General Archive

More tips for winter bike commuters

Filed under: General Archive

The latest Strib has a new story with tips for winter bike commuters. Check theirs out, and revisit our slideshow of local cold-weather bicyclists, which includes 22 photos to go along with some hopefully helpful suggestions.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 1, 2008 9:36 PM | Comments (0)

 

Bryant McKinnie Volunteers and So Can You

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Jonathan Kaminsky is a push-over. Me? Not so much. I am extremely picky about what I will and will not be guilted into recommending. While researching Thanksgiving Day volunteering options for A-List, I stumbled across an organization, People Serving People, that has an unexpected need for volunteers for their Wednesday November 21st Thanksgiving Toss, which they are throwing (pun intended) from 5:45 to 7:45. Perhaps it was that People Serving People is the largest provider of emergency shelter for families with children in the Twin Cities. Perhaps it was that a toss seems like a festive way to spend the day before Thanksgiving. Or perhaps it was that Vikings offensive tackle Bryant McKinnie will be the celebrity guest at the toss. Regardless, it seemed like a blotter-worthy call for volunteers. And don’t worry, other than the one they serve up for dinner, no actual turkeys will be harmed at this event. Step up; call 612.277.0256

Posted by Rhena Tantisunthorn at November 15, 2007 2:53 PM | Comments (0)

 

Update on clash between police and Critical Mass bicyclists

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A video provided to City Pages courtesy of Loring Park resident Paula Hare captures the prelude to Friday's tussle between local law enforcement agencies and cycling advocacy group Critical Mass.

The footage shows an MPD officer—presumably high-ranking—approaching his underlings with candid orders.

"Drive down Nicolet, herd the assholes down this way. Any blocking of traffic, any blocking of anything, arrest them."

Continue reading "Update on clash between police and Critical Mass bicyclists"

Posted by Matt Snyders at September 2, 2007 2:18 PM | Comments (59)

 

MPLS police administer pepper spray, beat down cyclists in Loring Park

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Pepper spray, wailing police sirens, and the rumbling of overhead helicopters permeated the air earlier tonight in Loring Park as dozens of police officers descended on a group of bicyclists.

At around 7 p.m., police cars were trailing the large assembly of cyclists along La Salle Avenue. The group was taking part in Critical Mass--a monthly ride undertook by bike-enthusiasts the world over to "assert cyclists' right to the road"--when things turned ugly.

Continue reading "MPLS police administer pepper spray, beat down cyclists in Loring Park"

Posted by Matt Snyders at August 31, 2007 8:14 PM | Comments (80)

 

The end of dead ends?

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Northfield ponders sacking cul-de-sacs

Usually when the New York Times wastes ink on little old us, it has to do with mentioning Eagan as the headquarters of Northwest Airlines.

But yesterday's Sunday Times has an interesting story on its national real estate page. It looks at the larger issue of subdivision development, and how two Minnesota towns are differing on what to do with that dread suburban development hallmark, the cul-de-sac. (The reporter, Carla Baranauckas, has lived in Minnesota.)

Continue reading "The end of dead ends?"

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at August 28, 2006 5:36 PM | Comments (0)

 

From the Archives

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On our collective discomfort with JonBenet Ramsey

From a January 1997 column by City Pages Editor Steve Perry:

Much has already been written about the sexualization of JonBenet Ramsey and all the other girls in the thousands of little-miss pageants across the country. We would do well not to ignore its obverse, which is the fetishizing of children's innocence--particularly that of girl children--as a means of sustaining the culture's perverse faith in its own unspoiled nature. The cult of innocence is the root of our claim to be a child-loving society, and one of the most salient measures of our child-loathing. The promise of JonBenet on the runway, playing grown-up fantasy object, is the promise of all things desirable, had without responsibility or consequence at the expense of a child: a promise not of her innocence but the onlooker's. This is obscene. But it's hardly more obscene than a quarter of the nation's children living in poverty, or the willful addition of a few million more by the Clinton/Gingrich welfare overhaul, all so that an increasingly well-off minority can enjoy the good life, without responsibility or consequence, at the expense of other people's children.

Perry's gritty, visceral column has haunted many of us in the intervening decade, and I daresay the capture yesterday of Ramsey's alleged killer only makes it seem all the more prescient.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at August 17, 2006 10:42 AM | Comments (0)

 

Minneapolis by the numbers: For the dogs

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As part of the research for a story I'm working on, I recently called Tom Doty, one of the managers at Minneapolis Animal Control, and asked him how many pit bulls live in Minneapolis. Doty said he wasn't sure but he'd run the numbers. Today he sent me a spreadsheet with all registered dogs in Minneapolis, broken down by primary breed. Most of this information is not particularly relevant to my research. But since Doty billed me $25 for his numbers crunching service, I figured I might as well post the data and engage in a little amateur sociology.

Continue reading "Minneapolis by the numbers: For the dogs"

Posted by Mike Mosedale at June 12, 2006 3:39 PM | Comments (10)

 

Minnesota by the numbers: Why do we like it here, anyway?

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The Metropolitan Council wants to know that sort of stuff. It helps planners plan for the future. So in late 2005, the council sent a survey to 3,600 residents in the seven county metro area, 1,182 of whom bothered to fill out the form.

Continue reading "Minnesota by the numbers: Why do we like it here, anyway?"

Posted by Mike Mosedale at March 7, 2006 9:18 AM | Comments (1)

 

What Would Jesus Firebomb: the Plymouth edition

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For those unacquainted the peculiarities of the modern American evangelical movement, the fissures within the brotherhood can be both appalling and, in a perverse way, damn comical. Case in point: the recent musings of Kevin T. Bauder, president of the Plymouth-based Central Baptist Theological Seminary.

