Iron Range Lawmaker Wants to Lower Drinking Age (WDIO News, Duluth)

The debate over a lower drinking age is back at the capitol. Rep. Tom Rukavina, D-Virginia, is helping sponsor legislation that would lower the drinking age in bars, to 18. This change would not affect off-sale liquor, so teens could NOT buy beer from
liquor sales. He tried lowering it back in 1999, to 19, but that measure didn't pass. Rukavina said the bill is authored by Phyllis Kahn, of Minneapolis. But he believes that people are treated as adults in every other way when they turn 18, except in regards to drinking. Rukavina also said that binge drinking is a problem, so if people learned in a controlled environment, like a bar, things would improve. He also said that underage drinking cases are clogging the court system and costing us big bucks there.

If the state did lower the drinking age, they could forfeit 10% of their highway funding. For Minnesota, that would be over $50 million dollars.

Law enforcement has traditionally opposed the move to a lower drinking age, citing the high number of deaths in young people, on our roads. Rukavina said he wasn't sure how much support the bill will have, but he said to him, it just makes sense.

The bill was introduced for the first time, today in the House.

To be fair, Vermont lawmakers are looking at a similar proposal. My general opinion is that the age of adulthood should be universal. But that's easier to say than implement in law. On one hand binge drinking is a cultural phenomenon spurred by the "forbidden fruit" image we put on alcoholic beverages in America. On the other, I don't know that legalizing bar drinking for 18-year-olds while leaving off sale liquor sales illegal is going to get us anywhere.

"You can drink, kids, but never at home."

The risk of losing federal highway funds alone will probably kill this bill, but here we are talking about it anyway.

For Aaron Brown of Bovey, comfort food is Kraft macaroni and cheese, just like he had with hot dogs as a boy. “Not the good homemade stuff,” he said of his preferred macaroni and cheese, “but the cheap stuff from the store.”

What does [Obama's disciplined top-to-bottom use of graphic design] say about his campaign?

My feeling, in my own narrow sphere as a professional graphic designer, echoes a little bit what Frank Rich wrote in his column on Sunday, where he was talking about Hillary Clinton's argument that Obama doesn't have the experience to run the country properly, and how you only needed to look at how her own campaign has been managed to see the flaw in that argument. I sort of see the same thing. I'm not sure that the commander-in-chief proves his mettle by getting everyone at his rallies to set their signs in the same typeface, but as someone who knows how hard that is, I'm very impressed.

House overrides governor’s veto on transportation bill

By BRIAN BAKST
Associated Press

ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Legislature voted Monday to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto of a $6.6 billion transportation bill, paving the way for higher gas taxes and other fees to bring in more money for roads, bridges and transit.

The critical vote came in the House, where six Republicans broke ranks to defy the governor and provide the two-thirds majority needed for the override. The final vote was 91-41. The Senate vote later in the day, 47-20, was assured because the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has a veto-proof majority.

The state’s first gas tax increase since 1988 will hit on April 1, and by fall it will have climbed slightly more than a nickel overall to 25.5 cents per gallon. It will rise in stages another 3 cents by 2012 to pay off road bonds.

The average state gasoline tax nationwide is 28.6 cents per gallon, according to API, a national trade association that represents the oil and natural gas industry.

Overrides are rare in Minnesota, with only 14 occurring since 1939. None of Pawlenty’s 36 previous vetoes had been overturned, including two before on transportation proposals.

In a conference call, the governor reacted coolly.

“The DFL majority has done what it does best, which is to raise taxes on Minnesota families,” he said. “I’m more than happy to say this is a DFL product and a DFL result with a few Republicans who helped them because I wouldn’t want to take any credit for this piece of work.”

Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, was among the Republicans voting for an override. He said his vote came down to concern over the safety of the roads.

“We have so many unsafe roads in my area with twists and turns — on a rainy night I’m scared to drive down the roads,” he said before the vote. “The people who die on those roads are teenagers in single-car accidents. If we don’t do something we will have some kid’s blood on our hands.”

It’s not just that her candidacy’s central premise — the priceless value of “experience” — was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the [Iraq] fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination — “It will be me,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November — she was routed by an insurgency.

As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and — talk about bizarre — against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.

Ticket to ride Greyhound

HIBBING, Minn. – It was 1914, and Andrew Anderson and Carl Wickman were having no luck selling their Hupmobile to the iron ore miners on Minnesota’s Iron Range.

“Everybody wanted a demonstration ride, but nobody wanted to buy,” said Gene Nicolelli, director of the Greyhound Bus Museum in Hibbing.

And then part of Hibbing moved. Literally. The iron ore mines were expanding; high-grade ore was under the town, and nature’s bounty took precedence over man’s comfort. Close to 200 buildings, most of them two-story houses, were moved from North Hibbing to Alice, a location 2 miles to the south.

