Seward Co-op History Mural

Seward Co-op has a new mural along the front wall of the store.


The vector-based illustration was done by Spunk Design Machine and shows the four "faces" of the co-op over its 28 years. (Click on the image to see it larger, but details are also below.)


The first location, 1982, was at 22nd and Franklin, where the Welna Hardware store is now. I always wondered about that extra "O" in Co-op. Couldn't they afford a hyphen?


The second image is the same location, but after some renovations that took place in 1987 or 1988.


The second store was built and opened in 1998, just a block west of the first. It was a good example of community development funds combining with capital from the co-op's member owners.


The current store, which opened about a year and a half ago, demonstrates both green building principles (green in all senses of the word!) and the commitment of members to investing in their co-op.

Here's a past look at the mosaic outside the front door of the new co-op and some photos from the co-op's opening day in January 2009.

It's Not $64, It's 83¢

Today's Star Tribune contained two letters about the possible Vikings stadium, responding to Sen. John Marty's op-ed on the $64 per seat per game subsidy it would require. (See my earlier post on this topic.)

One letter essentially agreed with my thoughts, suggesting they tack the $64 charge onto the tickets. The other took a radically different approach:

Sen. Marty states that public financing for a new Vikings stadium would subsidize the 65,000 seats in the new stadium at $64 per game, per seat, for 30 years.

Do the math: 65,000 seats times $64 each divided by 5 million residents in the state of Minnesota equals $0.832 per game per citizen. Marty thinks this is a lot of money to watch a Vikings game on your home TV. I don't think so.

-- David Jones, Burnsville

83 cents per game per person for every man, woman and child in the state for 30 years. Just so we can watch the game on TV if we are so inclined, with the warm feeling that it is being broadcast from Minnesota rather than some other location.

Thanks, David, that sure makes it sound a whole lot better!

Too Many Tabs Open, Part 1

How do you use your web browser? I've gotten in the habit of keeping tabs open for pages that I want to write about on my blog. But the tabs are hitting a critical mass that keeps crashing the browser, so it's time for some quick write-ups.

Here goes -- in no particular order.

"Globish" is a simplified version of English spoken among the interconnected, mostly technical classes around the world. As the story lead says, "More than a lingua franca, the rapid adoption of 'decaffeinated English', according to the man who coined the term 'Globish', makes it the world's most widely spoken language." This reminds me of the English language derivatives sometimes found in science fiction, such as Common in Orson Scott Card's Ender books.

Rachel Maddow reports on an analysis of one of the infamous Acorn videos. Turns out the California one, at least, was made to look much worse than it was by creative editing and omission of context. Such as the fact that one Acorn worker, who appeared to be advising the "pimp" on how to import under-age girls, was actually playing along to get information so that he could call the police on them after they left. Which he did. Immediately.

An amazing series of images that resulted when a guy named Brock Davis decided to "make something cool every day." Fun, odd, invigorating! Via kottke.org (Shown: Cheeseburger on a Trampoline)

Also from kottke.org (via reddit.com): A clever way of pointing out all the things that are forgotten in the no-new-taxes, every-man-for-himself approach to government.

Some recent research shows that children with Williams syndrome, a disorder that eliminates feelings of social fear and inhibition, show no signs of racial prejudice. Fascinating implications soon follow.

Ever wonder how quickly all those Walmart and Sam's Club stores got built? Here's the answer. via @coopeats

Wing Young Huie's University Avenue Project

I can't wait for tomorrow night, when photographer Wing Young Huie's new University Avenue Project will be unveiled.

Huie is known for his urban photography, such as his Frogtown and Lake Street USA projects. For University Avenue, his large-format prints will be posted in the windows of businesses and as giant murals from the Minneapolis line to Rice Street, near the State Capitol.


According to the Pioneer Press, the images will be on view for six months. Plus, each night at twilight (starting 8:00 p.m. this Saturday) the images will be projected onto large screens in an empty car dealership lot at 1433 University (near Pascal Avenue.) The infrastructure to create the projections and support the screen are made from shipping containers. The images will run for two hours, and can be seen from a mile away.


Huie worked with students from a variety of high schools along the avenue. A number of the students and other participants, as well as Huie himself, will be speaking about it tomorrow at different "nodes" along the street.

Huie has also published a book of some of the photos (Minnesota Historical Society Press). What a lot of work this whole project must have been, and what an admirable accomplishment. I'm really looking forward to seeing it all.