Continue reading "What Would Jesus Firebomb: the Plymouth edition"

Posted by Mike Mosedale at February 2, 2006 1:23 PM | Comments (5)

 

Press release of the day: World will end on August 23, 2006

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CP gets lots of press releases pertaining to the end of the world, but most of them are selling get-ready books, tapes, and seminars. It isn't often we're apprised of the date of the impending Rapture. But today Bill Gabel, the proprietor--and, we're guessing, the sole employee--of Cycles Research of Wabash, Indiana, sends along this time-stamped warning:

Cycles Research of Wabash, Indiana, predicts that the United States of America will be destroyed before the end of President Bush's second term in office. The rationale for this prediction rests on (1) the parameters of the year-weeks as determined by Cycles Research analysis, and (2) the biblical references to the "end time" which point to the immanency of Jesus' return to earth....

Pursuant to the above criteria, Mr. Gabel advises, "Brace yourselves, because the current year-week will end on August 23, 2006, on or about which time (it would be logical to assume) the Holy Bride of Christ will rise to meet Jesus in the air 'and so will they ever be with the Lord.'"

Oddly, Mr. Gabel has not updated his website to reflect this vital new information. When he does, it's liable to play hell with his business as a "personnel evaluation" and "career counseling" consultant.

PS: The Rapture Index, which takes a more stock market-like approach to the imminence of End Times, is presently at 157. That matches its 2004 high, though it's four points off this year's high of 161. Anything over 145 is deemed to be very bad for the world and therefore very good for believers.

PPS: The BBC says February 1, 2019--maybe.

Posted by Steve Perry at November 16, 2005 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

 

Press release of the day: The ADD Bible

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Are you busy? Distracted? Failing miserably at the family Bible quiz? Get to know God in your spare time, courtesy of a former Marine Corps trial lawyer and "religious scholar" named William Proctor, who has just published The Light Speed Bible.

New Study Method Revolutionizes Bible Reading

Bestselling author reveals how to read entire Bible in 24 hours

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- The Bible can be found almost anywhere, from a church pew to the middle drawer of a hotel nightstand. But did you know that the Bible is the most owned, yet least read, book in the world? Many people say they will read it, but it's easy to get sidetracked in a fast-paced world where most everything is just a click away. According to both Gallup and Barna surveys, no more than one-quarter of the adults in the United States claim to have read the entire Bible. With religion quickly being nudged into the spotlight of mainstream media, Americans' knowledge of the Bible, or lack thereof, is astounding:

*Only 42 percent of American adults know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount
*A mere 35 percent of American adults can name the four Gospels
*Less than half of American adults can name the first book of the Bible
*Only 35 percent of American adults know the country that ruled Jerusalem in the time of Jesus

Bestselling author and religious scholar William Proctor changes all of that with an easy-to-use, comprehensive Bible reading plan in his latest book, The HCSB Light Speed Bible (ISBN 1-58640-066-5, Broadman & Holman, October 2005, $19.97). The HCSB Light Speed Bible is a study program that can empower anyone with at least a seventh-grade reading ability to read every word of the entire Bible in 24 hours or less--with good comprehension.

Check it out here.

Posted by Steve Perry at November 9, 2005 7:28 AM | Comments (0)

 

New Blog Alert

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A literate bankruptcy law prof on the disappearing middle class

Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren and some of her colleagues and students are blogging some great stuff at TPMCafe, a group of blogs owned by Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall. Warren is co-author, with her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi of "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke." Her new blog reports on the consumer credit crunch and other economic issues pertaining to the middle-class.

Todd Zywicki (credit industry head cheerleader, Volokh Conspirator and maybe the only bankruptcy professor in America who actually supported the recent Congressional mangling) has a lot of work ahead of him.  Families will soon discover what life is like when the door to the bankruptcy court, the financial refuge of last resort for the past 107 years, is too narrow to permit many of them any relief.  So what�s the best way to head off a Congressional stampede to bring back the century-old system?  Blame families. 

Other bylines spotted during a quick perusal of the rest of TPMCafe, which sports blogs on politics, foreign policy, culture, labor, and, oddly, coffee: Anne Lamott, Todd Gitlin, Matthew Yglesias, and others. It's not all pearls, but there's a lot worth reading. Much more, we'd venture, than at some other new, liberal blogs.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at July 5, 2005 10:53 AM

 

Bubbling under: the new Watergate?

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Don't look now, but Karl Rove's on a grand jury hot seat

Coming off the 4th of July holiday, all eyes in media are fixed on the massing armies of lobbyists and special pleaders set to do battle over Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court. But there's a story coming up beneath it with the potential to go a long way toward undoing the Bush administration. As noted here last week, Time mag's decision to turn over reporter Matthew Cooper's notes to a federal grand jury looking into who disclosed a CIA undercover agent's identity means that criminal indictments of White House staffers could be forthcoming sooner rather than later.

Most of the informed speculation has focused on people who work for Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, like Cheney chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But on Friday, McLaughlin Group panelist Lawrence O'Donnell fingered Rove himself as Cooper's source during a taping of the show. And on Monday Newsweek published a Michael Isikoff story that likewise indicated Rove spoke to Cooper a few days before Plame was eventually outed elsewhere, by the syndicated columnist Bob Novak. Isikoff's story stops short of calling Rove the source of the Valerie Plame outing, but one doubts that Rove was just asking after Cooper's family.

Rove spoke to federal agents about the case in the fall of 2003, and though what he said is officially under wraps, the investigative reporter Murray Waas published a story at the American Prospect website in March 2004 claiming that

President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, told the FBI in an interview last October that he circulated and discussed damaging information regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame with others in the White House, outside political consultants, and journalists, according to a government official and an attorney familiar with the ongoing special counsel's investigation of the matter.