Eventually all of Hibbing would move, but for a while there were North Hibbing and South Hibbing. The mine and some homes, businesses and churches were still in North Hibbing while other houses were already in Alice.

So Anderson and Wickman hung a sign from the Hupmobile, offering rides. One-way, 15 cents. Round-trip, a quarter.

The idea was met with instant success.

Soon there were more routes with more cars. The Hupmobile owners took on more partners. Mechanics revamped vehicles to carry more passengers.

Nicolelli was impressed with the story of Swedish immigrants Anderson and Wickman.

“They parlayed something from a 2-mile route to the biggest bus company in the free world, privately owned,” Nicolelli said. “It’s amazing what they did. That’s what got me interested in this. I couldn’t believe it. It was timing – being in the right place at the right time – but the most important part was that they had the guts to take chances. They just kept expanding and expanding and taking on more partners.”

But then one partner would break away and start his own bus company in one area, another partner in another area. Soon there were many separate bus companies that could get travelers to distant places – but with the inconvenience of having to buy separate tickets from each bus company for each leg of the trip. So one company would buy out another, and another … ultimately making Greyhound a nationwide carrier. Nicolelli himself was never with Greyhound.

“I was a grocery man when I got interested in this,” he said.

It was more than 30 years ago when Hibbing’s abandoned bus depot was converted into a grocery store, and he found a plaque honoring the town as the birthplace of the bus industry. He thought it would be nice to rededicate it.

He went to the library to research the bus history and found old articles from Fortune magazine, Reader’s Digest and Saturday Evening Post.

“It just fascinated me what these guys did,” he said.

So Nicolelli went to then-governor Rudy Perpich.

“I convinced him that this is a story that should be told. It’s part of Americana. Greyhound did on rubber what the railroad did on steel, connecting the country together.”

In 1989, the Greyhound Bus Museum opened in a small corner of the Hibbing Municipal Building. In 1999, it moved to its present location on Greyhound Boulevard, on the way to North Hibbing. Here are 13 buses in mint condition, including the 1914 Hupmobile that started it all. A video, “Go Greyhound,” plays in a room resembling the inside of a bus; viewers watch from actual bus seats. Display cases are filled with memorabilia ranging from old photos and uniforms to bus parts and toys. There’s even a size 28 Greyhound driver’s hat worn by Mickey Mouse at Disney World.

Images of greyhounds – authentic logos as well as more casual drawings - are everywhere.

And often, there’s Nicolelli, shaking a visitor’s hand, answering a question, sharing an anecdote – still fascinated by the story of the local guys who gave birth to the country’s bus industry.

Virginia bar joins the cast of taverns using smoking ban loophole
By Janna Goerdt, Duluth News-Tribune

VIRGINIA — Smokers were standing outside of many bars on Virginia’s main street Friday night, enjoying cigarettes in the cool air.

But the sidewalk in front of the Queen City Sports Palace was conspicuously empty — because the smokers there were smoking inside.

As of Thursday, the Sports Palace was one of the latest Minnesota bars to hop on the path to legal indoor smoking.

A quirk in Minnesota’s Freedom to Breathe Act, which bans smoking in most public workplaces, allows for smoking in theatrical productions. Today, a growing number of bars are following the lead of Cambridge, Minn., lawyer Mark Benjamin and staging tongue-in-cheek plays, with bar patrons as actors and actresses.

“I’m not breaking any laws,” Sports Palace owner Doug Foschi said. He ran the idea past the Virginia city attorney, who could find no reason why Foschi couldn’t stage “The Tobacco Monologues.” And so the play has gone on from 4 p.m. until 2 a.m. every night, and Foschi plans to keep it going.

Aside from an occasional arm flourish, there was plenty of smoking but seemed to be little acting going on among the festive crowd at the Sports Palace on Friday night. Bartenders passed out small yellow stickers for those who wanted to participate in the play, and about half of the patrons wore them.

“OK, I’ll quote Scarlett O’Hara,” said Virginia resident Robin Cronk, who was enjoying the chance to smoke in a bar again. “As God is my witness, I’ll never go into a bar without a cigarette again!”

Locking in Viewers to Watch the Commercials
By BILL CARTER

Looking to strike a blow against the proliferation of digital video recorders, the ABC network, its affiliated broadcast stations, and Cox Communications’ cable systems are establishing an on-demand video service that would allow viewers to watch ABC shows like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” any time they choose.

The catch: It uses a new technology that disables the viewers’ ability to fast-forward through commercials.

Because the best way to deal with changing trends is to adopt them in a way that excludes their very appeal. Yes, I love my DVR, but I don't just want to watch my SHOWS when I want, I need to watch tampon commercials, too.

