CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

Representative Tom Emmer, Esquire, has just announced he is running for governor. by Charlie Leck

Now this is true folks: I spent about a half hour laughing myself silly. I rolled on the floor and got up and fell ass over tea kettle. I stammered and gasped and fought for regular, easy breaths.

I was in panic mode and my heart beats were out of hand. I had to shift into that calm down gear to get my blood pressure under control. It took the longest time to get command of myself again.
Then, I started imagining the possible scenarios.

You readers who are not from Minnesota will need to forgive me. You simply won’t understand, but here is the great fantasy that I have created in the window of my mind.

We shall have in 2010 an election of a new Governor here in Minnesota. Let’s imagine that the scoundrel and nincompoop, Tom Emmer, wins the nomination from the Republican Party. Now remember, I told you that I am talking about fantasies here. Then, the Democrats turn around and nominate a current Minnesota State Senator named John Marty.

Oh, my God, it would be the most hysterical political campaign in the history of the United States and, perhaps, in the history of the world.

First, you would start off with Mr. Brilliance (Marty) against Mr. Ignorance (Emmer). Could you imagine them in a campaign debate? Emmer would be stammering around, trying to come up with words that weren’t obscene and Marty would be stumbling to find words that the average Minnesotan could understand.

Senator Marty is so far out on the left of the political spectrum that he makes this blogger seem like a colleague of the big dick Chaney (excuse me, but I think I could have punctuated that better). Emmer has no particular political position because he is far too stupid to iterate one. He is, however, so far out on the right that he is in danger of falling over the edge.

Can you imagine the two of them on the same stage (or venue) trying to communicate with one another? One would talk about the significance of Robespierre in the French Revolution and the other would be uttering, over and over again, “Duh! Duh!”

Emmer is a neighbor. He lives in the neighboring community, anyway. He used to live here in my town. He served on our city council. He was a total jerk. He loved to rant and rave, but there was no logic to his bumbling and absolutely no substance.

I would love to look at the files at the Minnesota Bar Association to see if there are any complaints against him. This is the perfect example of a lawyer who is practicing. He has never and never will go beyond the practicing level. How he ever got through law school is a question that should be investigated at the highest levels.

The first thing the opposition must do in regard to Representative Tom Emmer is an investigation of the State Bar Association to see how many complaints have been filed against him. Here’s my guess: There are plenty! At least, there are a number. The second thing they must do is look into his personal finances. There are rumors floating all about his home town about his failure to pay many of his debts. Are they just rumors? We need to know the truth about this. Let’s look into it!

The DustyTrice Blog did some investigating of Tom Emmer and found out that Thomas Earl Emmer has some serious traffic violations, including the use of alcohol, on his driving record. [Read DustryTrice’s comments here.]

Representative Emmer has a trigger-finger temper and it’s easy to set him off. And, when he’s angry, he is really dumber than the dumbest. He makes no sense at all when he rants and raves and he spends most of his life doing just that – that is, making no sense.

John Marty, on the other hand, uses perfect English in a manner that makes absolutely no sense. He is a bit like an English toff. He has a brilliant and famous father and he has tried to live off the old-man’s reputation. When State Senator John Marty speaks he sounds like Tom Emmer in reverse --- I think he uses Latin purposefully to confuse illiterates like Emmer and Jesse Ventura.

Here’s what we can hope for as Minnesotans – that Tom Emmer and John Marty will each win their party’s gubernatorial endorsement and that we will see them campaign against each other. In such a case the third party candidate, whoever it might be – including Donald Duck’s grandfather – will win in the general election and the entire population of the state will be laughing its heads off at the sheer stupidity of both major party candidates.

Do you want a taste of Tom Emmer?
The following is a really funny video of Emmer trying to answer a question about the age of the Earth…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e9XeKVJ2PI
He quite undeftly scoots around the issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e9XeKVJ2PI

Here’s another video of Emmer on the global warming debate, referring to Al Gore’s position as “environmental porn.” The man is an ultra conservative and let’s not forget it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx9y_jc0sN4

What Emmer is doing here is not public and open debate, but it’s an attempt to ridicule and degrade. It’s part of his methodology. Speak louder than the other guy and with anger in your voice and attitude and you’ll make the opposition fold. He tried that crap on me when he was a Councilman in our town. If you stand up to him and use his own tactics, he quickly folds.

