In a world of Crass ringtones nothing is sacred

Our friend Toby wrote a pretty entertaining post about sub-cultures today. Unless I'm wrong, he's saying that some kids just buy the punky look and some parts of the lifestyle while missing the point. He even threatens us with a return of the Reagan Era.

But starting to define punk, or any sub-culture, is sloppy territory. It's like trying to define community because, really, it is about community. It's about what you do, where you do it, and who you do it with.

A regular at my coffee shop has been going to DIY shows for something like forever. I was talking to him about this. He blames the internet for making it so easy for a look or cultural identity to be commodified. It's true, no doubt.

But there is the fact that we were all young and stupid once. I liked Chain of Strength in the early 90s. Now we might have better taste, but we're probably just old and stupid. I suspect I might be anyway. If we were raised in the internet age mightn't we find ourselves with the same problem?

That excuse works for the young crimethINC-y generation who want everything for free, but not for actual real-life Uptown hipsters. The answer: Uptown hipsters either don't know we exist (as in the well-intentioned but dangerously loose-tongued piece by the City Pages music editor) or they don't care. Either way, they'll soon move on to wearing phat pants and glitter again.

Then again, maybe those aren't the people he's referring to; his description of hipsters with "bandana and bike bag" sounds suspiciously like me.

Even if we wanted to, how do we even start judging people's authenticity? Few of us were born into any underground culture. From a lack of satisfying options; we join it, or mold it, or we create it.

It's this process of having to create or seek out a cultural home, along with the political experience it brings, that Toby rightly points to as a distinguishing characteristic of our world of weird peoples:

"The flip side is they never have to deal with not having a place and with being a reject. They consequently never develop the sort of angst-y, critical view of things that predisposes one such that when s/he gets a glance of the world beyond his/her own immediate problems of social adequacy s/he thinks, "wow, people are getting fucked all over the world and there's something fundamentally wrong."

It's about more than a look, it's about the lack of real commitment people show to the music, the spaces, and the people. They didn't have to get things the harder way, instead they ordered it from intraweb, so they didn't get a political understanding of what it takes to maintain the community infrastructure. But, then again, there's always been art students. No one's perfect and everyone wants a nice flannel shirt.

Maybe a mandatory history lesson would help. Maybe dunk them in water to see if they float. In the end though, most of those people will drift away to jobs better than ours and houses better than ours. They might be irritating to look at but, as Bob would say with his characteristic candor, "they'll be dead soon."

I reiterated all Toby's points in my long-winded way just so I could repeat what my coffee shop regular said about it:

"What can you do? Just gotta keep doing what you do."

Somebody got murdered: Increasing violence on the West Bank?

Anyone reading the papers recently will have stumbled across numerous reports of crime on the West Bank, or involving Somali youth. These incidents, in addition to being tragic wastes of life, have the potential for adding to the unreasonable Minnesotan backlash against the Somali community in Minnesota.

To start, I'm not pretending I know much more than anyone else about the neighborhood, crime, or the Somali community. Most of the information and analysis I use can be attributed to interviews, news reports, or other documents. It does seem though that violence is becoming more common. Although my analysis is admittedly imperfect and rough, all sorts of dialog needs to begin about why so much violence is occurring in the area and how further loss of life can avoided. Maybe this compilation of information can contribute to that.

The West Bank, also called Cedar Riverside, has been a gateway for immigrants in Minnesota for the last 150 years. It's a little island of land populated by radicals, Somali and other immigrants, and old hippies. For more history, check out this article I wrote in March.

Here's a run-up of some of the recent violent crimes involving the neighborhood that have gained attention:

In April, an 18-year-old high school student of Somali descent was shot to death while sitting in his car in the alley behind Freewheel Bike Shop. This week, the Star Tribune reported that a college student was stabbed to death outside the Triple Rock while riding his scooter. Whoever did it didn't even rob him (there are no witnesses and no has been arrested). Yesterday, a Somali man who was a youth mentor at the Brian Coyle Center on the West Bank was shot to death as he visited some Somali-American youth who were in a basketball tournament at a Brooklyn Center hotel, according to the Star Tribune. The report also mentions a fight between these youth and some unnamed group and the stabbing of three Somali youth earlier that morning, although it doesn't mention where these attacks occurred or whether they were residents of the West Bank. In the Star Tribune report, police say the mentor was shot while standing with a group of youth, but that none of these kids he mentored would admit they saw anything or anyone. Just today, the Minnesota Independent --formerly the Minnesota Monitor--- reports that a gay man was bashed on 6th street and Cedar Avenue after he answered yes to a question about whether he was gay. This, on Pride Weekend?

Obviously, some crazy stuff is happening in the neighborhood, and within the communities that live there, that can't be ignored.

When I was working on a story about the West Bank earlier this year, residents kept on mentioning the shift of the West Bank from a relatively safe neighborhood where everyone watched out for one another, to one where people randomly got robbed and attacked, even old timers. Although they all showed the utmost respect for the immigrant community that's moved into Riverside Plaza in the last 10 years, they blamed concentrated poverty, young people stuck between traditional and American culture, and official neglect for why crime has increased.