Pardon me, my blog is showing
By Aaron J. Brown

02/22/08 09:44 a.m.
This column is about blogs. I realize that writing about blogs on the Iron Range carries some risk. Our Internet usage trends here lag behind other areas. As a result, 39 percent of Iron Rangers think that “Blog” is a popular brand of shoes worn by teenagers.

COMMENT: (From OreBelly65) “Ah, jeez. You’re talking about those blogs. I’m going to go see what an F-150 is going for in the classifieds.”

COMMENT: (From PoticaLady34) “I think my daughter wears blogs. They have holes in them. Why would you want shoes with holes in them? It’s that Brittany Spears, I think.”

02/22/08 09:53 a.m.
If you don’t know, blogs are just websites, places on the Internet where people share information, opinions and multimedia content. They were called web logs at first, which was shortened to “blog.” The word went from slang to part of America’s vocabulary in just a few years.

COMMENT: (From ModernRanger78) “You must think we’re stupid or something. Everyone knows what a blog is, and what the coalition of industrialists called the Legion of Shadows is doing to control them.”

COMMENT: (From OreBelly65) “Ten grand for a ’92 with no topper? That guy must be nuts. It does have flame decals though. I like that.”

02/22/08 09:59 a.m.
Blogs cover many topics. Some bloggers talk about news, politics or finances. Other times people blog about giant toads. For instance, scientists recently discovered the fossils of a massive bowling ball sized toad that lived at the time of the dinosaurs. Dubbed the “devil toad,” this ancient amphibian would have preyed on insects, small rodents and possibly even baby dinosaurs, say the scientists.

COMMENT: (From PoticaLady34) “I don’t think we should teach about the devil toad in public schools. Kids are impressionable at that age.”

02/22/08 10:04 a.m.
Some people say blogging will be the cornerstone of the new media, evidenced by how traditional media outlets like newspapers, radio stations and TV networks are
adopting blog technology and style. And while this participatory medium is open to everyone, journalists face the same difficulties in finding enough resources to properly investigate news and objectively report truth. In many ways, the blogosphere of 2008 resembles the newspaper industry of 1907. Just take a look at the history page that Jack Lynch compiles for the Monday Hibbing Daily Tribune. Hibbing had several newspapers at dawn of the 20th century, each lambasting the others to argue their point of view. Indeed, today’s blogs rely heavily on the educated commentary of their bloggers and seldom use the same objectivity taught in traditional journalism schools. There is value in this new style, but we have yet to solve the riddle of how to ensure fairness in how people learn about public issues.

COMMENT: (From ModernRanger78) “I’ll tell you how. Those government agents who monitor my every move can lay off for awhile.”

02/22/08 10:15 a.m.
I write a blog. Every day, I struggle with a question. Do I take the time needed to dissect an important northern Minnesota public policy issue, or do I talk about some wacky trivia that’s easy to find. For instance, did you know that the survival of the Joshua trees is in doubt because of the extinction of the giant sloth? According to a National Public Radio report, Joshua trees grew in evolutionary symbiosis with the giant sloth until the slow-moving, giant-clawed creature died out 10,000 years ago. The sloths were instrumental in the trees' migration to more favorable climates. How? Well, these sloths would eat the seeds and something about the magical giant sloth digestive system helped the seeds grow when the sloths “visited” more favorable climates. Now these VW Bug-sized sloths are all gone and climate change is threatening the Joshua tree, which doesn’t migrate well without the aid of sloth dung.

See, that’s interesting, but not the sort of thing that helps people understand their communities.

COMMENTS: (From OreBelly64) Too bad about those sloths. I bet they’d make a nice jerky.

02/22/08 10:19 a.m.
Still, no matter whether you live in northern Minnesota or some other far flung corner of the world, blogs are a way to connect citizens, information and calls for action. Whether you understand the changing Internet or not, these trends are already influencing our lives. It’s well worth paying attention.

COMMENTS: (From PoticaLady34) Well, maybe I’d get a pair of those blogs if I were about 20 years younger.

COMMENTS: (From ModernRanger78) The future is now here! Or, nowhere. Whoa.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Contact him or read more at http://www.minnesotabrown.com/.

Several hundred protesters have attacked the US and other embassies in Serbia's capital in anger at Western support for Kosovo's independence.

Protesters broke into the US compound in Belgrade and briefly set part of the embassy alight. Firemen later found an unidentified charred body inside.

Other embassies, including the UK's, were also targeted. The UN Security Council condemned the attacks. The violence followed a peaceful rally by at least 150,000 people in the city.

Most Serbs regard Kosovo as their religious and cultural heartland.