This is not a man of substantial intelligence.

One of the pieces of legislation he pushed hard for was photo i.d. as a requirement to vote. While the whole state wants to make it easier to vote, Emmer goes the other way. There is not any substantial evidence of voter fraud in Minnesota, but Tom Emmer is always creating ghosts to chase. Photo i.d. for voters is not only a bad idea, but a giant waste of time.

And, for those interested, remember that Tom Emmer opposed the state wide smoking ban, saying it was an infringement of the people’s individual rights; yet, he opposes gay marriage.

The Twin Cities Daily Liberal made an astute observation about Emmer’s impact on the Republican Party, dragging it further to the right, and the benefits he would provide Democrats in a race for the governorship; that is, he’d eliminate rationale, thinking Republicans from his side of the ballot.

“Tom Emmer is a major right-wing extremist, but he has a legitimate chance of winning the position. If he does, he will continue the House Republican caucus’s rapid move toward the hard right. I really hope they choose Emmer, because they won’t recover from the choice for years. I’ve said time and time again on this blog that moving so sharply to the right is going to cost the Republicans a lot of votes. I’m looking forward to Emmer helping to prove me right.”

Emmer is a guy who offends many of his own party’s House members. He constantly slips into his tactic of offensive ridicule and shows the Rush Limbaugh side of his personality. In a debate in this past session about legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, Emmer proposed changing every instance in which the word “marijuana” was used to the word “pot” instead. That got a gagging giggle or two, but even most of the opposition saw the crudeness in the suggestion. Republican Representative Mark Buesgens, of Jordan, took issue with Emmer and essentially told him to knock it off: “We have a very serious issue in front of us. We are talking about the quality of people’s lives at the end of their lives, the sickest of the sick. It’s not a matter we should be joking about on the house floor.” A Democratic Representative told Emmer “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

With an unmistakable tone of anger in his voice, Emmer shouted back at Bisguens and the others who criticized him:

“I didn’t bring this here to be cute, to make a mockery. You are taking a drug that has serious consequences for young people in the country… So before you start mocking me for doing what I think is right, think about that! This is no joke!”

No one will ever accuse Emmer of being diplomatic or of knowing how to negotiate.

It’s amazing how Emmer doesn’t want the government to get involved in regulating how people live their lives (smoking), but still imposes the presence of the government in those choices that a physician and patient ought to be making about matters of life, death and health. Emmer’s problem is that he doesn’t have the intelligence to see or understand subtleties. Things to Emmer are black or white, red or blue. In terms of Minnesota’s great political traditions, Emmer is about as non-Minnesotan as a political candidate can get.

Emmer boasts that he’s had a number of GOP legislators call him and congratulate him for announcing his candidacy, but I’ll guaranty you that there are a larger number of his party’s State Senators and Representatives giggling and guffawing at the idea.

Here’s why I hope the Republicans, against all odds, endorse Emmer for the race: (1) he’ll make a fool out of himself in a campaign; (2) he’ll divide his own party because of his strong ideological stands; (3) he’ll drive financial donors away and he has no strong financial base of his own; and (4) at some point his anger will explode and he’ll blow up like a balloon and pop out there on the campaign trail.

I love this comment that was made about Emmer on the North Star Politics blog [read the entire comment]

“Doing wrong-headed things in a direct fashion isn't any better than doing wrong-headed things indirectly; in fact, it's worse. If Tom Emmer were doing great things, he would certainly be a model for other politicians, but being open about wanting to castrate people and take away benefits for pregnant women isn't good, it's just scary. I don't know if Emmer is a racist or hate-filled, as it says in the article, and I'm pretty sure that he's not a fascist. He is, however, an extreme right-winger who got checked too hard too many times during his hockey days.”

I know one thing for sure: If Tom Emmer gets his party’s endorsement to run for Governor, I’ll be giving the maximum legal amount to the campaign of his opponent in the DFL (unless, of course, they endorse John Marty).

Senator John Marty, on the other hand, is a man of my own political party affiliation; yet, the Lord knows, I would never vote for him. It’s one thing to be a progressive or a liberal. It is quite another to be incapable of seeing the spectrum of possibilities on an issue. Marty is so intransigent on issues that there is never a back-down with him and never a modifier nor a compromise on issues.