But Rove also adamantly insisted to the FBI that he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July. Rather, Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak's column. He also told the FBI, the same sources said, that circulating the information was a legitimate means to counter what he claimed was politically motivated criticism of the Bush administration by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. [emphasis added]

Note the highlighted part--if Waas's summary of what Rove said to the FBI is correct, he's already caught out on one seemingly pivotal lie to federal agents.

Waas's piece is also the most concise backgrounder on the Plame case that I've read. It's worth checking out here.

Posted by Steve Perry at July 5, 2005 10:04 AM

 

Say hello to your fellow blogger

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Did convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III molest a school boy in Detroit Lakes, flee the state, abduct an eight year old girl in Idaho and kill her two brothers, mother and mom's boyfriend? Of course, those are matters for the criminal justice system and Bill O'Reilly to decide. But right now it doesn't look good for Duncan. One reason: his prolific blogging.

For the past year and a half, Duncan published dozens of screeds about prison, the justice system and public attitudes about sex crimes at his site, Blogging the Fifth Nail. (The fifth nail refers to the nail intended for Christ's heart. Can you spell "martyr complex?"). Duncan also posted a few self-made videos, one of which is truly creepy.

Tormented by public notification and offender registration laws, Duncan the blogger reveals himself to be smart, occassionally sympathetic, and--in classic sex offender manner--utterly self-involved. While he makes no explicit admissions, his final entries, especially the one titled "the Demons have taken over," don't do much to advance the case for innocence.

Duncan is not the first figure in a notorious Minnesota-connected crime to sprinkle clues on the internet about his motivations. Jeff Weise, the 16-year-old who killed nine people on the Red Lake Indian Reservation this spring, posted extensively on internet forums about his alienation and anger. And he also made disturbing videos.

Posted by Mike Mosedale at July 5, 2005 9:15 AM

 

7/5: Morning Communique

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[CITY PAGES BLOGS]

Steve Monaco has your holiday-delayed Monday Movie Quiz at Couch Pundit.

[THESE DAYS]

The Tennessee Department of Health is responding to complaints into Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-TN) 'diagnosis' of Florida's Terri Schiavo by videotape.

The chances of having a large income but not paying taxes on any of it are growing, according to data in the Internal Revenue Service's annual report to Congress on well-to-do Americans who live tax free. About one in every 436 high-income Americans paid no taxes in 2002, up from one in 531 in 2001 and one in 1,010 in 2000.

Just six months into the government's fiscal year, the Army was carrying almost the same number of deserters on its books as the service registered for all of 2004.

Women should not play beach volleyball unless they want to be left with sagging breasts, a top German surgeon has warned.

[MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY]

Matt Gray is a St. Paulite attending the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. His comments, as well as some great photographs, can be found at Matt Gray.

[TIME WASTERS]

George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Carey, and dozens of other comedians lend their talents to a documentary about the filthiest joke ever told called The Aristocrats.

Conservative commentary from Ferdinand the Cat will have you pulling your toe claws out with your teeth in no time.

[FREEDOM OF SPEECH]

"To a certain extent it is, obviously. I mean, if fossil fuels create greenhouse gases, we're burning fossil fuel, as is a lot of other countries. You know, look, there was a debate over Kyoto, and I made the decision - as did a lot of other people in this country, by the way - that the Kyoto treaty didn't suit our needs. In other words, the Kyoto treaty would have wrecked our economy, if I can be blunt."

"I left your tip on the counter."

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 5, 2005 6:31 AM

 

Sandra Day O'Connor Links

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The reaction, politicking, and jockeying are underway

Should we be packing to move to Canada? The most excellent Talk Left, self-described as an "Online magazine with liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news," has links to several great reads on the justice's resignation. Among them is a piece recounting cases in which moderate O'Conner cast the swing vote.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at July 1, 2005 1:38 PM

 

Clear Channel: courting the Mouse?

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Clear Channel Radio CEO John Hogan tells the trade pub Radio & Records that if Disney/ABC is really selling its radio stations, as rumored, then CC "would certainly be interested" in buying them.

CP's February 2005 cover story on the many tentacles of Clear Channel is here.

Posted by Steve Perry at July 1, 2005 12:42 PM

 

Taxes No Burden At All For Some

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IRS says it's getting easier for the rich to pay no taxes at all

The New York Times today reports that the portion of the super-rich who pay not a single dime in taxes is rising.

The number of affluent individuals and married couples who paid no federal income taxes jumped more than 15 percent in 2002, to 5,650, new government data showed yesterday.

The chances of having a large income but not paying taxes on any of it are growing, according to the data, issued in the Internal Revenue Service's annual report to Congress on well-to-do Americans who live tax free. About one in every 436 high-income Americans paid no taxes in 2002, up from one in 531 in 2001 and one in 1,010 in 2000.

The article was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Times scribe David Cay Johnston, author of "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--And Cheat Everybody Else," possibly the first-ever relatively easy read on how the U.S. tax code increasingly shifts wealth from us wage-slaves to the super-rich. One of the more astonishing portions of the book explains the strange saga of the alternative minimum tax, a single line on your tax return that was supposed to function as a kind of a tripwire to block the mega-rich from paying nothing at all.

As today's Times article makes clear, the failsafe device hasn't stopped the super-rich from opting out of the tax system. Quite the contrary: The explanation's too long for Blotter; suffice to say that as tax rates have been cut for the richest Americans, the formula increasingly is used to pluck more money from the pockets of the middle- and upper-middle classes.

Johnston does a great job describing all of this in his book. If you'd like a preview, you can check out an interview with Johnston published in City Pages in January.

If you've read both the book and the interview and you still want more, check out Johnston's equally meaty June 5 Times analysis, "Richest are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind." The piece is no longer available for free on the Times' website, and we here at Blotter don't want to run afoul of any pesky copyright laws, but we will point out that there are plenty of website operators who don't share our squeamishness; you can't find them easily by Googling the aforementioned headline.