Reasons for increased violence were explored by the community after the April killing of Somali-American high school student, Abdullahi Awil Abdi, when police and community met in a community forum. Residents said specifically that police were not doing enough to curb violence among Somali youth, who are usually designated as the boogie-men according to the forum, Minneapolis police planning sessions, and news reports.

Just so you know it's not just picking on immigrant kids, I've observed some crazy shit around the neighborhood: youth running around in gangs beating each other with 2x4s, harassment and threatening behavior, or routine fights. A few weeks back I even had some dumb kid threaten to break my jaw.

Here's Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, talking to the Star Tribune in April:

"We're now actually in conversations with the police on how to address this ever-increasing gang activity," Jamal said. "We don't want to see any of our kids killed and we don't want to bury anyone else, so we need to get to the roots of this crisis.

At the April forum, youth countered that they were intimidated and threatened by police. The MPD argued that Cedar Riverside has pretty low crime rates for the 1st Precinct, which also covers downtown-- although CR regularly has pretty high stats for a residential neighborhood of its size, according to police statistics.

The Star Tribune had an interesting article today about the difficulty of getting people in the Somali community to talk to police because of immigrant status, tribal loyalties, and fear of corrupt police like in Somalia.

So residents blame kids gone wild, and a lack of concern by police-- which I think the cops demonstrated in that above statement-- meanwhile neighborhood kids, the large majority of whom are completely innocent, feel harassed.

So what is the MPD doing?

Well, they wrote an optimistic community policing plan for 2008.

The MPD's neighborhood policing plan for Cedar Riverside calls for "increased directed patrols," which you would think would mean there would be some sort of foot patrol on the West Bank; that would be news to most people who live there. It appears it's just words on paper.

Does the 1st precinct puts a lower priority on the Cedar Riverside neighborhood? Maybe they're overwhelmed with their duties in downtown, but the West Bank seems like it would be a perfect place for more community policing. The police will be there anyway, gunning down Cedar Avenue with sirens blaring, so why not put them on actual street patrols, or in community liaisons (and not only when someone dies) and get them to know the neighborhood. The population is relatively small, officially at less than 8,000 people at the 2000 census. Would it possible for them to get to know the small handful of troublemakers who seem to be terrorizing the elders? Maybe then, innocent kids wouldn't be treated by police as targets, and the ones who were actually causing trouble couldn't rely on anonymity or on having the run of the place.

Also, the neighborhood feels neglected. The city needs to make a better effort at reaching out to elders in the immigrant communities. It's the job of city government to reach out to communities. The police routinely complain that they're stonewalled by residents of Riverside Plaza or the kids on that basketball team, but the fact is many elders don't speak English. You could argue about the rightness or wrongness of that, but it's a fact. If they're not able to communicate when they feel abused or threatened, or to keep their kids in line, than they're cut off from any help they could receive, and silenced when something horrendous occurs like a murder.

In the end, it's about relationships: between Somalis and other locals, between the city and Somali community. That brings up an interesting quote a longtime neighborhood resident gave me about the city's responsibility to the community (although, I'll leave his name out because I'd hesitate to make it seem like he'd vouch for any of my admittedly rough analysis):

"There needs to be a shift in the larger political arena - a shift in attitudes," he said. "The idea that community counts has got to become more accepted. It's been losing ground for a long time."

I'm not an expert on the neighborhood, but I've spent a lot of time around there. My impression, and that of some longtime locals to whom I've spoken, is that violence is getting to be more common.

The Star and Tribune article on the college student who was killed, Joe Sodd, received hundreds of comments, some of which are now erased; some said that Riverside Plaza and the West Bank should just be burned down, others used ethnic stereotypes about Somali residents. That's dangerous Katherine Kersten-like territory. But in an especially powerful message for a family in mourning, Sodd's family bravely called for compassion and restraint from the public. No one knows who really committed his murder, but the increased crime in the neighborhood, and the violent nature of it, could add to the Minnesotan backlash against the Somali community that we've seen in high-profile incidents over the last couple years.

It also seems that by ignoring the problems in the community, Minneapolis is running the risk of criminalizing all these kids. And once they're acclimated into the culture of the criminal justice system, it will be difficult to get them out, and the cycle of violence could continue indefinitely.

(Written on 6/26/08 and published with revisions on 6/28/08)

Welcoming Republicans to MN by keeping a handful of bars open until 4- Next Step: Apple-tini User's Fee

The cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis have put together special permits that allow bars to stay open past their usual 2 a.m. closing time during the Republican National Convention Sept. 1-4. The permits they've set up have a couple problems: they price out independent bars, provide funding for nighttime security (whatever that means), and serve the interests of out-of-towners instead of people who live here.

The City Councils' reasoning on why the late bar close is necessary, according to a Star and Tribune follow-up piece today?