Like Marty’s position on issues, he is stiff and rigid when he stands before a podium to speak. I heard him crack a joke one time and I almost fainted. No one in his audience laughed, even though it was quite a good rib tickler, because they never expect a joke out of this State Senator who is known for total seriousness.

If there is anyone who the general public of Minnesota could dislike more than Tom Emmer, it is John Marty.

So bring them on! Let’s get the two of them endorsed and then we’ll have two of the funniest and most unsuccessful campaigns in the history of the state.

And, the Independence Party will win the race!

Coleman v. Franken Revisited

A totally excellent piece of journalism in this commentary by Lori Sturdevant!
by Charlie Leck

My only purpose this morning is to point you to a column in the Sunday edition of our local paper. We very much needed someone to wrap up the cluttered U.S. Senate election race our state was forced to endure for the last 8 or 9 month (if you don't count the campaign). Lori Sturdevant, writing in the Newspaper of the Twin Cities, the StarTribune, does just that.

"On big stories -- say the end of an eight-month dispute over the outcome of a U.S. Senate election -- columnists are the journalistic cleanup crew. As a momentous week in Minnesota politics came to a close, I swept up these notes."

Her sweepings make good reading and, if you wish closure to the brutal legal case, I recommend you read these notes she provides.

A Year Before the Mayflower Arrived

It was a Dutch ship of some unknown sort that arrived on a historically significant trading mission to Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia, in 1619.
by Charlie Leck

Slaves from blackest Africa arrived in the American colonies a year before the famous passengers of the Mayflower arrived in New England in 1620. They were brought here on a Dutch sailing ship that had cannons aboard. She didn’t stay long, but put her cargo of black slaves up for trade and quickly loaded the goods in payment that the white settlers of Jamestown provided for the slaves.

You tell me! Considering our nation’s dark history and involvement in the institution of slavery, was this unnamed ship of more historical consequence than the Mayflower?

The questions of history are not easily answered; for history is so much more complex than that pabulum supplied to us as school children.

Just mark the fact that slavery developed into an accepted and acceptable institution of the South very quickly after the arrival of that first boat load of slaves. Keeping slaves and trading them would be seen as legal and socially acceptable in the South for the next 250 years. It is not a proud part of our history about which we will boast.

Believe me (and many historians agree with this), had the colonists been able to enslave the local Native Americans (the Powhatan Confederacy) they would have. This, however, was the land of the Powhatan and they knew it well and used that knowledge to protect themselves. These Natives sensed early on the cruelty of these white Europeans and they took measures to defend themselves.

Those first colonists in America needed a labor force; first, to produce enough food to stay alive; and second to grow tobacco for export. These were people unaccustomed to hard labor and they had a difficult time surviving and many didn’t because they couldn’t take care of themselves and produce enough food for sustenance. It must have frustrated them when they saw how much more superior the Natives were in taking care of themselves.

Agreeing to take black slaves was the answer to a tough problem for the Virginians. The slaves turned around the failing situation in Jamestown and, over the years, the keeping of slaves became more and more profitable.

There are plenty of histories that attempt to tell us these first black people in Virginia were indentured servants; that is, that they sold themselves into service for a period of time and for a certain amount of money after which they would receive their freedom and full citizenship. That is a fairy tale of enormity. They came as slaves. They were forced on to the ship that brought them and they were sold by the shipping company when they arrived. They were treated brutally by their owners and they were kept as prisoners and not as servants.

Black Africans had been forcibly taken to Europe starting sometime in the 1500s. In most cases, however, slavery in Europe was a far different institution than that which grew up in the colonies and in the islands of the West Indies. Blacks in Europe had certain rights of citizenship and they could hold money, own property and marry. They eventually earned their total freedom. The first blacks brought to America may have thought that was the kind of condition into which they were coming; but it was certainly not. The black slaves were reduced to less than human status and they were most often hated and held in contempt based on their color. In Virginia it was very quickly established that the white man was the master and the black person was a slave.

Black slavery would not become common place in the southern colonies until the establishment of the Carolinas in 1670; and from that point the spread of slavery throughout the south happened quickly.