Of 786 charged felonies in Duluth in 2007, the News Tribune was able to track the driver’s license addresses for 720 of the suspects. Of those, 639 — or 89 percent — listed Northland cities and towns as their primary address. Only 54
-- 7.5 percent — had licenses from out of state.

So why do some people say that the crime problem in Duluth is caused by “other people’’ who come here from somewhere else?

Fred Friedman heads the Northeastern Minnesota public defender’s office and provides attorneys to people charged with crimes who can’t afford to pay for an attorney. He didn’t hesitate to respond when asked why there is a perception that outsiders bring so much crime to Duluth.

“Race,’’ he said. “When TV or the newspaper shows a picture of a white person who is a suspect, nobody remembers it. When they show a picture of a black person who is a suspect, people remember it. The perception is not about people coming from other cities; it’s about race.’’

Friedman acknowledges that more of his clients than he would like commit violent crimes shortly after arriving here, but he said it isn’t a high percentage, and that perception is more a myth than a reality.

He's been asked about the Iron Range's current build-up and the need for more energy, with a "clean-coal" coal gasification plant proposed to generate power. While it seems Franken may oppose the plant, he says he supports the technology but is unsure if it's appropriate for that place at this time.

"The idea of coal gasification where you can sequester the CO2 is a technology that we ought to develop," Franken said. "I'm just not sure at that plant is the best project. We want to get the most bang for the buck, and you want to make sure it's sequestered properly."

The technology is needed, he said, as China and India put up a coal-fired plant once a week. It does no good for the United States to seek a zero-carbon footprint when the other two nations continue unabated with carbon emissions.

Yes, Al Franken actually recognizes the difference between a good "jobs" project and a bad "jobs" project. He is not drinking the Kool Aid on Excelsior Energy's boondoggle Mesaba Energy Project.

Visions, challenges and initiatives Mayor says Hibbing must embrace change
By Kelly Grinsteinner, Hibbing Daily Tribune

HIBBING — With change knocking on Hibbing’s door, Mayor Rick Wolff says the community and region must be prepared and work cooperatively in the dawn of this new era.

“Fighting change to maintain the status quo is not an option any longer. It is a recipe for failure,” Wolff told the crowd of around 50 business persons and city employees during his State of the City address, held Tuesday at Hibbing Community College.

“Being open and receptive to change will ensure the future of this community,” he said. “Diversity of idea, perspective and thought will in fact make us a stronger and more vital community.”

Minn. lawmakers plan to burst out of session starting gate
By MARTIGA LOHN and BRIAN BAKST
The Associated Press

ST. PAUL -- Big-ticket items like a long-range transportation spending plan and $1 billion worth of state building projects will get early and prominent billing as the Minnesota Legislature opens its 2008 session.

The Democrats in charge of the Legislature left no doubt about the pace of the session as they promised to rush through those two priority bills and a ballot measure asking voters to raise the sales tax and dedicate the proceeds to environment and arts programs. Final votes on the ballot measure are expected this week.

"Members are fired up and ready to go to produce a really fast, efficient and effective session," House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, said Monday.

Legislative leaders promised to unveil a transportation plan Tuesday that would raise the gas tax for roads and add a metropolitan sales tax for mass transit.

Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, said the bill includes a permanent but phased-in 5-cent increase in the gas tax with allowances to temporarily raise it 2.5 cents more if road construction debt exceeds a certain level.

The bill would put at least $11 billion into transportation over the next decade. Murphy hopes to have the bill on Gov. Tim Pawlenty's desk before March, and if it runs into a veto, override the Republican governor by Easter.

Hints of the fierce partisanship that left a bitter aftertaste to the 2007 session appeared on Monday, even as leaders of both parties talked about mending the state's tattered economy. The stakes are even higher this year as a budget deficit deepens and the state recovers from the deadly Interstate 35W bridge collapse.

Kelliher and DFL Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller lamented that the state was lagging its peers in academic research spending, job growth and other economic indicators, with Pogemiller saying Minnesota appears "to be on a march to mediocrity."

Republicans, including Pawlenty's administration, countered that Democrats were offering the wrong recipe for the state's woes.

Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung noted that two of the first three bills the Legislature plans to pass rely on tax increases.

"Our concern is that when Democrats talk about jump-starting, they're going to attach the jumper cables to your wallet," McClung said. "This is not the direction we should be heading in when we have a tough economy."

Still, Pawlenty is open to a nickel per gallon increase in the current 20-cent gas tax if it is offset by a tax decrease elsewhere, McClung said.

And Pawlenty doesn't have a say on the environment and arts constitutional amendment, which will appear on the ballot if both the House and Senate give it majority votes. The sales tax would rise 3/8ths of 1 percent, with four of every five new dollars going to water cleanup, wildlife habitat protection and park upkeep.