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Journalism and other myths.
It’s Pledge Drive time at Minnesota Public Radio! This Winter’s pitch for bucks comes at the same time Congress is (once again) looking to slash funding for public broadcasting. That means one thing to me – I better get my own Pledge Drive in while I can.
Welcome to the first ever Barataria in-blog Pledge Drive! There’s a survey at the end where you can tell me just what you think anonymously and easily, whether you give or not.
Saint Paul Public schools, like just about every school district in the US, is in a bit of trouble. Budget cuts, declining enrollment, and the K-12 funding “delay” in Minnesota are all taking their toll. They’re responded with a plan called “Schools at the Heart of the community” that addresses this and a lot more of their lingering problems all in one grand strategic plan.
Does this plan work? I think it does. There are a few questions and suggestions that I have outstanding, but overall this shows what a dedicated group of public servants can do under extraordinary circumstances. They also appear to be listening to the public as they shop this plan around, meaning it will probably only get better. I’m impressed and I want to add what I can to both the thanks and the suggestions.
Y’ins gon’ rut fer Stillers? I ask the room for its opinion in my best Pittsburghese, a language I’m woefully out of practice with. Nevermind. Out here in Saint Paul no one can tell if I’m getting it right or not. The language, with deep Polish and Appalachian roots never made it outside of the hills of Western Pennsylvania a land with its own rugged rhythm tempered by a gentle decency. It’s an easy culture to define by language but a hard one to get to know.
The upcoming Superbowl features two teams from “The Midwest”, the industrial heart of the nation that quietly defines much of what we consider solid and good about the USofA. We can find this stretch on a map as one people, but we can also hear it in the way they talk and the values they cherish. It’s where football itself was founded and continues to thrive in basic principles of fair competition. It’s America both unassumingly small and big hearted at the same time.
Is the economy improving or are we just “muddling through”? Over the last year I’ve tried to note what we should look as reams of economic data are released and then spun by an eager, if naïve press. It’s time to go back and review what’s happening now that data for the end of 2010 is starting to come in.
A shocking act of political violence has turned our politics in on itself. The attempted murder of a Congresswoman who had endured many threats and survived a number of frightening situations begs to have made sense of it. The gunman appears to be nothing more than a lone nut acting out his own mental illness, but that doesn’t change the pressure placed on our politics by tough, violent talk over the last several years. What can we possibly make of it?
A step back is essential when something like this happens. I’d like to do my part to make sense of what is often called “senseless”.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 