Many black Africans were shipped to other parts of the Americas as early as the late 1500s. Between then and through the 1800s, as many as twelve millions slaves may have been shipped to North and South America. Huge numbers were shipped to Brazil and to the islands of the Caribbean. Though less than a million slaves were sold into the United States and its early colonies, that population would grown to approximately four million by 1860.

The Americas Before the Europeans Came

Parts of the Americas were a more advanced civilization than Europe!
by Charlie Leck

I read an interesting piece in the local newspaper on Saturday about the manner in which Independence Day is celebrated on the White Earth reservation here in Minnesota. In the Native American grave yard up there, flag poles are stationed by many of the grave sites. On patriotic holidays, like the 4th of July, the stars and stripes are flown from them by family members, loved ones and friends of the former, late members of the military. An intense pride in military service exists among the Native Americans.

“The White Earth Band of the Ojibwe play veterans’ songs, talk about their families’ military service and fly their veterans’ flags. All veterans are invited to dance in the grand entry, whether or not they are Native American. So too the other bands in the Bemidji area, Leech Lake and Red Earth, play veterans’ songs and fly veterans’ flags during their powwows.”

[Wally Hilke, President of the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union]

One cannot read any serious history of the United States – or of the Americas – without feeling some sense of shame about the way the original natives of this land were treated after the white man arrived here from Europe and for 500 years following. It is astonishing, in the light of those histories, to think that such loyalty and patriotism is still existent among those Native Americans.

Before Columbus arrived here there were nearly 75 million natives roaming North and South America. When Columbus went ashore in Hispaniola in 1492 there were approximately 250,000 “Indians” living there. The following are words from the very logbook of Christopher Columbus.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want…”

“As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first island which I found, I took some
of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts…”

“Hispaniola is a miracle. Mountains and hills, plains and pastures are both fertile and beautiful… the harbors are unbelievably good and there are many wide rivers of which the majority contain gold… There are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals… [of course this claim about gold and metals was completely false]…

[the natives] “are so naïve and so free with their possession that no one who has
witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone…”

In response to the reports that Columbus gave the Spanish royalty, for his second voyage back to America he was given seventeen ships and more than 12,000 men. The goal was to bring back gold and slaves.

By the year 1515, there were only about 50,000 natives left on Hispaniola and only 500 by 1550. It appears none of the original Arawaks were left by the year 1650.

The primary source for this information came from a young priest and historian, Bartolomé de las Casas, brought to the Americas by Columbus himself. Las Casas wrote an incredibly complete History of the Indies. In the second volume of that History, the author describes the treatment of the natives by the Spaniards.

“Endless testimonies prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives… but our work was to exasperate, rave, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then.. The admiral, it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians.”

For months and months the natives were used as slaves in their own land to mine for gold. They were forced to dig, to split rocks, to carry stones and dirt on their backs down to the river for washing. The labor broke many of the poor natives and their beautiful land was stripped. Families were torn apart and the mortality rate at birth plummeted because mothers were overworked and unable to give nourishment to their babies. Las Casas writes that he himself saw 7,000 children die in three months time. And husbands died in the mines, women from overwork and children from lack of nourishment.

“My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write…”

This is not the history I was taught in my little public school in rural New Jersey – nor later in high school and not in college or graduate school either.

Indeed, this is awful history to read, but one must remember that other European explorers of historic fame followed Columbus. The Aztecs of Mexico were treated by Cortés as poorly as Columbus treated the Arawacks. And Pizarro treated the Incas as badly and the English settlers of both Virginia and Massachusetts were just as brutal to both the Powhatans and the Pequots.

So, I began by saying that approximately 75 million natives wandered the lands of North and South America at the time Columbus came. And, most were enormously civilized. They had nearly perfected the art of agriculture. The maize they grew does not just appear wildly. It must be planted and cultivated and fertilized – then harvested and husked. They also produced other products from the land – tobacco, rubber, peanuts and chocolate. Many of those natives lived in settled communities that were highly organized and developed divisions of labor. And, they were extremely artistic.

Leagues of tribes had also been organized and representatives would come together to share their secrets of agriculture, building and art. They would seek peace constantly and peaceful manners of living and sharing. The following were reported by historians to be the words of the legendary Mohawk chief, Hiawatha:

“We bind ourselves together by taking hold of each other’s hands so firmly and forming a circle so strong that if a tree should fall upon it, it could not shake nor break it, so that our people and grandchildren shall remain in the circle in security, peace and happiness.”