Meanwhile, welcome to the era of the oligopoly. Now fork over your paycheck, assuming you're lucky enough to still get one.  

Posted by Beth Hawkins at July 1, 2005 11:51 AM

 

Madam Secretary bails on Pride

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In the build up to last year's elections, Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer was on the receiving end of a lot of blistering criticisms. Detractors accused the state's controversial chief election officer of doing all she could to supress turnout among likely Democratic voters. Kiffmeyer rebutted such charges by pointing to her voter outreach efforts at events such as the Twin Cities Gay Pride Festival. "Where's the Star Tribune when I'm working Gay Pride and my staff has to take flak for being there?" she asked pointedly in October.

At the time, some Pride attendees responded with complaints that they never saw Kiffmeyer or her representatives at the '04 festival. In fact, says Pride spokesman Bill Nienaber, the SOS's office did pay for and operate a booth last year. (He could not say, however, whether Kiffmeyer herself appeared at the festival).

Different story this year. According to Nienaber, Kiffmeyer's office plunked down a $125 deposit for a booth at Pride '05 only to call a week before the festival to cancel.

Kent Kaiser, Kiffmeyer's spokesman, says the cancellation was the result of a "resource" shortage. Last year, he explains, the SOS hired student workers to man the booth using money from the Help America Vote Act. Those HAVA funds were not available this year, Kaiser adds, so Kiffmeyer is restricting voter registration efforts to mega-events such as the State Fair and Taste of Minnesota.     

Posted by Mike Mosedale at July 1, 2005 10:33 AM

 

McLaughlin's Carville: I'm still here

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Campaign mastermind stays onboard, divides duties

Little more than six weeks ago, Minneapolis mayoral candidate Peter McLaughlin pulled off a minor upset when he blocked the DFL endorsement of incumbent R.T. Rybak at the party's citywide convention. During the wild 10-hour Saturday session, it became clear that the presence of labor had much to do with McLaughlin's success, and that the man partially responsible for lining up those delegates--and many fencesitters--was new campaign manager Tony Scallon.

So it was somewhat puzzling when The Minneapolis Observer reported on June 15 that Scallon had been replaced by Darin Broton, a onetime aide to congressman Bill Luther who recently managed Teresa Daly's unsuccessful bid to unseat U.S. Rep. John Kline in the Second District last fall. The Observer's "Ballot Box"--an online newsletter that is an indispensible tool for anyone following the most local of Minneapolis political races this year--said Scallon would stay on as "chairman."

Scallon recently returned a phone call from Blotter--more than a week late--to clarify. "We hired a day-by-day manager," says the political veteran, adding that the campaign chores have been divvied up. "I do campaign literature and some other things. The young kids are really smart and do really good work, but Peter won't let me go. He won't let me retire."

There had already been turnover in the McLaughlin camp (Scallon himself was a replacement), and there were rumors of more-than-typical infighting. More than that, word around town was that McLaughlin, a former state lawmaker and current Hennepin County commissioner, wasn't particularly gifted at taking advice from any campaign staffers.

He'd do well to listen to Scallon, an affable guy who is also a schoolteacher. "I know the city by heart," the Longfellow resident says, without a hint of arrogance.

Scallon doesn't count how many campaigns he's worked on, he counts how many decades he's worked on campaigns. "I first started door-knocking in 1966, and really got into it in '68 with the [Eugene] McCarthy campaign," Scallon, who served on the Minneapolis City Council from 1980 to 1994, recalls. "I suppose I've helped 20 to 30 campaigns, including five of my own."

McLaughlin's bid was flailing, to say the least, before Scallon came on board and apparently lit a little fire under the once disorganized, detached candidate. "The campaign was a disaster when I walked in," Scallon admits. "I just told everybody we gotta go back to work. Nobody's getting fired, so let's just stop people from fighting with each other."

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at July 1, 2005 10:09 AM

 

Time caves on Plame notes; Bush gang and First Amendment lose big

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No White House since Richard Nixon's has loathed the press as avidly as the Bush crew does. So it was a bit of dreary irony yesterday when Time magazine announced it would turn over to the government a staff reporter's notes on confidential sources: In this matter, the administration is nearly as big a loser as reporters all round the US. 

The case in question is that of who disclosed the identity of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame to the great GOP hack Bob Novak and other reporters. Plame is married to a former diplomat named Joseph Wilson, who wrote a July 2003 New York Times op-ed that outed White House lies about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain milled uranium--yellowcake--from Niger. A week or so after that column ran, Novak quoted the disclosure of "two senior administration officials" that Wilson's wife was a spy.

Here's the rub: Blowing a US spy's cover is a federal crime. A federal grand jury has been pursuing the case since last year, and in the course of its investigation it subpoenaed the records of the NYT's Judith Miller and Time's Matthew Cooper. After the Supreme Court  refused last Monday to hear Miller and Cooper's appeals in the case, both now face 18-month jail sentences for contempt of court. Later in the week, Time editor Norman Pearlstine said he would give up the notes.

So now it begins to look possible that key aides to Dick Cheney and/or Karl Rove will actually face criminal charges--national security-related criminal charges, no less--in the foreseeable future. As for the press, the nut paragraph from Friday's NYT summed it up pretty well:

"The announcement by a major news organization that it would disclose the identities of its confidential sources in response to a subpoena appears to be without precedent in living memory and suggests a turning point in the relationship between the press and the government." (Read the rest.)

Posted by Steve Perry at July 1, 2005 9:30 AM

 

Strib drawn into growing newspaper circ scandal

Filed under: General Archive

On Tuesday the Star Tribune became the fourth major daily in the past year-plus to be accused of dumping papers by various means to plump its paid circulation figures and thus its ad rates. Last year executives from Newsday, the Dallas Morning News, and the Chicago Sun-Times admitted to deliberately kiting their circ numbers.

