Thursday was a day of Days at the state capitol. 

The atheists — along with their “cousins’’ the humanists — were celebrating, for the ninth successive year, a “Day of Reason’’ in the state Capitol rotunda.

It was also, for the 63rd year, the “Day of Prayer.” And it also turned out to be Freedom Day. (There are all sorts of “Freedom Days” — the big one on Feb. 1 celebrates the 13th Amendment and slavery’s abolition. Thursday’s Freedom Day was obscure, with roots in the 1990s anti-environmental movement.) 

The Prayer Day people had crown-wearing Miss Minnesota, Rebecca Yeh, playing a patriotic song medley on the Capitol steps. A devout Christian, Miss Minnesota was adored by the prayer people.

The Freedom Day celebrants were represented by a group of Civil War enactors from New Ulm. They had two cannon with them. A couple of busloads of school kids, who were on the Capitol steps, screeched in delight when the Freedom Day squad fired off the cannon.

The atheists came to St. Paul armed with “reason,’’ which seemed to be enough to satisfy the 40 or so people gathered to counter the whole notion of a National Day of Prayer.

It should be noted that all of these events went off in peace and harmony, though Rep. Kurt Zellers, a Republican gubernatorial candidate who was at the Freedom Day event, said he’d be a little nervous if he was among the Capitol atheists.

“On the National Day of Prayer, I’d be watching out for a bolt of lightning if I were the atheists,’’ Zellers said. (He was laughing.) 

The National Day of Prayer, which began under President Harry Truman in 1952, has become a must-participate event for a lot of elected officials. There are “Prayer Day’’ breakfasts throughout the state and country. It’s pretty safe for a pol to be seen at a Prayer Day event.

In his State of the State address Wednesday evening, Gov. Mark Dayton made two references to the National Day of Prayer. He made zero references to the Day of Reason. 

The atheists don’t draw a lot of elected officials to their event. On hand Thursday were Reps. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, and Mike Freiberg, DFL-Golden Valley. 

“I’m extremely pleased to have a colleague here,’’ Kahn said, nodding to Freiberg. “His being here means I’ve doubled the numbers of House members present.’’ 

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie also was on hand, though it should be noted he’s not running for re-election. Ritchie is active in his Unitarian Universalist church and was vague about whether he would have attended this event if he was running again. 

As it was, the Secretary of State welcomed the atheists/humanists to “the people’s house,’’ where all ideas are free to be expressed.

Ritchie got a nice round of applause and disappeared quickly.

It might come as a surprise to many that the atheists speak well of Ritchie’s predecessor, Mary Kiffmeyer, who now is a Republican state senator from Big Lake and a devout Christian.

MinnPost photo by Doug Grow

The Prayer Day people had crown-wearing Miss Minnesota,

Rebecca Yeh, playing a patriotic songs on the Capitol steps.

“Kiffmeyer spoke to us twice when she was Secretary of State,’’ said Steve Petersen, one of the leaders of Thursday’s event. “She told us she disagreed with us, but she also always said we have a right to be here.’’

The atheists and the humanists said they don’t come to the Capitol to agitate the Prayer Day people. Still, they must know it stirs up some juices when they talk of religion being “superstition.’’

The National Day of Reason is supposed to be a way of reminding people that there is supposed to be a separation of church and state as a bedrock of the democracy.

“For those so-inclined to prayer, let them pray in their churches in their homes, not the halls of government,’’ said Audrey Kingstrom, presidents of the Humanists of Minnesota. “Faith provides no common currency to govern all the people.’’

Shortly after the atheists and humanists left the building, the Prayer Day people were praying up a storm. Though Prayer Day is designed to represent all faiths and religions, this appeared to be a solidly, conservative Christian crowd at the Capitol.

What of the separation of church and state?

“The country was founded on Christian-Judeo values,’’ said Pastor Dale Witherington, an organizer of the Prayer Day event. “The laws are based on the Bible and the 10 commandments.”

Two state Republican senators, David Brown of Becker and Paul Gazelka of Nisswa, gave short talks filled with deeply Christian thoughts.

Miss Minnesota also spoke.

What did she think of sharing a day with the atheists?

“It’s an opportunity to show them what Christ has done in our lives,’’ she said. “We can show them the joy we have because of Christ in our lives.’’

But it appeared that most of those who publicly admit to being atheists had left the building.

Creative Commons/Rob Brewer

The CDC estimates that 2 million Americans come down with some kind of antibiotic-resistant infection each year.

Antibacterial resistance — the inability of bacteria to respond to an existing drug — is “an increasingly serious threat to global public health” and is occurring right now in every region of the world, according a report issued earlier this week by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This is WHO’s first report on the topic, and the findings are grim.

“Without urgent, coordinated action by many stakeholders, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s assistant director-general for health security, in a statement released with the report.

Already, for example, drug-resistant cases of gonorrhea — a disease that infects more than 1 million people globally each day — have been reported in 10 countries, including Canada, Sweden, South Africa and the United Kingdom. And drug-resistant cases of tuberculosis have now been identified in 92 countries, including the United States.