The next time you think of the beginning of American History, think of these facts. Compare in your mind the lives and achievements and actions of the Native American to those of the white men who came to these shores and settled these lands.

Then think in wonder at the patriotic feelings the Native Americans of our own state feel toward this nation.

Milltown Pond

The Cooper Mill – an old grist mill right across the road from our swimming pond – as it is preserved as a historic site today. It wasn’t restored in our swimming days and it was pretty run down.

Swimming down by the Old Mill

by Charlie Leck

It’s July and it’s the heart of summer; however, here in Minnesota, it’s quite fair. It hasn’t risen above the 70s for the last few days and it is pleasant to go out walking or to work in the yard. I’m not jiving you either. Sure, it’s usually hotter than Hades here at this time of year and it can be mighty muggy, too. So, we’ll just take this weather and be grateful for it and enjoy the great outdoors, wearing a sweater in the evenings. The newspapers are telling folks they may need sweaters for fireworks displays on the night of the 4th of July. Aah, that’s living.

Some of my readers are asking me to continue to let my mind wander backwards to those childhood years in the little borough of Chester – to a time when I lived above my old man’s general store – to July days in the very early 1950s.

I was 10 years old in the summer of 1951. Baseball dominated my summer days. There was nothing I preferred than to go to the ball field to throw, hit and catch. I spent a lot of wonderful hours up there on the dirt diamond with Buddy Thompson, Hank Meyers, Charlie Adams, Allan Lum, Toby Barkman and a number of other guys. Usually there was some big guy or adult around who would hit flies and grounders to us and we honed our defense by the hour.

Our great reward for a couple of good hours on the ball field was a hike down to Milltown Pond for an hour of swimming and diving off the big rock along the stream that flowed under Highway 24 and then ran along past the Old Mill. Lordsy, these were good times for most of us. Some of the guys wouldn’t make the trip down to the pond because it was a long walk from the heart of town down to our swimming hole. It was the walk back home that frightened away most of the kids because the first third of the hike was up a long, steep hill before the plateau that led into town was reached.

There was nothing like stretching out on that big rock along the stream in the bright sunshine of July. The boulder was large enough to allow five or six of us to spread out. Then, when the moment was just right, a bunch of us would rise and jog to the edge of the stream and jump off the rock together and into the cold, running water.

It was on that very rock that I first heard our buddy Sonny describe peeping at a naked girl. It was a teenage cousin of his who was staying at his house and Sonny knew of a way of getting out on the porch roof and peeking through a crack beneath the drawn down, but slightly too short, window shade. How clearly I remember – to this day I remember – the stirring it caused inside me. He described her luscious breasts and her curving hips and the nothingness at her crotch. From his room he could hear the shower running across the hallway and he knew it was time to position himself on the roof of the porch because his cousin would rush from the bathroom, wrapped in a big towel, and allow the wrap to fall away just as soon as she had safely gotten into the bedroom and locked the door.

We all had dozens of questions for Sonny, but we really just wanted him to repeat the visuals and use the tantalizing words again and again. The heat of the afternoon sun seemed to penetrate us as we listened to him and how each of us envied him so very much.

The two mile walk back home wasn’t so bad because there were a couple of adventures along the way that broke the monotony. The first was a stop at the Old Mill Tavern, a little joint just 50 yards up the hill. Kids weren’t really allowed in the drinking establishment, but my father had cleared the way for me to pop my head in the door to purchase a hunk of salty, smoked herring that I could share with my buddies on the trek back home. The fish made us immediately and desperately thirsty, but another quarter mile along the way we went by a home that had a lovely, refreshing natural spring right in the front yard. It was a pretty, convenient little place. One had to bend way down into the hole in order to lap at the quickly running water or, if lucky enough to have a cup along, to reach down and scoop up the cold, delightful liquid. There was watercress growing all around on the edges of the water hole and some of the kids enjoyed picking it and chewing on it. I always found its taste too strong and I avoided it.