Circulation practices show every sign of being an industry-wide scandal. Following the Newsday et al. disclosures last year, investigations of newspaper circulation practices were launched at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the IRS, and the US Postal Service. The Strib, meanwhile, isn�t the only Midwestern daily being sued by its advertisers. In April, a Milwaukee real estate developer filed a similar suit against the local Journal-Sentinel.

Daily newspapers everywhere are scrambling to find means to prop up their dropping paid circulation figures, and creative accounting appears the rule rather than the exception. "Newspapers lie about their circulation numbers for two simple reasons," wrote Slate media critic Jack Shafer last summer: "1) because increased circulation allows increased advertising rates, and that means more revenue; and 2) because industry auditing standards make it easy to do.... With the financial incentives to deceive so great and the risks of getting caught by the flat-footed [Audit Bureau of Circulation] so low, who's to say how many newspapers are cooking their books?"

One of the steps taken by industry bean-counters at the Audit Bureau of Circulation to help the press in its time of need was a 2001 rule change that lowered the bar for "paid circulation" from 50 percent of the newsstand price to 25 percent. This whopping cut allowed for papering towns with essentially free papers and amortizing the cost over the remainder of the paid circulation base. Shafer quotes this money graf from a Newsday post-mortem on the circulation fraud that happened there:

Experts said the 2001 change in ABC rules opened the door for papers to boost circulation by increasing bulk sales to airlines, hospitals, hotels and other entities that usually give away copies as a perk to customers. Papers distributed in schools, through Newspaper In Education programs, usually also are deeply discounted with businesses and vacationing subscribers picking up the tab. The rule change also opened the door to giving people copies of the paper they did not request and spreading the cost through full-paying purchases.

In other words, a large measure of what the Star Tribune stands accused of doing is tacitly sanctioned by the circulation watchdogs themselves. 

Be that as it may, circulation lawsuits can get very expensive. The plaintiffs in the Strib suit have applied for class action certification, which would allow innumerable other advertisers to queue up for settlements of their own. Definitive figures on the payouts so far by Newsday, DMN, and the Sun-Times are hard to come by, but it's been widely reported that the Tribune Company, which owns Newsday, set aside $90 million for paying claims and so far has settled with 30,000 ad clients. Nor are the possible consequences strictly monetary: A subsequent federal investigation into Newday's circulation has so far yielded fraud allegations against three employees of the paper. The trio was arrested by federal agents on June 15 on charges that carry potential sentences of up to 20 years.

Posted by Steve Perry at July 1, 2005 7:58 AM

 

7/1: Morning Communique

Filed under: General Archive

[THESE DAYS]

A letter Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had written, prior to his elevation to the Pontificate, denouncing the "Harry Potter" series has resurfaced for our amusement.

A Zogby poll reveals more than two-in-five voters (42%) say they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found the President misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq.

[MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY]

Paul V. Allen is an elementary teacher in Minneapolis who posts album reviews at Pop Life.

[TIME WASTERS]

The redesigned Democratic Party website

It's Notorious B.I.G. and Frank Sinatra together at last on "Blue Eyes Meets Bed Stuy" [via Boing Boing]

[FREEDOM OF SPEECH]

"Get out of here, curse you!"

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 1, 2005 6:30 AM

 

Welcome to Miami

Filed under: General Archive

Murderapolis part deux...or not...

It's impossible to dodge the onslaught of local news coverage about Minneapolis' steadily rising murder rate. If it's not the heavy storms taking up a huge chunk of 'CCO's news coverage, it's the "violence and death" that seem to be creeping into our Cities with equal vengeance. Yesterday there was a story in the Strib about a couple, David and Susan, who fled Minneapolis for the 'burbs out of fear of the supposedly ever-looming stray bullet. And then there's the eighth-grade "That's So Raven" fan, Darius Housch, whose collar bone caught a "gang banger's" bullet while he was fast asleep in his home last week. In other words, you better head to the basement and steer clear of those windows, because a tornado and a bullet are threatening to bust through your home at any moment. Or so they say.

So far this year, Minneapolis has recorded 31 homicides, an increase of 40 percent from this time last year. P'shaw! Right? Minneapolis is still relatively safe and crime-free, and our murder rate pales in comparison to other same-size cities that swallow much more violence in a year than we'll see in double that time. Come on. We're no Gary, Indiana!

Actually, according to the preliminary 2004 crime report released by the FBI this month, we are right on par with Gary: In 2004, Minneapolis and Gary both recorded 54 murders. Ok, granted, Gary's population is less than half of that of the city of Minneapolis (373,188 in 2003). But in terms of murders per capita, Minneapolis is shaping up to be more like Miami, whose city (pop. 376, 815) saw 69 murders last year. Still, while the murder rate has increased in Minneapolis, there's no reason to head to the storm shelter or uproot for the 'burbs. The city of St. Louis, whose urban population is similar but dwindling (332,223 residents), had more than double the murders of Minneapolis, recording 113 murders last year. Minneapolis' new motto: At least we're not St. Louis! 

Posted by at June 30, 2005 5:20 PM

 

There Goes the Neighborhood

Filed under: General Archive

ABC yanks ugly reality show featuring too much ugly reality

Looks like "Desperate Housewives" will be rerun and rerun, since ABC was forced to scrap its summer replacement, "Welcome to the Neighborhood."

In the shows - all of them have been completed - seven diverse families seek votes from three white families in a development called Circle C Ranch, outside Austin. The white families, through a series of interviews, competitions and social interactions, award a 3,300-square-foot, four-bedroom, 2½-bathroom home to the winner - a neighbor, the families say, who will fit in with the community's mostly Christian and Republican values.

What made the contestants diverse? Race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion. You know, pretty much every single thing that's illegal to consider when selling or renting housing.

The real question is how the entire season got filmed before it occurred to anyone that it was offensive or illegal.