Then there’s the growing number of drug-resistant cases of urinary tract infections caused by E. coli. Fluoroquinolones, the anti-bacterial drugs widely used to treat these very common infections, are now ineffective in more than half of patients in many parts of the world.

The threat in the U.S.

Last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its own sobering report about the serious and growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Like Fukuda, CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden also warned of a “post-antibiotic” era.

The CDC estimates that 2 million Americans come down with some kind of antibiotic-resistant infection each year, and at least 23,000 of them die as a direct result of that resistance. The agency’s health officials are concerned that those numbers will increase in the coming years.

Yet little seems to be getting done to deal with the problem. Antibiotic medications continue to be over-prescribed by physicians and misused by patients, major factors that have led to a weakening of the drugs’ effectiveness.

The drugs also continue to be widely misused on industrial animal feedlots. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration issued regulations to curb this misuse. But because the regulations are voluntary, many observers believe they will do little to slow it down.

Individual action

What can you do to tackle resistance? The WHO report recommends

• using antibiotics only when prescribed by a doctor;
• completing the full prescription, even if you feel better;
• never sharing antibiotics with others or using leftover prescriptions.

You can also do what the public-interest group Food & Water Watch and others recommend: Urge your political representatives to ban the misuse of antibiotics on industrial feedlots.

You’ll find the WHO report on the organization’s website.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman again goes to his bench, as he names city Library Director Kit Hadley to be acting director of Planning and Economic Development.

She'll stay head of libraries, a job she's had since 2009, while leading PED on an interim basis, until Coleman finds a permanent replacement for departing PED Director Cecile Bedor, who is leaving the city to be executive vice president at Greater MSP, the regional development agency.

Coleman is big on the double-duty for his execs: last month City Attorney Sara Grewing filled in as Deputy Mayor for a few weeks, until Kristin Beckman was hired to replace Paul Williams, who was deputy mayor until he left to become executive director at Project for Pride in Living.

Said Coleman about Hadley's temp extra job:

"Kit has consistently shown her skill as a leader and manager in Saint Paul. With her background in housing and extensive experience in the city, I am pleased to announce she has agreed to serve as Interim PED Director as we seek a permanent replacement."

The Connecticut suburbs where I lived before moving back home to Minnesota made almost no provision for public transportation. There were buses, but their schedules were inconvenient, and they traveled mostly on main arteries, avoiding the sinuous roads that wound through the hills where most of the population lived. Using them required a lengthy hike along twisty roads without sidewalks. And, of course, there was MetroNorth, the train that swept commuters into New York City.

For eight years, my job called for me to drive to Yonkers, an hour each way. The route was unvarying and miserable. Much of the 32-mile trip had me stuck in traffic, inching along at about five miles an hour.

So when I landed a job in “The City” — Manhattan to you folks — I was jubilant. No more exhausting driving. No more $4 per gallon gas. No more worries about traffic, flat tires and accidents. On the train, I could eat, sleep, read, put on mascara, text and even (ugh!) work, without endangering other people.

But did I use the train?

Well, yes and no. MetroNorth had its own drawbacks. A monthly ticket cost $309, about $7.50 per trip, since most people work only 20 days a month. Plus, you have to have a permit to park in the train station lot. For that there was a three-year waiting list. I had to put my car in one of the few non-permit spaces located about a half mile from the station (usually in a snow bank) at a cost of $5 a day.

Though the seats on the train were ergonomic disasters, the trip was quiet and reasonably efficient. Then the task became boxing the crowds at Grand Central Terminal, shlepping up three flights of stairs from the sub-sub basement track and hiking a mile to my office — or taking a bus ($2.75). The entire journey door-to-door took two hours and had to be repeated at the end of the day — a trip that was much more stressful because missing the 6:25 express meant waiting an hour and not getting home until nearly 9.

Many was the morning when I arrived at the train station, thought about the ordeal I was about to face, said to myself “the hell with it” (or something worse), zipped onto I-95 and drove to Manhattan.

The car was marginally more comfy, allowed me to travel my own schedule and freed me from the prospect of watching one of my regular fellow passengers chewing his cuticles and swallowing what he reaped.

But no joy in driving

But driving was no great shakes. Even if traffic was light, drivers were stopped up at the toll bridges surrounding Manhattan (then about $3 a pop, now about $5), crawled to Midtown, deposited the vehicle in a ramp ($13 to $20) and walked the remaining block or two to the office. Door-to-door, the trip (50 miles each way) took maybe an hour and a half — and about $8 worth of gas. Going by car didn’t save money, obviously — I still had to pay for my $309 commuter ticket — and accelerated my vehicle’s depreciation. And, of course, I was aware that in my small way, I was adding to New York’s and Connecticut’s congestion and air pollution, wasting fossil fuel, becoming more dependent on foreign oil, blah, blah, blah.