"The idea for longer hours came from the Legislature, which wanted to cash in on the convention and also avoid the perception that the state is not as sophisticated as other locations that have hosted national political events."

Cashing In and Selling out

First contradiction: Both special permits costs $2,500 dollars for the four days, which could make you a little suspicious that when the legislature and city councils say they want to "cash in" on the convention, they mean it literally that government wants to cash in. If their Republican masters get a sniff of this, they might be in trouble. Only the private sector is supposed to be able to make piles of profit (is government even considered public sector anymore though?). It would really be safest if we contracted the 4 a.m. bar close out to a reliable company; Blackwater would be a good time.

The permits are also only available to large bars. In the St. Paul permit, bars "must have at least 291 seats or be in downtown or commercial development districts." This obviously rules out the the local corner bars that make St. Paul unique. Sorry Trend Bar.

It's an interesting tactic for the city council. By selling these expensive permits, they're sucking away the potential (however slim) that independently owned bars could profit from the Republicans (maybe an apple-tini user fee would help?). Instead of making Minnesotans seem like we're cosmopolitan, it's making us seem cheap and tinny. Might as well just bus the delegates and their escorts to the Mall of America's fourth floor.

Supposedly, the money from the permits will go to provide extra security. The question is: For whom is the security intended? As an almost constant patron of bars, I'm suspicious that would be me. And probably you too. It might be a blessing in disguise though; it's likely rubbing elbows with Republicans would just give us a rash anyway.

Repeal the Liquor Laws!

Lastly, a little controversy has been kicked up on the Star Tribune website with its follow-up piece on the St. Paul permit. Hidden amongst the typical interweb incoherence is a strand of people who are critical of the fact that we're reforming the stupid liquor laws we have in this state for only four days, and for the benefit of some fancy-lad out-of-towners, instead of for the people who live here.

Here's the best comment:

"I agree with the previous poster; why do the bars close for Minnesota citizens 361 days this year at 2:00 a.m., but on the four days that the convention is here, they can stay open until 4:00 a.m.? I think bars should set their own hours, liquor stores should be open on Sundays, and grocery stores should be able to sell liquor."

I've been irritated at liquor laws here for years. They just don't make much sense and god forbid Minnesotans elect a politician with enough backbone to stand up to the small groups of vocal teetotaling moralists.

1. No more 3.2!
2. Make bars stay open one hour past when they serve liquor. Make them serve Peace Coffee and mock duck tapas.
   
3. If influential groups like MADD want to limit drunk driving, the answer isn't the criminalization of drinking that they've been going after. It's. Fucking. Public. Transportation. (until well after bar close).
4. Liquor stores need to be open on Sunday.
   
5. Let's rethink the upping of the liquor age to 21. People need to learn how to drink responsibly when they're young and without a car. We're Minnesotans not some tipsy Southern Baptists. I realize we would revoke our federal highway money. Well, maybe we don't need these highways anyway if we don't need to drive to Wisconsin to buy booze on Sunday.
   

Chris Johnson of Useless Wooden Toys murdered at show in Bloomington

---

Chris Johnson, singer of Minneapolis punk bands Useless Wooden Toys and Loaded First, was stabbed to death after confronting Brian White, 32, who was harassing women at a house show in Bloomington, Ind., Saturday morning.

"Knock that off. We're not going to tolerate that," Johnson told White, according to media reports.

White was asked to leave by the homeowners after a brief fight, but instead ran into the front yard where he stabbed Johnson.

White was later taken into custody by police.

---

Friends have deluged the band's myspace page with eulogies and messages of support. Although I didn't know Chris Johnson, and don't usually traffic in thrash shows, it's a horrible tragedy when assholes start trouble at some house show. It happens though. Everywhere. And it's incredibly respectable that Chris Johnson stepped in and stood up for someone who was being harassed; many people wouldn't have.

ABC news titled their article, "Punk Rocker Killed After Defending Woman," putting a traditional chivalrous spin on it,and maybe it was that, but it seems a simpler answer would be that Johnson followed that same impulse you see all over in underground cultures: watch out for one another.

My condolences to his friends and family. Anyway, since I didn't know him, it's not my place to say much.

Here's an e-mail that Off With Their Heads sent out that puts his tragic death in perspective and calls for support for Michelle, his wife of one year:

I would like to see everyone in this town (and hopefully beyond) show some support for Chris’ wife Michelle. They recently just celebrated their first anniversary together. Since this system that we live in is so fucked up and stupid, she cant afford to give him the proper funeral that he deserves.

Everyone doing shows, every band doing shows, everyone who cant even begin to understand how terrible this is for her: Come up with a way to get her some money and help out. On very rare occaisions, OWTH sets up a donation jar at shows and we say a little something about it. Last time we did, we raised somewhere between $3-400 just off one show. We will be doing this tonight, and every night on our upcoming tour to do what little we can.

Even if you didn’t know Chris or dont know Michelle, take my word on it. These are the good ones. As we all know, the good ones are the ones who get fucked and/or never get the help they deserve.