The New York Times has a decent write-up on it available here.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at June 30, 2005 2:51 PM

 

Anti-Tax Talk Is Cheap. Education Isn't

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In a piece printed on Wednesday's op-ed page of the Star Tribune, Rep. Mark Buesgens (R-Jordan) fulminated with a forked tongue. The premise of Buesgens' diatribe was that it was indeed better to shut down state government than cave in to the budgetary priorities of "former governors and other bureaucrats who never pushed themselves away from the dinner table of taxes." (The "former governors" citation was a snipe at Arne Carlson, who has become particularly outspoken about the hijacking of the state Republican Party by the no-new-taxes crew.) To that end, he repeats a couple of the Pawlenty Administration's more hackneyed falsehoods, claiming, for example, that the proposed state budget will already increase by eight percent, a calculation that embraces inflation on incoming dollars but pretends that same inflation won't affect the cost of government services.

Buesgens trots out the old standby: "Minnesota does not have a revenue problem-Minnesota has a spending problem," then flips his foot into his mouth by announcing that he's personally authored a racino bill "which would bring in $200 million to the state's coffers"? Why does the state need to raise that revenue? Why not just cut $200 million and cure the "spending problem"? A letter published in today's Strib also notes this contradiction.

Buesgens goes on to assert that Republicans have "offered an education package larger than the Democrats'." One would assume that he includes himself among those Republicans. But the education bill passed by Buesgens and the rest of the Republican majority in the Minnesota House was considerably smaller--even after it explicitly approves the levying of some property tax increases�than the education bill passed by the Minnesota Senate, where the Democrats are in the majority.

Perhaps Buesgens is referring to the revised education proposal put forth by Governor Pawlenty, which contains almost the exact same amount of money as the DFL's revised education proposal (albeit not as much for special education and early childhood education programs). But Pawlenty's recent plan to boost education funding requires passage of his proposed cigarette "fee." The Taxpayers League of Minnesota has subsequently stated the obvious, that this "fee" is actually a tax by another name, and has run media spots against it. And Buesgens is one of the state legislators shown on the Taxpayers League website as maintaining his no-new-taxes pledge.

So, Rep. Buesgens, are you for the "fee" or against it? Are you still abiding by the pledge or not? You couldn't even convince your Republican colleagues who comprise a majority in the House of the merits of your racino bill, so you have to make up your mind: Are you one of those who can't pull themselves away from the table of taxes, or do you prefer to low-ball funding for education? Instead of dissembling bluster that encourages a government shutdown, your constituents deserve straight answers to these questions.

Posted by Britt Robson at June 30, 2005 1:35 PM

 

Who was the craziest man in Minneapolis on June 30, 2005?

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Spotted in the North Loop neighborhood at 11:49 a.m.: A middle-aged, bearded man on a sport unicycle, wheeling through swirling 38 mph winds on his way into an alley.

 

Posted by Michael Tortorello at June 30, 2005 12:13 PM

 

Just Who Are We Punishing?

Filed under: General Archive

Geriatric prisoners' care bankrupting states

This week's Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine carries a compelling story about the astronomical cost of providing end-of-life care to inmates. Health care costs are up, yes, but a bigger problem is that the number of imprisoned seniors with deteriorating health is skyrocketing. "Dying on our Dime" focuses on California, of course, but the issue affects Minnesota taxpayers, too.  

Sentencing reform is the primary culprit. The state's 1994 three-strikes law mandates life sentences without parole for certain repeat felons, and these recidivists�42,240 second- and third-strikers as of June 2002�will inevitably grow old and die in prison. Other than parole, the only ticket out of prison is compassionate release. Designed to liberate inmates who have six months or fewer to live and no longer pose a public threat, this legislation has emancipated an average of only 12 people a year since 1997. Inmates sentenced to life without parole or death are ineligible....

Last year, state legislators passed a bill to open the compassionate-release program to permanently medically incapacitated prisoners, such as a prisoner who is a quadriplegic, in hopes of saving millions of dollars. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office backed the plan. But Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed it, arguing that the legislation lacked "any mechanism to return these prisoners to custody" if they either recovered or posed a threat to public safety.

I don't know what kind of miraculous recoveries Schwarzenegger envisions, but the Times story makes it quite clear that this isn't an issue of whether to release inmates simply because of their age.

Frank Parker wears a bright orange jacket marked Sight Impaired as he wanders behind his three-pronged cane from bed to bed, saying hello, changing the channels, delivering gossip from the units and offering comfort to the dying....

Now 72, Parker is serving 15-to-life for murdering a man who he believed was having an affair with his wife. His time in prison, 20 years and counting, has not been easy on him�or on taxpayers. So far, doctors have treated Parker for three strokes and two heart attacks. His surgeries include heart bypass, knee replacement and cataract, which left him blind in one eye. Parker gulps down 15 pills a day. He has been denied both parole and compassionate release while racking up, by his count, more than $1 million in treatment.

Read the rest of the thoughtfully reported story here.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at June 30, 2005 11:30 AM

 

6/30: Morning Communique

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[THESE DAYS]

Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) told CNN on Wednesday that the "evidence is clear" that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.

Rory Mayberry, a former KBR (Halliburton) food manager at Camp Anaconda in Iraq, testified on videotape from Baghdad that the company charged for twice the number of meals it provided, served food beyond its expiration date, and said managers ordered workers to pick bullets and shrapnel out of food shipments that had been damaged by gunfire or bombings and serve it to troops.

[MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY]

My favorite blog name of all time: More Cowbell

[TIME WASTERS]

Ronald Reagan has been voted the "greatest American" in that Discovery Channel/AOL poll, beating out Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and Oprah.

Jerry Seinfeld spoofs his "Seinfeld" character's incarceration by transferring him to "Oz."