I felt ashamed every time I made the costly, lazy and irrational decision to drive — so much so, that I usually concealed the fact from my husband, an inveterate cheapskate. If he knew how much I was spending merely to go to work, he would probably make me switch to less-expensive toilet paper.

Brain research and car travel

As it turns out, however, my behavior was not uniquely awful; it is SOP for many of us who remain habituated to car travel. To understand why, a group of researchers led by Yavor Yalachkov at the Institut für Medizinische Psychologie at Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main in a recent article in Trends in Cognitive Science, suggests that neuroscience may help explain why so many people remain illogically wedded to their cars.

Now I realize that few people in the Twin Cities endure the horrific commute that the typical New Yorker puts up with. Here, a half hour drive to work borders on the onerous. But the quandary — car or not car — comes up at almost every juncture: walk or drive to the supermarket or the dry cleaners, take a bus or drive to school, bike to a nearby restaurant or drive? And, as a metropolitan area, we are planning to spend billions to finance light rail, street cars, bike lanes and bus rapid transit in hopes of prying people out of their cars and encouraging them to use less wasteful transportation.

The researchers aren’t too sanguine that new public transit systems will spring regular drivers from their cars. “Simply providing alternative choices for the individual can be a disappointingly unsuccessful method for reshaping particular behavioral patterns,” they write.

Rational factors vs. habit

They point out that when analyzing transportation choices people make, city planners and engineers usually weigh rational factors — cost, convenience, length of trip and so on. But neuroscience has shown that humans often fall back on habit. So instead of actively making a choice (driving will cost me $45, and the train only about $20, I choose the train), we rely on regions of the brain that are reflexive. In my case, I was used to driving so I considered it the path of least resistance, only to get on the highway and learn that the car trip was a nightmare.

Worse, that experience doesn’t seem to change subsequent behavior. Italian behavioral economists tested people’s habituation to cars through a series of games. Players started with a specified number of tokens. In the first game, which consisted of 50 rounds, they chose whether to travel by car or subway. There was a travel cost (time plus fare) for each mode which players paid for in tokens.

The cost of the subway was fixed, but the car cost varied with weather, road conditions, traffic and so on. In the best case (for cars), the cost of taking the car was lower since the trip was shorter. But when traffic got heavy, the car became more expensive. After each round, players could see whether their decision had made sense. If it didn’t, they lost tokens. Presumably they would learn from their mistakes.

What happened? Even when congestion upped the cost of driving by 50 percent, people chose cars two-to-one. Even when people did change transit mode to save tokens, they didn’t do so for long but switched back to their cars. What the researchers called “the car effect” — a bias or addiction to car usage — remained in place even though the game players never had to step on a subway platform or take a train.

CC/Flickr/Doc Searls

As infrastructure expands, some municipalities are getting into the broadband game.

WASHINGTON — Like all plans should, this one started on the back of a napkin.

In the early 2000s, Scott County wanted to broaden the availability of high-speed broadband Internet for its government buildings. County officials decided to build their own fiber optic broadband network and connect to the Internet for cheap.

The opportune word here, of course, is cheap. So by the middle of the decade, officials had hatched a scheme — on the back of a napkin, County Administrator Gary Shelton said — in which the county, state and broadband providers share both the costs and benefits of the new network. Scott County paid the upfront capital cost of building the physical network. In exchange for tapping into the network to deliver broadband to their users, the state pays the network's operation costs and providers pay for maintenance.

Today, Shelton said, most of the county’s government buildings, from fire stations and schools to water towers, use the network, as do some state agencies from Minneapolis to Mankato. The county has used it has an incentive to attract new business, he said, and the state saves about $1 million a year, while the county saves $35,000 by owning its network instead of leasing from providers, according to estimates.

Lawmakers in St. Paul and Washington have long grappled with expanding rural broadband access, with state lawmakers considering pumping $25 million toward that goal this year. But once you find a way to build the physical components of a network, who’s best put in charge of actually offering quality Internet services over it?

The telecom industry says long-time providers are best suited to the task. But public interests groups and some local governments, looking for faster Internet speeds and lower costs than are offered by private providers — which are often insulated against stiff competition — have occasionally looked to municipally owned networks instead.

They got a big boost from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, who said Wednesday he’d look to strike down state laws preventing local public networks in the name of fostering Internet competition.

Handful of networks in Minnesota

In Scott County’s case, Shelton said the county wasn’t looking to compete with private providers.

“We have shared it with some of our providers, because we have tried to make broadband more affordable and available throughout, but not by trying to get into the business of being a broadband provider,” Shelton said.

But other municipalities are getting into the broadband game, including more than a dozen in Minnesota, looking to compete with the few private providers that dominate their markets, Christopher Mitchell, Director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance said.

This isn’t a new idea, Mitchell said, and it’s more prevalent than many people realize. Municipalities began building their own cable networks as early as the 1980s, he said, and they moved into fiber networks about 15 years ago. There are up to 250 public cable or fiber netwoks around the United States.