Koua Fong Lee: Latest Sentence Shows Unequal Justice

As you know by now, Koua Fong Lee was convicted of criminal vehicular homicide several years ago, and has been in prison on an eight-year sentence ever since (see my earlier post). He wasn't drunk, texting, or on his phone, tried to stop (his family was in the car!), but either his 1996 Toyota malfunctioned or, possibly, he was stepping on the gas when he thought he was stepping on the brake.

Three people died and the Ramsey County attorney thought someone had to pay for it. The jury, unfortunately, agreed. There's new evidence that shows Lee definitely had his foot on the brake at the time of impact, as he said, and possibly mechanical findings about a malfunction of his cruise control.

Minnesota has many examples of people who were clearly negligent who got much lighter sentences than Lee. A new one was just recently decided, as described in the Star Tribune story Teen Charged in Lakeville Crash that Killed 3 Family Members. In this case, a 17-year-old boy with a brand-new provisional license was driving at night without his headlights when his pickup truck crossed the center line of a highway and destroyed a car containing three generations of a family (grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter).

While the teen, Brandon Iams, has not been found guilty yet, the news story reports about how he will be charged: A grand jury returned a finding of careless driving, rather than criminal vehicular manslaughter, the crime Lee was convicted of. Lee was on trial for both charges, and the jury went with the more severe crime because, as one juror put it, "If we had gone with a lesser offense, it was basically 'a slap on the hand. It was almost nothing,' he said. 'Yet we didn't want him to go to prison [for years].' "

I don't have an opinion of whether Iams should be charged with manslaughter or not. But I do believe that his actions are clearly more negligent than anything Lee did. According to the Star Tribune, "A witness saw the truck without headlights on, heading west on County Rd. 50... The driver pulled into a turning lane at Ipava Avenue, signaling a turn. But instead of turning, he returned to Hwy. 50, where he entered the eastbound lane and crushed the front end of [the family's] sedan."

What is the standard for criminal negligence? How do the facts in Lee's case (even as known in 2006) meet that standard, if the ones in Iams' case don't?

The maximum sentence Iams faces is 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. While Lee sits in prison for another four years.

It's time for a new trial, or better yet, clemency or a commuted sentence for Koua Fong Lee. Let him go back to his wife and four young children.

Can You Motivate Me Now?

Who goes to these megastar events? How do they work, as a business?

The sponsors have been running full-page ads for weeks in both local papers, and I'm sure the speakers' fees are through the roof, yet it says admission costs only $4.95 if purchased in advance. (It's something like $200 at the door... I wonder how many of those tickets they'll sell?).

So, of course, I Googled it. As I started to type in "Get Motivated," Google suggested "Get Motivated Seminar Scam" as the second most popular search term. Hmm.

The following is based on comments left by people who attended one of the seminars. Quite a number said that they enjoyed hearing Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani or Laura Bush. Some were appreciative of the low ticket price.

But I think it's fair to say that the wide majority of commenters had negative experiences on the whole:

• Some were turned away or shunted to overflow sites, even though there was space left in the main room for people paying a higher admission price.
• The big-name speakers appear to be used as a draw to get an audience for a number of get-rich-quick schemes. Quite a number of commenters said "I'm sorry I gave them my credit card number." A product named "Investools" was specifically mentioned. One commenter claimed Investools is "under investigation from almost every Attorney General’s office in the United States." Another said "I got suckered into paying the $99 for the weekend seminar and ended up having to work so I didn't go and then was unable to afford it so I decided not to do it at all. One month later they are charging my account and the fine print on the forms says you had to cancel within 3 days. I'm now looking at an overdrawn bank account. So much for making money! My motivation now is to try and get my money back!" (Both quotes are from this comment thread.)
• Many mentioned a speaker named Tamara Lowe, who gave a Jesus-heavy, rags-to-riches speech. A commenter named Tether gave a brief bio of Lowe, pointing out that she didn't come from rags at all. Others were offended by her proselytizing at a seminar supposedly meant for business.
• The Albany (New York) Times Union reported that their reporter was barred from entering the seminar.
  

A commenter on the Florida Times Union site said: "I was stunned at how many people, including 4 of the 5 friends who went with me, got reeled in by the day trading/software for $99 pitch [Investools]. I would conservatively estimate that over 50% of the 13,000 in attendance shelled out their hard earned money for it."

Given the dates of the various posts I read, both Powell and Guiliani (at least) have appeared at many of these events over the past couple of years. It's hard to believe they don't know what's going on at them.

It's amazing what people (even famous ones) will do for money, and even more so the junk people will believe if they think it will help them get rich quick.