Thats all. If you have any questions or are interested in helping out, get in touch.

myspace. com/offwiththeirheads
Please re-post this.

And please dont email Useless Wooden Toys or Michelle right now. I think they need their time.

Nine months in the womb: A twin's guide to interacting with twins

Twenty-eight years ago, I was born with a condition called monozygotia that affects approximately two percent of the population. It means I have a twin brother. During that time, I have been mistaken for my twin brother at least 10,000 times. I estimate he has been mistaken for me about a dozen times, if not less. Below are some thoughts on the best way to approach people stricken with this lifelong affliction.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To answer the questions we twins always hear:

I have been a twin all my life. Do not ask if I like being a twin because I have never been alive before. Did you know non-twins are called singletons? How does that feel?

No, I will not feel it when you punch my brother, but you have my permission to try.

No, I do not share his thoughts. Although, I'm pretty sure we both think people who ask about twin telekinesis are simple as a pail of dirt.

And no, I have never pretended to be my brother to play pranks on people. He once asked me to take a math test for him but I can only multiply up to 12 (South Carolina schools).

No, there is no good twin and no evil twin. Who are you, the Pope?

If you know I exist, don't be surprised or offended that I don't answer to my brother's name. After all, I don't know you, and I have my own name that other people use all the time. You can, however, introduce yourself and make conversation. Not sure what to say? Like a typical Minnesotan, talk about the weather.

Also, don't look at me all night. Either you creep me out or I start liking you more with every beer.

Don't make generalizations about people with my last name. My sister is surprisingly accomplished and sober.

No, our Mom never dressed us alike. But why did your Mom dress you like that manikin at Urban Outfitters?

Do not give us a shared birthday present or card. People have shared birthday parties all the time, do you ever think about giving non-twins a package of socks to share?

I know it's tempting to join in my own bashing of my twin, but he's my twin and not yours, I can do that because we share many similar faults. It's the same as me being modest.

Lastly, I'm ashamed that a google image search brings up so many twins in bikinis. Please keep that side of you away from us.

Talking to twins about being a twin is the equivalent of talking to tall people about basketball. Sure, you've got some freaks like Michael Jordan who fit into your stereotype, but if you've ever met a tall person, you'll know that most are gangly and uncoordinated, completely unsuited to anything but plucking the high-hanging fruit. But many of these tall people have other interests than their most obvious characteristic. It's probably a good rule of thumb with everyone, considering we all have our own issues people harp on: Show a little depth.

Amazon bookstore will stay open, but loses its cooperative style

Amazon bookstore, a feminist institution in Minneapolis founded in 1970, was saved from a planned closure last week when longtime customer Ruta Skujins decided to buy the shop.

Although Amazon will remain open, the collective ownership of the store by the people who work there will end.

The Star Tribune gives one sentence about the loss of the cooperative and then leaps into analyzing the tough times for independent booksellers. As Minnpost reports, Skujins will reach into her background in the corporate world to make Amazon more marketable. In other words, rather than close, Amazon got a boss.

Certainly, it's better that Amazon remain open under traditional ownership structures than close. But in a year where we lost North Country Co-op, the 37-years old collectively run grocery, people in the co-op movement should be on high-alert.

Thirty years ago, Minneapolis was a mecca of cooperatives, and of people who envisioned a different way of working, without bosses or hierarchy. Grocery co-ops numbered about 30 in the mid-70s, according to Craig Cox in his book Storefront Revolution. One by one the co-ops went under, or changed to traditional management structures like the Wedge.

While the co-ops could be volatile and chaotic, they built a sense of community around them based on shared values and equally shared hardships, that traditional businesses, even independent ones, have difficulty doing.

Here's how the Seward Cafe, a cooperative restaurant on Franklin Avenue, explains its raison d'etre:

"It is the purpose of the collective owners of the Seward Community Cafe to create a work environment that fosters respect, equality, and mutual support between workers. The principles that guide our actions include: social and environmental responsibility, self-reliance, and cooperation."

The loss of these institutions, and of the belief that alternatives to traditional exploitive capitalism can be economically viable, is a quiet tragedy.

But not everything is gone, or doom and gloom. Still surviving are the Hard Times, Seward Cafe, the Hub bike shop, and Northland Poster Collective, as well as a couple others. And maybe something new will sprout up. It was, after all, in the wake of an epidemic of shuttered mom-and-pop groceries that the co-ops first found room to grow and develop. Could it be that the tough economic times we're currently seeing could provide similar room to experiment?

Funny enough, the conference of the National Federation of Worker Cooperatives ends today in still-ravaged New Orleans. The cooperative vision could be so powerful in a place infamous for its inequality, and for its deadly results. Maybe in this most feudal of all American situations, cooperatives can help rebuild, better and stronger and more just than before.

Lara Logan on Daily Show: Good TV Journalism and the world turned upside down

CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent, Lara Logan, appeared on the Daily show this last week. Not being a devotee of TV news, I wasn't familiar with her so her fancy appearance initially threw me off, but her interview provided some of the best discussion I've heard about the role of journalists and what their bosses allow them to cover in our current wars.