Refreshed, the last leg of the hill wasn’t too bad. Once we reached the crest of the hill and flat ground it was only an easy mile back into our little, country town. The walk led us past the Mennen Farm, the beautiful estate of the family that owned the company that produced dozens of kinds of soaps and creams and deodorants for the human body. They and the Chubb family (of the big insurance company) were the very wealthy folks of our little town and everyone envied and respected the families a great deal. Further on we passed the little and multifaceted business owned by the Itailian Morelli family. Right across the highway from there was the wonderful Maple Tree Inn, where my parents liked to go on weekend evenings to meet up with friends. And, finally, when we got up even with the old coal yards, we knew we had only to use caution to cross the busy Highway 206 and then we could saunter right up Main Street, dropping off kids as we went until, usually, only Buddy Thompson and I were left as we passed the firehouse and the little town park with its honor roll to the local boys who died in World War I and II.

I tried to fall asleep in the warm darkness of the night, with the window wide open, thinking in wonder about Sonny’s description of his naked girl cousin.

Geez, he was a lucky guy to see such a sight! It was a good thought to drag with me into my slumber.

Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way…

Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

[lyrics by Gene Raskin]

WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL IS DEAD WRONG!

The national financial newspaper, solidly Republican, editorialized that the election in Minnesota was stolen from Norm Coleman.
by Charlie Leck

On Minnesota Public Radio yesterday (1 July 2009), Vin Weber, a former Minnesota Congressman and now a powerful Republican consultant and strategist, said very clearly that both this election and this recount was fair and clean.

“I’m satisfied with the outcome. It was a fair election and there are Republicans out there who may be disappointed can be disappointed, but no one out there should think the election was stolen. It was not… We’ve come to a fair conclusion… We had a fair process and ended up with a fair conclusion.” [hear full comment here at about the 18:50 mark]

Webber is an extraordinary man. I often look to his political analysis, especially here in Minnesota, to get a better understanding of what is going on. He was a great favorite of my father-in-law and, after meeting him at Lyman’s house a couple of times, I grew to see why.

Naturally, that’s not the way big, fat Rush Limbaugh sees the matter. Here’s what he had to say on the same day Weber made his comments.

“We did not elect Al Franken. He stole the race. They are stealing the race up there blind in front of everybody's nose. They are counting absentee ballots. The Wall Street Journal has a story on this. They're counting votes twice -- votes that were rejected, all kinds of things. That's just -- the Democrats are stealing the election up there. The Democrats run Illinois and Chicago. Of course they elected Blago and Obama and everybody else. That is -- that's not gonna change.”

And again on 2 July, the Wall Street Journal claimed that the election was stolen from former Senator Norm Coleman. That’s just not true and sensible Minnesota Republicans know that. This was an extremely fair process. As the Wall Street Journal earlier charged, there was no double counting and the question of absentee ballot counting was handled in a non-partisan way by a panel of judges made up of both Republicans and Democrats in background.

As Ned Foley, an election law expert from Ohio State University, said the following on his blog about the absurdity of the Wall Street Journal editorial:

“…this election was about as far from ‘stolen’ as any extraordinarily close and intensely disputed election could be – and to use that term in this context is to rob it of appropriate meaning for those situation in which election officials abuse their power to thrown an election for a preferred candidate…”

ANOTHER MINNESOTA NEWS SOURCE

With the newspapers deteriorating, along comes another top-notch, on-line news source!
by Charlie Leck

Our newspapers are going to hell both in print and in their on-line versions. We have two local papers here in our town and they are both about worthless now -- for a whole bunch of reasons. On top of that list of reasons is that they have let go most of their best columnists and they've also canned some of their best editors. Not only is the current writing suspect, but it is easy to spot the lack of editing in posted stories.

The on-line news service, MinnPost, is a response to this lack of quality news service in Minnesota. As far as I'm concerned MinnPost is doing an excellent job and I highly recommend it. The service is in its infancy and, as long as it can continue to bring in the funds, it will only get better. Those involved with MinnPost are highly committed to producing a high quality product.

Now, along comes another high quality service dedicated to providing us with prompt and high quality reporting of the news; and I highly recommend this new source to you as well. It comes from Minnesota Public Radio: MPRNewsQ. NewsQ has a little sleeker look than MinnPost and a better national base from which to work (National Public Radio) and probably a better financial base. It lacks the strength of columnists and opinion writers that MinnPost has. With both of these services available on-line, however, we are going to get very strong coverage of Minnesota news and events.

There's getting to be less and less reason to subscribe to the very weak local papers.