[FREEDOM OF SPEECH]

"It's not a pay raise. It's an adjustment so that they're not losing their purchasing power."

Posted by Corey Anderson at June 30, 2005 6:51 AM

 

Don't drink the water. Don't even swim in it.

Filed under: General Archive

Ewww Coli closes city beach

E. Coli has spiked at the Lake Calhoun beach at 32nd Street, reaching a level of 855 on Monday. The EPA thinks any reading over 235 is nasty, so this seems a particularly proud accomplishment. All this info comes from the Minneapolis Park and Rec board web site, and it appears as though other Minneapolis beaches and lakes are less foul for now.

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at June 29, 2005 5:12 PM

 

Fox + Henhouse = the Bush EPA

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Last week, President Bush nominated attorney Granta Nakayama to head the enforcement division of the Environmental Protection Agency. It was hardly a shock to learn that Nakayama's legal practice included defending companies accused of violating state and federal environmental law.

But for some long-time residents of Northeast Minneapolis, there is an especially bitter irony in the selection. For the past decade, Nakayama served as a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Among the firm's more notorious clients: W.R. Grace, the company responsible for much of the extensive asbestos contamination in Northeast. (One of the properties damaged by the "free" waste rock from Grace plant, the now-closed Gluek Park, has been in the news quite a bit lately).

Bush's pick for the new EPA watchdog is probably even less popular in the tiny town of Libby, Montana than Minneapolis. For decades, Grace operated a vermiculite mine in Libby. The vermiculite, some of which eventually found its way to Minneapolis, was tainted with asbestos--a fact concealed by top Grace executives for decades. In February, the company and seven current and former officers were indicted in federal court on criminal charges of knowingly exposing people to the deadly mineral. In Libby, that exposure is believed to have caused more than a thousand illnesses and at least 192 deaths.

Nakayama's defenders point out that he did not work directly on the Grace case and, additionally, that Kirkland & Ellis was not involved in representing Grace against any criminal charges. That's true. All Kirkland & Ellis did was petition for Chapter 11 protection so that people poisoned by Grace won't be able to sue.

Posted by Mike Mosedale at June 29, 2005 4:36 PM

 

Forbes: Twin Cities crack top 20 for biz and careers

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But rejoice not: Cities in the Dakotas and Wisconsin rate higher

Forbes.com has compiled an exhaustive list of the best metro areas for businesses or careers. The math that goes into it--cost of living, cost of doing business, income growth--is predictably corporate-minded, but offers an interesting glimspe of the twin towns anyway. For the 3.1 million of us living in the 18th-ranked Minneapolis-St. Paul area, it might come as no surprise that we're 14th in "educational attainment" or 15th in "culture and leisure," but that we rate only 111th--that housing bubble again?--in "cost of living."

What's more surprising is that we're not necessarily the Star of the North anymore. One could argue that distinction might still reside in the state, however, with good old Rochester coming in at number 2 among "best smaller metros." But first-ranked Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Fargo and even the dreaded Bismarck make that particularly depressing top ten.

(Click here to see where Duluth and St. Cloud rank; and here to see which Minnesotans make the Forbes rich list.)

More insult to injury? The cheeseheads in Madison really can claim some bragging rights, coming in 10th overall. More than that, lowly and sad Des Moines isn't far behind at 28.

So perhaps we're not so exceptional after all. But yet things could be worse. The only solace we can take here in the land of the loons is a not-very-startling revelation: To live and work in Milwaukee, coming in at 86, sucks big donkey balls.

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at June 29, 2005 4:35 PM

 

American patriotism in action!

Filed under: General Archive

Antiwar protesters turn up at Massachusetts military funeral. Wait, did I say "antiwar?" I meant "antiGAY."

It takes a special variety of derangement--a rich senselessness--to capture the human spirit in its contemporary state. Raw misery and rank awfulness are the rule of the hour; this isn't news.

 

Which takes us to the very special case of the right Rev. Fred Phelps, who took his anti-sodomite sideshow on the road this week to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Joined by parishioners from his Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, Phelps has made a cottage industry out of picketing the funerals of gay men who are, by his reckoning, steeped in sin. Massachusetts is a special destination for the Baptists--the next best thing to being in Gomorrah itself--standing as the only state in the Union where gay marriage is legal.

 

So it was that Monday found Phelps in the little town of Marblehead for the funeral of Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Piper. The Green Beret was killed by a roadside explosive on June 3 while riding in a Humvee in Afghanistan. He was 43 years old.

 

Fourteen protesters set up on a corner near the town's Congregational Church. Doing their best to ignore them were more than 1,000 souls who turned out for Sgt. Piper's funeral.

 

It's worth noting, by way of tangent, that when Phelps's godly army was in Minnesota a few weeks ago, this newspaper made the easy decision to totally ignore his media stunt. The Baptists were then picketing the Eden Prairie High School graduation, having smelled the brimstone wafting from that school's Diversity Fair and its Gay-Straight Alliance.

 

One suspects that Rev. Phelps is growing tired of being ignored, which brings us back to Marblehead and the military funeral. I've come to understand, if not accept, that about half the nation detests gay people and abhors their sexual freedom. Americans will enthusiastically pass special referenda to limit the rights of gays and lesbians to live and work as they choose. We can be outraged by this agenda, but we can't even pretend to be surprised.

 

But who would have the inspiration--who would hear the divine calling--to protest against homosexuality at the funeral of a soldier like Sgt. Piper who was not gay? I, for one, find this to be an extraordinary testament to the human spirit.

 

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a lawyer for the Westboro church and Fred Phelps' daughter, explained to a Los Angeles Times reporter: "We are protesting the sins of this nation. That doesn't exclude him." (The church subsequently commemorated the glorious day with a rhymed verse of some 23 stanzas, which I flat out cannot bring myself to link to.)