Minnesota’s networks are scattered across the state. Crosslake and Barnesville offer the state’s two stand-alone incumbent municipal broadband networks, both of which were borne out of the towns’ pre-existing phone services.

In the early 2000s, Windsom residents voted to allow its municipal electric utility to offer broadband access to residents and business. Lac Qui Parle County, on the South Dakota border, won a federal stimulus grant and loan to partner with a local telephone cooperative to expand fiber service throughout to about 1,700 residents and government facilities. And Sibley County just launched its own broadband cooperative covering 10 small cities and 21 townships.

Wheeler: Strike state laws against municipal networks

The Minneapolis-based ILSR has been researching municipal ownership and co-op models and pushing state governments to remove barriers to them for nearly a decade.

Mitchell argues municipal networks can help improve prices and quality by going head-to-head with private providers who aren’t used to competition. Companies have no incentive to offer a better service when they dominate their market, which hurts consumers. And other private companies are less likely to challenge a dominant provider because starting a new network is too expensive to be lucrative for a for-profit company. Publicly financed networks can stand to go a lot longer before turning a profit, which allows them to move in challenge private providers.

“Because there is no real competition, the existing providers do a really poor job, especially in rural areas,” he said. “There’s basically two [solutions]: one is public ownership in the form of municipal networks or co-ops, the other is regulation. ... I would argue right now that regulation is not really an option given the power of Comcast in D.C.”

(The Philadelphia Inquirer has a great story on the lobbying muscle of Comcast, which is looking to buy Time Warner Cable, including its efforts on a relatively tiny rural broadband loan program earlier this year. The company spent nearly $19 million lobbying Congress in 2013).

REUTERS/File/Gary Cameron

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said he would use his agency's regulatory power to fight state laws that ban municipal broadband networks.

Wheeler, the FCC chairman, said Wednesday that he’d use his federal authority to block 20 state laws — often backed by telecom companies — restricting municipal networks, arguing the broadband industry is already lacking competition as it is. Mitchell called it “the strongest statement to date by the FCC in restoring local authority.”

Democratic Sen. Al Franken, who has criticized Wheeler’s approach to other Internet issues, said he agreed with the move.

“There are vested interests that don’t want municipalities to do this, and that’s not good,” he said. “When communities want to do this, communities should be able to.”

Monticello 'poster child' for financial concerns

Municipal systems have not come about seamlessly, occasionally missing revenue targets and threatening the municipalities’ ability to pay back their bondholders.

The telecom industry points to a network established in Monticello, where officials built a network to compete with the city’s two dominant private carriers. After the new network got off the ground in 2009, a price war ensued. While that brought down prices for consumers, the city couldn’t compete with private providers as well as it expected, and it’s currently facing a lawsuit from bondholders who lost money investing in the project.

FiberNet Monticello

After a 2009 price war with private Internet providers, Monticello's municipal network has had difficulty paying back bondholders.

Minnesota Telecom Alliance president Brent Christensen called Monticello “the poster child for what goes on” when local governments try competing with private enterprise.

Expanding to rural areas

DFLers in the state Legislature are considering spending $25 million on expanding broadband to rural areas this session, looking to meet the goal to give every Minnesotan access to high-speed Internet by 2015.

Connect Minnesota

In its 2013 report, Connect Minnesota mapped
broadband access across the state. Areas in
pink have access to high-speed broadband
while areas in yellow and blue have slower
access speeds, according to the group.
Click the map to view a larger version.

There are two metrics that determine what counts as “high-speed” Internet: upload speed and download speed. Connect Minnesota, a non-profit tracking broadband coverage in the state, says only about 75 percent of Minnesotans have access to connections that meet the state’s goals for both metrics. But nearly 99 percent of the state has access to the fastest download speeds.

The Telecom Alliance is uncomfortable with the DFL’s rural broadband proposal, Christensen said, arguing its focus should be on completely unserved areas rather than those that have Internet, just not as quick as the state would like. If the pot of money is too large, he said, some could go to establishing municipal networks that have proven fiscally shaky.

“They’ve been sold a bill of goods, that they need their own network,” he said.

He said his group would prefer to “work with local government and identify who really doesn’t have it, and who needs its, and how are we going to get it to them?”

Building out rural broadband infrastructure has won some bipartisan support on the congressional level. A non-binding amendment Franken offered to a budget bill last year calling for increased funding for rural broadband passed the Senate unanimously. He compared it to public works programs like rural electrification and the interstate highway system.

A federal program called the Connect America Fund provides a bit of funding toward this goal. In 2012, Minnesota received $11 million to expand broadband capability rurally, and the program is set to spend $9 billion nationally over the next five years.

“It’s to get high-speed broadband to every part of the state so you can run a small business and not be hampered by slow Internet,” Franken said.

On the federal level — and, if Wheeler has his way, the state level — the focus is on building the networks; broadband companies and municipalities can argue over providing the service later on.