Not only that, but through her last five years of experience, she places the tone of media coverage into context, and fights to cover the important events that TV news veers away from because they're afraid someone will call them unpatriotic and cancel a commercial.

Looking through interviews and clippings, she's been able to cover the troops without always having to toe the Pentagon line, not to mention standing up to right-wing bullies likea Michelle Malkin, who for some reason are taken seriously by the mainstream punditry.

Fierce independence, in-depth reporting, and fighting for important issues; she could be a harbinger of a smarter TV journalism in the tradition of Murrow and Cronkite.

The presence of media affects the behavior of military in Iraq

During a 2007 conference, an Iraq War veteran said the presence of media changed the tactics used by American troops, especially against Iraqi civilians. As the number of American reporters in Iraq slides drastically in favor of the use of wire services, does the journalistic role of holding authority, in this case the military, accountable for their actions also decline?

This video is the testimony of Iraq War veteran Jon Michael Turner during the 2007 Winter Soldier conference featuring veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Turner testifies to his experiences as a soldier in Iraq, which included wanton murder and brutality as standard procedure. It's a part of the war that to this day we've heard little about. In fact, this conference was not heavily reported in the mainstream media. Google News gives only 75 results for all of 2008, and 70 for 2007, mostly coming out of alternative media like Democracy Now.

In his testimony, Turner says that CBS reporter Lara Logan-- who has been highly critical of how her bosses chose to report about Iraq and Afghanistan-- was embedded with his unit, and that her presence altered American troops' tactics and behavior. Turner's example in his own words:

"She wasn't with us, so myself and two other people went ahead and took out some individuals because we were excited about a firefight we had just gone into and we didn't have a cameraman or woman with us. Anytime we did have an embedded reporter with us, our actions would change drastically, we were always on key with everything, did everything by the books."


(Logan on the difficulties of reporting in Iraq)

There's been a lot of talk about the ethics of embedded reporters, there's good arguments on both sides, but I'm aware of no discussion of how the presence of the media, the transparency they provide, changes how troops engage in a conflict.

In a guerrilla conflict, like in Iraq, one neighborhood can be stable while the other side of the city is on fire. There are numerous operations going on at once, any of which could inflame into an incident. According to Turner's testimony, and confirmed by the nods of other veterans on the panel, the presence of reporters keeps soldiers, who are under huge amounts of stress and constant danger, from committing "unamerican" atrocities: beatings, murders, and sacrilege that we rarely, if ever, hear about, not because the media ignores them, but because the media isn't there anymore.

This is not to say that most journalists in Iraq are doing a bad job, obviously it's a very dangerous situation. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 179 media workers have been targeted and killed since March 2003. But as companies like the Tribune Company of the LA Times have shifted to hyper-localism to save bucks, they've also cut international reporting in favor of AP and Reuters wire services. It's expensive to fly someone a couple thousand miles away, the equipment is expensive. It makes much more economic sense to cover celebrity news or a flashy crime spree. According to "The Embed," a 2008 program of Wisconsin Public Radio, the war started with over 770 reporters embedded with troops. Currently, there are fewer than 20.

How do you realistically cover a guerrilla conflict when you only have 20 people in the entire country (there are some independent reporters also, but they also account for the majority of casualties and abductions)? How are these cuts in journalists changing how the war is prosecuted, is it by the book, or does it use tactics that Americans would find repugnant if they knew about them? According to Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics, journalists should "recognize a special obligation to ensure that the public's business is conducted in the open." Does that make it the media's responsibility to hold the military accountable for the tactics they use or tolerate?

Just last week, Neal Justin, TV critic of the Star Tribune, said the National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis focused too much on the mainstream media's failure to report the truth in Iraq in 2003. Is it possible that people were so fixated on the media's failure, because the tightfisted media is still failing the public by not providing a full picture of what is really happening in Iraq, how our government's policies are being carried out, and the human costs for both Americans and Iraqis? Journalists shouldn't be with the troops, understanding their trials and observing their actions, so they can condemn specific acts, but so the public itself has the opportunity to hold the government accountable to our expectations that it act humanely, and in line with our ideals.

Thoughts on the media Part II: Consolidation, Cuts, and Resurrection

"Good luck finding a job."

That's what people tell me when they find out I'm studying journalism.

It's a sentiment that's no doubt reinforced by endless articles about newspapers' cost-cutting as circulation plummets. Even the New York Times is making cuts. Rather than solving newspapers' dilemma, the cuts eviscerate actual news content in favor of the hyper-localisms of T.V. news. Why read a newspaper full of kittens and celebrity gossip when you can look at Perez Hilton and Icanhascheeseburger.com?

Contrary to common belief, hunger for news, along with paid circulation, is actually increasing in most of the world, just not the U.S. or Europe where access to digital media is more common, according to a report from the World Association of Newspapers.

