cause a wedding is more important than meeting with the potential future leader of the free world):

Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, on Friday is scheduled to meet with two Republican governors who have been prominently mentioned as potential running mates, according to Republicans familiar with Mr. McCain’s plan.

Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida, and Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, have both accepted invitations to meet with Mr. McCain at his home in Arizona, according to Republicans familiar with the decision. One Republican said that Mitt Romney, a former rival of Mr. McCain for the presidential nomination — is also expected to visit him this weekend. Mr. Romney’s advisers declined to comment.

...

Another governor who has been prominently mentioned as a strong contender to run with Mr. McCain, Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, is not going to Arizona; his associates said he had a wedding on Saturday

If you’re one of those people who gets a kick out of unironic absurdity, you’re, uh… urine luck. [Groan] (Sorry for that.)

In an effort to “humanize [their] medical devices,” HealthPartners has unveiled their new mascot— a personified pee cup named Petey P. Cup. The unconventional spokesman apparently targets the coveted eager-to-piss-in-anthropomorphic-jars demographic. Check him out below.

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.

Tim Pawlenty has been a veepstakes frontrunner (and has been denying he's interested in the job) seemingly forever. When's the damn announcement going to be made already?

If history is any indication, it'll be around the last week of August.

This site takes a look at previous running made announcements and finds they invariably happened right before the national convention:

Besides the Edwards selection in 2004, every running mate in recent presidential history has been announced days before the party’s national convention. Obviously, many presumptive nominees have choices in mind throughout the primary season and into early summer. History, tradition, and party politics, however, have made it the norm to publicly introduce running mate selections only days in advance of their official nomination at the convention.

Hoping to celebrate Memorial Day by staying inside and practicing Yoga by balancing on a hi-tech piece of white plastic? Good luck finding a copy of Wii Fit--it's sold out everywhere in the Twin Cities. At my local Best Buy, I saw a pyramid of boxes of the $90 apparatus, but was quickly informed they were pre-orders. The store's regular stock sold out within 45 minutes of being put on the shelves.

Even as it has struggled financially, the Star Tribune has enjoyed some real success online. The latest sign is that the Strib ranked higher than the vaunted New York Times in the new Nielsen/NetRankings:

NetRatings: Top 30 Online Current Events & Global News Destinations, ranked by Sessions per Person

Brand or channel; sessions per person; unique audience (000)
1. drudgereport.com; 18.0; 3,322
2. Fox News Digital Network; 8.5; 10,871
3. Daily Kos^; 8.4; 1,034
4. CNN Digital Network; 8.0; 33,423
5. AOL News; 7.8; 23,134
6. Yahoo! News; 7.1; 34,437
7. MSNBC Digital Network; 6.2; 32,382
8. Real Clear Politics; 6.1; 927
9. Star Tribune; 6.0; 1,423
10. NYTimes.com; 5.4; 17,911
11. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; 5.3; 1,049
12. Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division; 5.3; 13,172
13. Worldnetdaily.com^; 5.3; 673
14. Google News; 5.2; 10,782
15. Zwire^; 4.8; 1,078
16. Netscape; 4.5; 2,291
17. One News Now^; 4.5; 736
18. Media General Newspapers; 4.2; 1,351
19. ksl.com^; 4.2; 760
20. IB Web Sites; 4.1; 6,077
21. WorldNow; 3.9; 7.741
22. NewsMax.com; 3.9; 2,982
23. Townhall.com; 3.9; 1,406
24. St. Louis Post Dispatch^; 3.8; 1,264
25. Breitbart.com; 3.8; 2,462
26. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 3.7; 1,164
27. GTGI Network^; 3.7; 1,777
28. theatlantic.com; 3.5; 973
29. USAToday.com; 3.4; 10,729
30. MediaNews Group Newspapers; 3.3; 6.442

Life is funny! Like Mel Brooks said, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole and die."

Wait, that's not funny. Or is it? I'm confused. Perhaps I should ask the people at Stand Up!, the indie label at the center of Matt Snyders' feature story. After you've read the story, check out videos of the performers mentioned.