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry

Anoka County Commissioner Rhonda Sivarajah has been endorsed by the national Republican Women Alliance in her bid for the 6th District congressional seat now held by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

Bachmann isn't seeking reelection; Tom Emmer, former candidate for governor, received the 6th District GOP Party endorsement last month. Sivarajah plans to run in a primary. Former legislator Phil Krinkie, now Taxpayers League chair, also might run in the primary.

Sivarajah says she'll work to cut spending and repeal the Affordable Care Act if elected.

The Republican Women Alliance says it was founded to "give women a strong voice in the Republican Party, to provide campaign financial support to the campaigns of Republican women, to encourage more women to seek office in the Republican party, to educate and train newcomers."

When someone unfriends or unfollows me on social media, I have learned to say this:

THANK YOU.

See, I love trends and stats, especially related to human behavior. So, I’m fascinated by social media – a giant petry dish of moment-to-moment interactions ripe with potential to lift people up or bring them down. These platforms, fromFacebook to Twitter, are like grown-up playgrounds. The goal is to avoid the bullies, and just find a nice group of friends to play with each day.

But sometimes, when you show your true colors, one or more of those friends backs away and goes looking for a new group to hang out with.

It stings, doesn’t it? Because it means somebody doesn’t really appreciate who you are and how you think. Ouch. But THEN! When a new friend shows up and “likes” you, actually wanting to hear MORE from you, everything becomes crystal clear: that other buddy, the one who bit the dust when you got real, wasn’t a great match for you in the first place. When we align with our true nature, the Universe weeds out what and who we no longer need and brings in what and who we do.

THANK YOU

During the past year, this has played out for me online many times. When I decided to shift my business to center around my intuitive abilities, showing my true colors in the process, I was scared it would send people running. And you know what? It did. A few of them ran like the wind.

When it first started happening, it hurt to see people backing away. Not just strangers, but people I’d been connected to for a long time. I questioned if I was doing the right thing. I wondered if I should tone it down or go back into hiding. And then I asked myself three critical questions:

• After reviewing a few of my most recent social media posts, am I someone Iwould want to follow?
• Is the content I’m sharing an authentic reflection/representation of me?
• Do I want to spend my energy connecting with kindred spirits or pleasing the naysayers?

These questions – and my answers – were perspective-shifting for me. I no longer felt wounded by those who were unfollowing me, but grateful that every “unfollow” was actually making space for a tribe of friends and followers and cheerleaders who value who I am and what I do.

That’s what we all need and deserve – on social media, in our friendship circles, in our families, in our work. We are all big kids on the playground, looking for a nice group of friends to play with each day; people who value who we are and enrich our lives, too. There is no need to chase the people who don’t want to play with us. We flourish when we feel found and appreciated by the people who do.

This post was written by Liv Lane and originally published on her blog. Follow Liv on Twitter: @liv_lane.

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More on the Waseca kid with some deadly serious plans … . Pat Pheifer of the Strib writes, “John David LaDue had it all figured out. He would kill his mother, father and sister and then create a diversion to keep first responders busy while he went to Waseca Junior/Senior High School to wreak havoc. … LaDue said he had an SKS assault rifle with 400 rounds of ammunition, a 9mm handgun with ammo and a gun safe with more firearms, all in his bedroom at home.” … and well within his Second Amendment rights, right?

MinnPost's Devin Henry has a rural broadband analysis today, but Dave Peters at MPR is also on the beat: “Rural and small-town residents of Minnesota are waving their arms more fervently than just about anybody else in the country to latch on to federal help for better Internet service. Small phone companies, electrical utilities, townships, cities and newly formed cooperatives have flooded the Federal Communications Commission with ready-made project ideas that would get fast broadband service where it’s never been. At the same time, three big national companies that provide phone and Internet service to much of rural Minnesota are going to make decisions in the coming months that could determine for years what the rural broadband landscape will look like.” Time for the “Big Three” to put up or shut up.

H.L. Mencken has (at least a half dozen) lines for this. Rochelle Olson of the Strib reports, “The Minnesota Vikings say three out of four season ticket-holders contacted have purchased 'stadium-builder' licenses to reserve seats in the $1 billion Minnesota Multipurpose Stadium scheduled to open in 2016. Thus far, the Vikes have only contacted ticket-holders in two of 16 seating zones. Those zones happen to contain the most expensive seats in the new Minnesota Multipurpose Stadium. They're called Field and Valhalla club seats.”

Last call … . The WCCO-TV story says, “Six people were injured early Friday morning after a van crashed into a St. Paul bar following an attempted traffic stop. Authorities said that just before midnight, a person called 911 reporting that a gold minivan was heading north on Highway 616 near Interstate 494 in Newport, and was weaving in and out of traffic. A Minnesota State Patrol trooper located the van at Interstate 94 and tried to pull the van over near the 6th Street exit. The driver of the van did not stop, took the ramp and drove another block before crashing into the Bulldog Restaurant and Bar on the 200 block of East 6th Street.”