News organizations in the U.S. have seen a 3 percent drop in paid circulation this year, although their articles are increasingly accessible to larger audiences through Feeds and applications like Google News. Even with recent declines, newspapers still maintain circulation levels similar to those in the 70s, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

The real question beneath all the hoopla around the death of newspapers is the following:

"How do owners maintain the ridiculously high profit-margins they came to expect in the deregulated 90s?"

That's what uber-capitalist Sam Zell is trying to do by making drastic cuts, once again, at papers he owns like the Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times.





Recently, Zell announced plans to cut 500 pages of news from his 12 papers every week, and maintain an ad/news ratio of 50/50. In addition, he plans more staff cuts, saying they've analyzed each reporter's output and found that many reporters don't carry their weight (in inches). Of course this doesn't take into account the difficulty of reporting on investigative stories, that whole 'serving the public trust' thing, that's because Zell doesn't want those stories reported anyway.

"When you get into the individuals, you find out that you can eliminate a fair number of people while eliminating not very much content," according to news accounts.

In the past, Zell has fired numerous editors at the Times for refusing to make further newsroom cuts, just this week Tribune publisher Scott Smith resigned.

Zell is bad. He's a villain. But, in a fucked up way, we're lucky to have him. Zell's cuts are being made by media conglomerates at newspapers all over the country. It's happening with Avista Capital Partners at the Star Tribune. Zell and these conglomerates share an antagonism to journalism and an expectation of high profit margins. We're lucky enough to have this slimeball named Sam Zell who will explain their logic of unregulated capitalism to us, and focus public outrage, and perhaps overcome journalists' complacency. It's better than having a faceless group like Avista. Who are those assholes?

Felix Salmon of Conde Nast Portfolio explains capitalists' financial approach towards newspapers, and is incredulous that Zell hasn't sold the Times yet.

"Why kill yourself and the paper to squeeze out the profits needed to pay down the company's huge pile of leveraged debt, when you can just sell the bloody thing?"

By making all these cuts, you get rid of the reason for the newspaper, the news, and circulations drop accordingly. It happened during the Star Tribune's redesign here. John Morton was quoted in the New York Times saying the same thing:

“To the extent you diminish your product, I think you diminish your success, in print or online,” he said. “In the long run, it’s going to be harmful to newspapers’ brand names, which is the strongest thing they’ve got.”

Profit margins in newspapers have recently been as high as 30%, more than almost any other industry. In recent years, according to everyone, they've been declining. At this point, even Rupert Murdoch has said owners need to adjust their expectations of unrealistic profits, according to Jon Fine in Business Week. Will people like Zell and Avista do that? Or will they suck the newspapers dry and further dirty their reputations?

I'm excited to see what's going to happen. Like the housing market, newspapers can't keep offering the same unrealistic profits forever, and businesspeople raised during the Clinton era of consolidation and deregulation are trying to milk a little more money out of them, undermining their long-term financial sustainability by taking the news out of newspapers.

Probably, it's going to take a couple of these investors losing their pants. It's going to kill a couple newspapers. But in the end, it might prove to be a blessing by undermining the monopoly status of the corporate media, opening up space for new organizations that actually provide journalism.

In the last few years, we've seen the media's role as a public trust disappear. Certainly none of these owners see it like that. Maybe some good rich people will appear, and run them like the Christian Science Monitor? Or maybe the fourth estate will take advantage of all this new technology, shake off all this top-down hierarchy, all these hedge-fund scam artists, and rise from the dead? Like zombies.

Twin Cities Experimental College starts summer semester

The Experimental College, a locally based free school, will begin offering summer classes this coming week.

For their summer semester, the ExCo will offer 35 classes on subjects that range from basic bike maintenance to anarchist theory. Classes are open to anyone of any age, free of charge, and are taught by people in the community who have special expertise or knowledge in particular areas.

The ExCo started at Macalester College in 2006, and spread to the University of Minnesota earlier this year. It tries to provide free classes on subjects of social justice and activism that academia often neglects. Imagine if they posted all these classes and information on their website in the form of accessible video or audio; an interesting way to expand the people they reach out to?

The ExCo is based on similar projects at elite private colleges like Oberlin, although the Twin Cities project differs because it doesn't offer college credit, and resides outside University departments as a community and student group.

I've yet to take an ExCo class, but it seems to be a pretty stable project that sometimes manages to reach past the student and activist ghettos that often seem to bog projects down in unrealistic dogma and theoretical gobbedlygook.

For more info, check out their website or an earlier article I worked on about them for the Daily.

Murderer attacks defense lawyer in Hennepin County: Civics lessons?

Convicted double-murderer Revelle Loving attacked his defense lawyer during sentencing Tuesday, according to the Star Tribune. The specifics of this particular case weren't discussed in the article, no doubt Loving had a problem with the fact that he was convicted. But it's possible to draw a parallel between this incident, and the larger problem that, with more than 1 in 100 American adults in prison, and public defense budgets being cut drastically, people accused of crimes don't understand their basic rights in court.