I guess they're two sides of the same counterfeit coin.

Update: In the more recent ads (a new layout featuring even more speakers, running just about daily as the event grows nearer), I noticed the following fine print disclaimer at the bottom: "The GET MOTIVATED Seminar reserves the right to change event speakers and/or venues due to unforeseen circumstances.... SPECIAL BONUS: One of the most popular parts of the GET MOTIVATED Seminar is a special 10-minute optional bonus session on Biblical secrets of success."

A Plastic Bag Among the Flowers

While walking to my car after work one afternoon, I couldn't help admiring the cherry and crab apple trees, exuberantly pink and frilly against the blue sky.

But wait. What was that up in the tree?



Was it... a Walmart bag?



Yes. Yes, it was.

Remember... It's important to Save Money and Live Better.

Rude Plants

A gardening friend recently shared a website called curioustaxonomy.net, which lists scads of funny scientific names for plants and animals.

Be Sure to Read These Aloud

Arses (the monarch flycatcher)

Dolichuranus (a Triassic therapsid)

Eubetia bigaulae (a tortricid moth... you might need to read it a few times, by golly)

Pison eu (a sphecid)


For the Fourth Grade Boys

Batrachuperus longdongensis (a salamander)

Botryotinia fuckeliana (a plant pathogen fungus) and Didymella fuckeliana, both named for a guy whom we could subject to Fun with Germanic Surnames: Karl Wilhelm Gottlieb Leopold Fuckel.

Bugeranus (the wattled crane)

Colon rectum (a leiodid beetle)

Dorcus titanus (a stag beetle)

Enema pan (a rhinoceros beetle)

Fartulum (a tiny caecid gastropod that is rather like a turd in shape and color, too)

Narcissus assoanus (rushleaf jonquil, a U.S. lily)

Soranus (a fish)

Texananus (a leafhopper)

Turdus (includes the robin and thrush)


Found in Translation

Brachyanax thelestrephones (a fly, which translates from Greek as "little chief nipple twister")

Coprosma foetidissima (a New Zealand shrub whose name means "very smelly dung." Its leaves produce an offensive odor when rubbed

Eucritta melanolimnetes (a fossil amphibian whose name loosely translates as "Creature from the black lagoon")

Halticosaurus (a Late Triassic theropod... translates to "leaping lizard!")

Lycoperdon (the common puffball, whose name means "wolf-fart." In Spanish, the common name is "pedos de lobo" -- "wolf farts")

Orchidaceae (orchids) from Greek "orkhis," testicle, referring to the appearance of the plants' pseudobulb. It was once believed that terrestrial orchids sprang from the spilled semen of mating animals.

Vampyroteuthis infernalis (a squid relative, whose name means "vampire squid from Hell")

Is Your Grandma a Welfare Queen?

Pioneer Press economics columnist Ed Lotterman recently shed some light on a topic that's received more than enough attention via the Drudge Report, Fox News and Katherine Kersten's column: the widely quoted statistic that 47 percent of Americans pay no taxes.

Of course, many of these same people do pay taxes: sales tax, state income tax, and payroll taxes to Social Security and Medicare. What they don't pay is federal income taxes.

The implied (or sometimes overtly stated) fear is that these "freeloaders" will use their voting power to vote themselves even more of other people's money.

As Lotterman put it in his Sunday column, A Profound Misunderstanding of Taxes:

To some, the idea that a fifth of all households get 75 percent of their money [from the federal government] conjures up images of welfare queens driving their Cadillacs down to the supermarket to buy frozen pizzas with food stamps....

A much truer picture of this group on the public dole would be a bunch of blue-haired old ladies playing Rummikub in a senior citizens center. That is because the biggest single set of households in this lowest-income group are retirees on Social Security. And a disproportionate number are women who have outlived their husbands.

In many cases, they are not indigent. They may live in a house they own and may be drawing down their retirement savings. But if a modest Social Security payment is their primary source of income, as it is for many retirees, they would both fall into this income class and get most of their income from the government. Are these really leeches whose voting threatens our society?

Disabled people on Supplemental Security Income are another set in this poorest fifth of all households. Many are not eligible for Social Security because their physical or mental problems kept them from ever working long enough to become vested in the system. Some may have jobs but their SSI payments, together with food stamps and other transfer payments for low-income people, mean that what they get from government is large relative to their earned income.

Is our economy becoming less fair to higher income people and less economically efficient because people who spend their days in sheltered workshops or who are blind or confined to motorized wheelchairs throw their political weight around?