Osmo-watching … in Cleveland.Zachary Lewis of The Plain Dealer says, “Five years have passed since Osmo Vanska last conducted the Cleveland Orchestra. But the maestro has an excellent excuse for his absence. ‘I have been busy,’ said Vanska, slated to return to Severance Hall next week for two nights of Scandinavian masterworks. Talk about an understatement. Music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, Vanska has spent most of the last two years at or near the center of the longest and arguably most contentious orchestra work stoppage in U.S. history.”

James Eli Shiffer of the Strib goes hunting for the last elevator operators in Minnesota. “James Honerman, the spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry ... said the state had no program any more, and to his knowledge, elevator operator was a defunct profession. He did venture a guess to the last buildings that had them. One of them was the Pioneer-Endicott Building in St. Paul. It has been renovated into ritzy apartments, but its formerly staffed elevators are now self-serve. The other was the Young-Quinlan Building … .”

It’s funny cool … . Eric Danton of The Wall Street Journal likes the logo for The Replacements reunion. “It’s a powerful combination of two of the biggest names in the world of sports and rock n’ roll. Well, not really. But for the small, but influential group that is both die-hard fans of the raucous Minneapolis band the Replacements and the Minnesota Twins, the unveiling of the poster for the Replacements’ first local show in 23 years is a cause for celebration.”

How the planned attack on a Waseca school impacts me personally

from Minnesota Prairie Roots by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

HOW DOES ONE BEGIN to write about a school tragedy averted?

That is my challenge as I reflect on the events of the past days in which a 17-year-old Waseca High School student allegedly planned to carry out a Columbine type massacre in his southern Minnesota school.

The school where my youngest sister and a friend teach and which my niece attends. The school I just drove past last Sunday while visiting my other sister in Waseca, a rural community of nearly 10,000 only a half hour drive away.

Suffolk University polls Minnesota for the first time

from LeftMN by Tony Petrangelo

If you’re looking for a conclusion, this poll looks very similar to most of the polling that has been released on these two races; Mark Dayton and Al Franken are not setting the world on fire, but the Republicans running against them are also not doing that. And they are not doing that to a larger degree.

Integrity Matters PAC registration & activity raises questions

from politics.mn by Michael Brodkorb

A new political action committee, Integrity Matters PAC, has surfaced in Minnesota, but the committee’s registration and activity raises questions about the validity of the organization.

All hands on deck for health equity

from Minnesota Budget Bites by Caitlin Biegler

• Where do African-American and American Indian infants in Minnesota die at twice the rate of white infants in  their first year of life?

• Where are African-American and Latina women more likely to be diagnosed with later-stage breast cancer?

• Where are poverty rates for children two times higher for Asians, three times higher for Latinos, four times as high for American Indians, and almost five times as high for African-Americans than for white children?

The disturbing answer is Minnesota. 

Another botched execution

from The Advocates Post by Rosalyn Park

The majority of the 32 death penalty states in the U.S. and the U.S. federal government use lethal injection as the primary means to execute prisoners. Governments have traditionally used a three-drug combination to put people to death. But now, they are resorting to new combinations because the drugs needed for the three-drug injection are difficult to obtain. The drugs’ sources are drying up, caused by foreign government regulations, European Union restrictions placed on the supply, and drug corporations’ positions.

Rabbi in enemy territory

from TC Jewfolk by Rabbi Jeremy Fine

On Wednesday night, the Minnesota Wild NHL team ended a thrilling series against the Colorado Avalanche in the first round of the NHL playoffs by scoring an overtime goal to win the series 4-3. While scores of Minnesotans were rightly excited by the outcome, the Wild must now face the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Chicago Blackhawks. Minneapolis has a fair number of Chicago transplants, but maybe none as notorious as Temple of Aaron’s own rabbi, Jeremy Fine. Here’s his take. We promised we wouldn’t alter it in any way.

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CC/Flickr/Niall Kennedy

If Americans ate just one more serving of fruits or vegetables per day, we would save more than 30,000 lives and $5 billion in medical costs each year. 

Something strange is happening in America around food. We now know from science that many of our most debilitating health problems — from heart disease to diabetes — are caused by the food we put into our bodies. Yet as a nation we seem powerless to do anything about it. We hear prescriptions that we should exercise more, but is a lack of exercise really what’s making us sick and tired?

Shawn Lawrence Otto

Americans eat far too few fruits and vegetables, and far too much sugar, salt and other commodity ingredients that are not particularly healthy for people to eat, but are hidden in foods filling the grocery-store aisles. These ingredients can have profound impacts on our health and well-being.

A recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists calculated that the medical cost of treating just one of these diet-driven killers — heart disease and stroke — was as much as $94 billion in 2010, and was expected to triple by 2030. Clearly, the economics of our national food policy — which heavily subsidizes ingredients that go into processed food — are becoming untenable.