I can attest to the overwhelming feeling one can get from the Hennepin County courtrooms. In my capacity as a Daily reporter this year, I covered a number of trials. Apart from a couple minor things, it was the first time I'd spent a substantial amount of time in a courtroom. For those outside the legal professions, the procedures seems unnecessarily bureaucratic, they give a feeling of overwhelming powerlessness. If it feels that way to me, with my multiple degrees and raggedy years of education, imagine how it feels to someone who is locked in one of those boxes, and who perhaps didn't even graduate high school. And even if they did, high school civics didn't prepare us to go to jail--but with prison rates skyrocketing, maybe it should start.


A friend, who is currently in law school, volunteers for the Ramsey County Public Defender's Office. He said that prisoners often mistake him for an enemy. Basically, they don't understand their rights, and that the defender is there for them. The defender is lumped in with the coercive authorities of the police, prosecutors and judges in the criminal justice system. The accused tends to look at all as one big system with the goal of putting him in jail; the public defender becomes another enemy.

There's probably multiple reasons this happens: Public defenders are stretched to breaking point as Minnesota cuts public defenders by 15 percent over the next year. This hampers the time and quality already harried defenders can put into clients' cases.

Also, this system, as many have pointed out before, puts pressure on public defenders to plea bargain to get the case out of the way as soon as possible. The reaction being that clients feel their interests weren't adequately represented, which understandably breeds resentment.

Obviously, the criminal justice system has greater problems than some public defender getting sucker-punched, but implications in peoples' personal lives, and for their freedom, can be potentially huge if they don't understand, or have public defenders to help them understand, what the basic rights are that protect them against the overwhelming power and complexity of the criminal justice system.

Review: Nancy Drew Crew- The Case is Closed CD

Nancy Drew Crew, as you might suspect from the name, falls into the genre of cute-hop (nerdcore, whatever) that's swept the retro-Adidas wearing youth culture for a few years now. They also happen to be some of the most radical and accessible polemicists, not only in Minneapolis, but maybe in the whole great United States of pop.

The Case is Closed holds eight songs, clocking in at around a half hour and, just so you know that NDC is sincere about DIY revolution, the CDs come packaged in hand-sewn and hand-printed cases.

On stage they go by the names of Mayhem, MC Smells and Skullbuster-- while in the real world they don the mild-mannered Midwestern aliases of Anna, Kelly and Brian.
NDC bakes up surprisingly slinky beats and anthemic choruses about such non-anthemic topics as hygiene conspiracies, the scam called higher education and DIY crafts. Fronted by two female MCs, they take turns weaving intricate rhymes around a pulsing , busy backbeat. Their delivery on the verses is light and flexible, while the choruses are anchored by epic samples and singsong anthems. Fans of Le Tigre and high-energy locals like Dance Band and Best Friends Forever will probably find something to like.

The backing music consists of samples and looped beats and sounds, to me, heavily electronic. All said, the music is catchy and provides a solid platform for the all-important rhymes of the MCs, but I would prefer a little mor does have that atmospheric Dead Prez thing going for it, but I'm a sucker for real instruments, so I wish there was a little more of that.

Politically, NDC are proud lifestylists. You're probably not going to find them reworking the same tired punk lyrics masquerading as politics. Instead, the songs are wordy complex manifestos that turn the traditional feminist focus of the "personal as political"-- found in grating neo-folk like Ani Di Franco-- on its head. Instead, NDC takes politics personally. They manage, although sometimes just barely, to tiptoe that subtle line for political bands, making their points without seeming overly dogmatic.

All in all, this is a good first album. Perhaps the most endearing evidence of their sincerity can be found in their vocal delivery, which eschews the Dirty South's drawl and the East Coast's precision, in favor of accents that would sound more fitting on Prairie Home Companion, all stretched out 'O's and 'bags' that sounds like 'begs.'
Min-ay-sow-tah, indeed.

St. Paul McDonalds sued for discriminating against American-born latinos

David Hanners of the Pioneer Press has a great story today about a lawsuit filed by two Latino men that accuses the owner of a downtown St. Paul McDonald's of refusing to hire them because they were born in the United States.

When the men were being interviewed a manager allegedly told them he only hired "Mexicans from Mexico" because American citizens of Mexican descent always quit.

This type of incident is probably relatively common, if rarely pursued through legal routes. Most people could agree that current immigration laws impact both native-born and foreign-born undocumented workers in negative ways; lowering pay rates and workplace standards. In fact, the only party that consistently benefits from the federal government's oversights seems to be business owners.


I'm not just spitting out empty rhetoric. A couple weeks back, up to 700 undocumented workers were swept up in a weekend of raids at meatpacking plants in Iowa. At least 300 people will serve prison time before they're deported, according to the Washington Post. As recently as last week, no charges have been brought against management or owners who hired illegal workers, and ignored the government's earlier notifications that up to 70% of their workforce was using invalid IDs.