In concluding, Lotterman writes, "Yes, there also are people among the poorest 20 percent of households who are lazy, who make bad decisions, ... and who are dishonest. But I find such people at all income levels."

The same can be said, I would add, among that newest group of individuals -- corporations.

Boobquake Tomorrow

Soon after an Iranian cleric declared that earthquakes are caused by immodestly dressed women, a college-student blogger named Jen came up with the idea of Boobquake.


It's a day -- tomorrow, April 26, to be exact -- when women are encouaged to wear their most cleavage-revealing shirts. Then, when there's no earthquake, the cleric's theory will be shown for what it is: naked stupidity.

Vikings Stadium: The $64 Question

It really does become a question of math, as pointed out by State Senator John Marty in today's Star Tribune opinion section.

Zygi Wilf and his Minnesota Vikings want enough public money to cover the principal and interest for an $870 million loan to build a new, posh stadium. That's $42 million a year for 30 years.

Which, as Marty says, is a $64 subsidy per seat per game for the next 30 years.


With ticket prices that range from $105 to $845 per seat in the current stadium (and that's just to see them play the Cowboys, not even a team like Green Bay, and not including the likely bump in ticket prices we'll see in the fancy new stadium), I'd say adding $64 to the ticket price might not even be noticed by the average fan. The reason for the high subsidy per seat: There are only 10 home games per season. That's $2.9 million dollars per game, people -- just to cover the $870 million in principal!

Contrast that figure with 81 home games for the Minnesota Twins (playing in a just-opened 39,504-seat stadium, built with $392 million of public financing.) They're getting subsidized $4.08 per seat per game over 30 years. (Based on selling out all the seats every game... unlikely, given the Twins' history.)

Or the Guthrie Theater (opened a few years ago with three stages totaling 2,000 seats), built with $25 million in taxpayer support. Their most recent year recorded 463,412 theater-goers, subsidized $1.80 per seat per show over 30 years.

Of course, there are arguments to be made about other economic effects of a large construction project like the Vikings stadium, and longer-term economic benefits to the area surrounding it. Not to mention the threatened loss of the Vikings to some other city that builds them a stadium (which would leave the Twin Cities as nothing but, as some have put it, "A cold Omaha").

But $64 per seat per game. For 30 years?

That's a hard argument to make.

Sources: Minnesota Twins 2010 schedule, Wikipedia entries on Target Field and Guthrie Theater, Guthrie Theater 2008-2009 annual report

Next Time They'll Just Use a Photo

You have to admit, the idea is pretty funny: Fortune magazine hired illustrator/cartoonist Chris Ware to do the cover for its upcoming Fortune 500 cover.

Clearly, someone at Fortune wasn't aware that Ware's work "explores themes of social isolation, emotional torment and depression," as the Wikipedia entry about him says. It's similar to the way conservatives like my governor, Tim Pawlenty, can be fans of Bruce Springsteen without realizing what the lyrics of "Born in the USA" actually say. Or maybe the magazine's art director is a monkey wrencher. Who knows?

Whatever the reason, Ware's illustration is a keen example of afflicting the comfortable. His basic concept is a huge corporate structure squatting upon a devastated landscape. But it's the details that make it worth looking at.


On the roof of the building, corporate executives get paid big bucks, drink champagne, laze around and dance with joy. But where is their money coming from?


From the dump trucks that are busy picking up cash everywhere, then driving up the winding roads to the corporation.


They're helped out by helicopters that raid the U.S. Treasury (having already left the Greek treasury broke).


Not to mention that little casino known as the stock and bond markets.


Meanwhile, regular people shop at the Big Box Super Glut store, or get paycheck advances, while others worship Warren Buffet.


Other people are underwater in their homes (which are conveniently located in the Gulf of Mexico, south of New Orleans).


And the 401K is dead. (Note the misspelling of "cemetery" -- that's one of my classic errors, too!)


Of course, south of the barb-wire-ringed Mexican border, there's some exploitation going on.


And a final touch -- a nest of survivalists keeps an armed watch, while tea partiers wave their flags and blow off some steam.

Ware showed the cover during a talk at C2E2 (the Chicaco Comic and Entertainment Expo), on April 16, 2010. He has said he accepted the assignment because it would be like doing the cover of the 1929 issue -- the year before the magazine was founded.

They aren't running the illustration, by the way. Just in case you had any doubt.
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Here's a much larger copy of the full illustration. Don't miss the Guantanamo prisoners in the bottom right corner.