 

Inspired by these superpatriots and American martyrs, I will be protesting corporate governance and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act at the 2005 Minnesota Donkey and Mule Club State Show in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Please join me there July 29 and 30.

 

Posted by Michael Tortorello at June 29, 2005 12:55 PM

 

Next Time Beat Those Poster Children!

Filed under: General Archive

Or maybe Strib photogs should taunt kids before taking their pictures

In a Q&A with Mpls St. Paul magazine, Strib metro-section arch-hawk Katherine Kersten puts her finger on newspapers' credibility gap. In addition to believing that the media shilled for John Kerry in the last election, it seems Kersten--an opinion writer--would prefer that her new bosses--ostensibly objective news types--try to make gay marriage look as bad as she thinks it is.

Most major newspapers are 100 percent behind gay marriage. Look at the photographs that run alongside the stories: You see children that are overjoyed with life. It?s over the top!

In other news, apparently Kersten's hire wasn't just a two-fer (metro columnist and conservative), she's also supposed to help resolve the newspaper's long-running difficulties drawing younger readers.

There is an understanding at the newspaper that to attract new, younger people, they need a regular columnist who will present a worldview these people think is missing.  

You can read the rest of the interview here. (Thanks to Jim Romenesko for posting the link on his Poynter Institute site.)

Posted by Beth Hawkins at June 28, 2005 9:25 PM

 

Web trend of the week: Technosexuals walk among us

Filed under: General Archive

I listen to MPR mainly for the fine elocution, but the other day I learned a new word in the bargain. Driving to work I caught about 10 minutes of Kerri Miller's Midday interview with a panel of "trend watchers" (i.e., product marketing consultants) as they mulled pod-casting--they was fer it--and the discovery of a new beast in the web phylum: the "technosexual." This follows the already-soo-2004 identification of the "metrosexual," a web-and-gadget geek who--get this--aspires to project a sense of style and tends to lead an active life.

The technosexual would appear to be his opposite number. He/she is into the "power" of possessing gadgets, and doesn't like other people much. According to a handy little primer on technosexuals I found in the Times of India,

The dictionary describes the technosexual as 'a dandyish narcissist in love with not only himself, but also his urban lifestyle and gadgets'. Technosexuals have a comparatively rationed sexuality as they get their high from technology itself. At any given time, they will be spotted with their laptops, iPods and iPaqs in place. (Read the rest.)

Once they were simply called shut-ins and misanthropes, but now they are showing marketing researchers the way of the future.

But what about the girls? Note that most of the major web-tastemaker demographics articulated so far (the metros, retros, contras, technos) are principally male. Haven't the best marketing minds of our generation yet figured out the profiles of prototypical female internet users? (Please advise.)

One of Miller's MPR guests--the interesting one--toils at an ironically but nonetheless aptly named post-boomer consulting outfit called Iconoculture, Inc. Their featured product for hawking to Gen-X'ers this week: Vehicle Verified Valet, a sort of nanny-cam for making sure that the loser who parked your car didn't abuse it while you were away.

Posted by Steve Perry at June 28, 2005 9:36 AM

 

Tyranny of the lawn

Filed under: General Archive

So last week the city of Minneapolis mowed the "grass" outside the YWCA on East Lake Street. The action was taken after a city inspector received complaints about a weedy, unkempt yard.

As Doug Grow reported in the Strib, the overgrowth consisted mainly of native prairie grasses, which were planted five years ago as part of ecologically friendly landscape project. Evidently, a posted sign  explaining the philosophy behind the plantings did not make an impression on the inspector; the grasses exceeded the eight inch height limit proscribed in city code.
 
In his column, Grow rightly complained about the bureaucratic lunacy of the episode. But his harrumphing didn't go far enough. This story invited more than a mere complaint about overzealous code enforcement. It demanded denouncement of the policy behind the action, a policy that is deeply rooted in Americans' peculiar love affair with the lawn.

The growing of grass is among the more foul and pointless agricultural practices of our times. There are about 30 million acres of grass under cultivation in the U.S.  It's our biggest crop, a $40 billion-a-year industry that is, in its own way, as perverse as a crush video.

Consider all the labor involved. A lawn  must  be harvested--i.e. mowed--as often as once a week. What do you get for all that work? Worthless grass clippings. Actually, they are worse than worthless, since they often wind up clogging  landfills and storm sewers. When clippings enter a sewer, they usually find their way to a river or lake.

Last night, it poured rain in Minneapolis. I walked by the Mississippi River, where, as usual, cans, plastic bags, bottles, leaves, goose shit, styrofoam, balls, logs, and all sorts of other crap was fouling the water.  Grass clippings were everywhere.  In the eddies and backwaters, the clippings coated the surface of the river like an oil slick. Eventually, they will sink to the bottom and disappear from view. But in the murky depths they will continue to cause trouble; as the clippings rot, they will deplete critical oxygen levels. What ever is left adds to the silt deposits that are choking the life from river.
 
When the clippings wash into the water, of course, they bring with them more than just simple plant matter; they also carry the residues of the approximately 80 million pounds of pesticides Americans spread across their lawns every year. And of course, the means of harvest  is also problematic.  In most urban areas,  gas mowers account for a staggering percentage of air pollution. If you've kept up on your reading (second item), you know that the Twin Cities have been mired in a particularly foul atmosphere of late. 
 
So back to the Grow column. Maybe it's time the city inspectors to set their sights on a new target--the property owners with the biggest, lushest lawns.

Posted by Mike Mosedale at June 28, 2005 9:00 AM

 

Maybe a Frist from the future can come back in time and lend Present Frist some cash

Filed under: General Archive

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and his 2000 Senate campaign committee, Frist 2000, Inc. alleging that Frist 2000, Inc. failed to disclose a $1.44 million loan taken out jointly by Frist 2000, Inc. and by Frist's 1994 campaign committee, Bill