People need access to good food

Andrew Rosenberg

Science is pointing toward a solution for Americans to reverse this problem and live longer, healthier, more satisfying and more productive lives, but to do that we need ready, normal, commodity-like access to the kinds of foods that will help achieve this goal. For example, if Americans ate just one more serving of fruits or vegetables per day, we would save more than 30,000 lives and $5 billion in medical costs each year. 

So why is it that our federal food policy isn’t taking that science into account and encouraging farmers and the food industry to foster a system that makes better food more plentiful and promotes healthier eating, instead of making us sick with processed foods? The answers are as old as lobbying itself.

From dietary guidelines to agricultural subsidy programs, from government purchasing to community planning, policies that are important to creating the food environment we live in are too often driven by the desire to sell more food, instead of healthier food.

The result? The other night one of us had a friend over. We grilled packaged hamburgers. They were the best-tasting burgers the friend had ever had. Later we looked at the ingredients: ground beef, and high-fructose corn syrup, added to make you want more.

Community networks

So what would a healthier food environment look like if we did use the knowledge we derive from science? The Minnesota Food Charter is one example. It opens up the decision-making process to citizens, creating community networks so that all of us can shape the policies that bring food to our tables, instead of relying on agribusiness and a failed federal food policy to determine our diets.

Another solution lies in sharing what works. Over the next few days, the Union of Concerned Scientists is collaborating with the University of Minnesota School of Public Health to bring top food scientists from around the country together with community activists, policymakers and other thought leaders to examine the policy changes that can be made at local, state, and federal levels to make our food environment healthier. A free public forum, scheduled from 4:30 to 7 p.m. on May 6 at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, will allow engaged citizens to hear these experts’ concerns, ask them questions and exchange ideas for change. 

We don’t have to be getting sick, fat and tired from our food, and if the federal policies are stuck, we can work locally to make things better.  We can change our policies to meet the challenges we face — and make more accessible, more affordable and healthier food and food policy available to nourish not only our children, but all of us. The prize is longer, more productive, healthier lives, and lower costs.

Don Shelby to moderate

To be a part of this national discussion, we encourage you to attend the forum, moderated by former TV news anchor Don Shelby. If you cannot attend in person, we encourage you to join more than 1,200 people who have already signed up for the webcast. By bringing top public health and nutrition scientists together with activists, journalists and the public, we hope to foster a national discussion that can begin to find new solutions to the problem of basing our broken food policy back on science. Your voice is important to that conversation.

Shawn Lawrence Otto is the producer of the U.S. presidential science debates. His book "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America" won the 2012 Minnesota Book Award. Andrew Rosenberg is the director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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Amanda Lovelee’s life and work have taken her all over the world. A native of upstate New York, she graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, has traveled extensively in places like Nicaragua and Italy, and even completed an artist-in-residence term in Montana. Now she’s making a home for herself as St. Paul’s newest City Artist in Residence (CAIR). As the program expands, St. Paul residents will see and experience her work in a variety of public spaces around the city.

In fact, Lovelee currently has three big CAIR projects on tap. One clever idea involves turning an old ice cream truck into, as she puts it, “a mobile city vehicle that hosts conversations, meetings and lots of merry making.” The idea is to create a vehicle, literally, for city employees to get out into St. Paul’s neighborhoods and interact with residents. Lovelee is also working on a “very large pop-up park” that will appear somewhere in the city and “a few forests of tree houses for two public libraries.” Reading is always more fun in a tree house, isn’t it?

Her latest project — a collaboration with three other local artists — is even more ambitious. Balancing Ground, an open, cathedral-like space that uses overhead prisms to cast complex, colored shadows on an expansive seating area, was recently selected as the winner of the Minneapolis Convention Center’s 2014 Creative City Challenge. It will debut on the Convention Center’s plaza at this year’s Northern Spark Festival and should remain in place until early fall.  

A common thread connects these projects: Lovelee’s belief that public art can play a key role in local problem-solving.

“My work is about bringing people together and developing tools to do this,” she says, “whether [the tools] are a big table, an ice cream truck, or even a cup of coffee.”

Courtesy of Amanda Lovelee

The Big Table in action

Residing and creating 'in the body of the city'

Marcus Young, an eight-year veteran of the CAIR program, helped Lovelee acclimate to the role. He hadn’t worked with her before, but he was immediately taken with her creativity. “There was no question she had to play for our team,” he says.

Along with Public Art St. Paul President Christine Podas-Larson, who administers the CAIR Resident program in partnership with the City of St. Paul, Young has played a huge role in shaping and driving CAIR. “City art,” he says, is “made by artists placed far upstream in the city-making process … and aspires to help the city create art as a natural part of its being.”

Young’s wildly successful Everyday Poems for City Sidewalks project, which inscribed many of St. Paul’s new sidewalk panels with poetry quotes, is a great example of this approach.

“As an artist residing in the body of the city, I’m like a virus,” Young says, adding that St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman “is very kind to remind me that a virus at the right dosage is actually an inoculation … a healing force.”