On the bosses side, New York based owner Aaron Rubashkin denies that the company knowingly hired illegals. He says he pays his taxes, therefore it's the government's job to keep illegal workers out.

In the governments corner, Kelly Nantel, a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement who conducted the raid, insisted on the difficulty of prosecuting employers to the Washington Post:

"Developing sufficient evidence against employers requires complex, white-collar crime investigations that can take years to bear fruit."

Wink.

The thing that relates to the above McDonald's story is that employers have been given such leeway by the government that they don't even bother to hide their violations, not to mention enforce labor standards for this newly precarious class of undocumented workers, the Post reports that workers were not paid regularly and that some were abused.

Also, it would be dishonest to pretend that American workers haven't been hurt by this influx of low-wage workers. Fifteen years ago, workers at these plants would have been in a union, and earned a decent wage and benefits. Remember Hormel?

But this issue transcends the right and left orthodoxies on immigration. Groups from the Iowa Civil Rights Commission to seven-term Republican congressman Tom Latham, are starting to see common ground. In a recent editorial, the Boston Herald called the Iowa debacle a "raid on fairness."

The fact is: If the government really wanted to slow or stop illegal immigration, than it would cut off the demand; bosses who hire workers for low-wages. Instead, it engages in theater, these drop-in-the-bucket raids that tear apart families and leave those who remain fearful and even more susceptible to the predations of unscrupulous bosses or criminals, sometimes one and the same.

By pursuing immigration in this manner, they please the wealthy industries that fund their campaigns while reassigning blame for their pissed off working class constituencies onto immigrants.

You thought McDonald's was greasy and made you feel sick.

God Forbid that Laws be Based on Common Sense: Part 1: Mandatory Minimums

Two examples of the usual lack of common sense in the public's debate about laws.

The first, covered in a great narrative piece in the Washington Post, details the life of Michael Short. Fifteen years ago he got mixed up with drug dealers in suburban D.C. Under minimum mandatory sentencing for crack, he was sentenced to 20 years. Mandatory sentencing has recently gained attention as the prison population exploded, especially for young black men, and especially due to drug arrests and mandatory sentences. Here's how Short describes his situation testifying about the practice before Congressional subcommittee:

"My name is Michael Short. I am here because in 1992 I was sentenced for selling crack cocaine. Before that, I had never spent a day in prison. I came from a good family. I had no criminal history. I was not a violent offender. But I was sentenced to serve nearly 20 years. I was 21 years old."

Unless people have a personal experience with these laws, it's rare that the public sees the real effect it has on people's lives. If the minimums impacted any other demographic than young black men, it likely would have been overturned a long time ago.

In fact, the law that led to the disparity, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, was initiated by house speaker, Tip O'Neill, a Democrat. The Post reports that an aide said that the speakers realized the death of a basketball star could capitalize on the public's "outcry about crack," whihc was probably similar to the hysteria about meth a couple years back, with made-up reports that people who smoked meth would never feel joy again. Here's the aides words.
"The speaker realizes, if the Democrats take the lead on this, if we play it right, maybe we can win the Senate back."

God forbid that laws, especially punishments, be based on what they accomplish rather than public hysteria or, as in this case, cynical political expedience (by a Democrat).

God Forbid that we would base Laws on Common Sense: Part 2: Bike Traffic

The second case certainly isn't as dramatic. It's a law proposed by Minnesota House Rep. Phyllis Kahn to create different rules for bicyclists than cars. Immediately, it invoked outraged comments on the Star Tribune website. No doubt, bike-hating Katherine Kersten is putting aside her fear of madrasahs in Coon Rapids to once again sharpen her anti-bike knives.

A recent "expose" by KSTP's Bob McCaney about bikers breaking traffic laws ran during sweeps week. It featured, essentially, McCaney doing his best impression of a journalist by setting up a camera at a three way stop and filming bikers skidding past the stop sign when no cars were coming.
Afterwards, local bikers reported a surge of tickets for the bike equivalent of jaywalking. It was an easy target for some hysterical reactions from motorists who felt slighted. They got a little flack from the Minnesota Monitor, but most comments tapped in driver's hysterical fear that bikers be held to a different standard than cars even though the situation on the road is different.

Kahn's legislation, in my opinion as a year-round biker, is a great step towards common sense laws. There are parts of the current law we rarely use, for instance, bikers rarely take up a whole lane to themselves like the law allows. The fact is, as one bike-friendly commenter pointed out in the now-erased comments at the ST, safety is the first priority. Sometimes, it's better to run a stop sign than wait for the car, which may or may not stop, to approach. I've always said that biking is an insurrectionist act because you're trying to navigate a system designed for, and dominated by, cars. Bikers are extremely susceptible to the two-ton monstrosities on the road, it's common sense that they should be given leeway for their safety. It's common sense.

Kahn's proposal makes sense, and it makes sense to end minimum mandatories, but that might be too much to expect from the politicians and Kerstens of the world, hungry for an alienating issue to bang away at people who don't have the political clout to defend themselves.