It’s not clear whether Lovelee sees herself as a virus as well, but she’s clearly invested in her role as St. Paul’s “junior” CAIR. As a classic public-private partnership — “a beautiful and innovative hybrid based on trust and exploration,” Young says — CAIR affords Lovelee the artistic freedom that independent artists enjoy, just with the backing of an entire city government.

Of course, it’s not without challenges. Aside from the fact that they’re not actually employees of the city, Young and Lovelee are vastly outnumbered by staffers at essential departments like Public Works and Safety. It can be hard for two artists to address all the issues their work might solve, so prioritizing is key. On top of her three big initiatives for CAIR, Lovelee is simultaneously working on a number of “smaller” projects.

Lovelee and Young have helped raise CAIR’s profile and continue to receive recognition for their work. In its Spring 2011 newsletter, Public Art Saint Paul highlighted St. Paul’s new public art ordinance, which increased and regularized the resources devoted to public art projects. That said, the work of artists-in-residence can still feel anonymous and behind-the-scenes.

“Maybe in 100 years, [the artist-in-residence position] will be understood on par with the engineer, landscape architect, planner and maintenance worker,” Young says. “Right now, it still feels like undiscovered territory.”

Wildflowers, square dancing, Balancing Ground

Even as Lovelee works to strengthen public art in St. Paul, she isn’t wholly defined by her CAIR work. She’s pretty busy, in fact, she says, “each project just flows into the next.”

One day, during her stint as an artist-in-residence in Montana, she decided to move her desk out to her town’s main drag and give passers-by photos of wildflowers in exchange for stories about their romantic lives. When she returned to Minnesota, she turned the idea into the Walker’s aptly named Trading Wildflowers for Love Stories exhibition.

Courtesy of Amanda Lovelee

Balancing Ground in concept

More recently, Lovelee organized the Call and Answer Project, a deep dive into the subculture of square dancing and its power to create genuine interpersonal connections in an increasingly fragmented world. The MN Original episode that profiled the project described it as an exploration of “the value of touch and connection with strangers through the act of a square dance.” Among the project’s fruits: an 18-minute video that features interviews with square dancing “converts” — including a romantic pair who met on the dance floor — and extended scenes of pure square-dancing joy.

Lovelee is also working on Really Big Table with collaborators Colin Harris and Josh Birdsall. According to its website, Really Big Table aims “to create a long table that functions as a gathering space and activates streetscapes.” The table itself resembles a long picnic table, but it’s composed of modules small enough to be transported by bicycle — although it’s still not easy to move, as Lovelee learned last summer.

“Transporting a 300-pound table by bicycle between Minneapolis and St. Paul is no small feat,” she says. “It took three hours, many big hills, and even a flat tire” to pull off, but “the project, in general, has really made me slow down and practice just ‘being.’”

Where does Lovelee find her creative impetus? It might be more appropriate to ask where she doesn’t find inspiration. A photographer by formal training, she isn’t constricted by traditional boundaries between artistic disciplines.

“I consider myself a researcher or explorer, exploring the everyday,” she says.

This article is reprinted in partnership with The Line, an online chronicle of Twin Cities creativity in entrepreneurship, culture, retail, placemaking, the arts, and other elements of the new creative economy. Brian Martucci is The Line’s Innovation and Jobs Editor and frequently contributes feature articles.

Photo by Travis Anderson

Kieran Folliard

It’s best to be careful when diving into the deep end of ethnic stereotypes. But it is also safe to say that with Kieran Folliard, you get a whole lot of Irish. Notes of peat and mist and thatch fleck from him like, well, like aged-in-oak whiskey. He’s arguably as well known as any restaurateur in the Twin Cities and may very well have interacted with more of his customers than any of his peers have.

A lot of people know Folliard, and probably quite a few them think of him as a personal pal. He has that effect — instant buddy. He makes connections, largely because of what’s missing. Which is to say the unmitigated blarney. Flattery? Absolutely. A seductive way with a tallish tale and a deep reservoir of charm? ’Tis so. But flagrant, pasture-grade County Mayo B.S., of the kind that sinks a business reputation deeper than a lame cow in thick mud? No.

There’s a there there with the guy, which you get immediately, or as soon as he moves to the science of distilling, the tactics of rebranding Irish whiskey for a generation that has grown up with a serious sweet tooth, and the business opportunities in the world of craft meats and cheeses.

It doesn’t hurt that at 58, Folliard looks the part. He is the (very) rare guy who can actually pull off the disheveled, tad-bleary, four-day stubble look. On Folliard that much-aped style comes off as unimpeachably genuine. No one, man or woman, laughing at one of his Irish aphorisms wonders if he has taken grooming cues from some silly Fashion Week stylista.

Phil Roberts, CEO of the Parasole group of restaurants (Salut, Pittsburgh Blue, Manny’s, among others) has known Folliard well for years and has even consulted for him from time to time. “He’s a delightful guy,” says Roberts. “He’s funny and fun to be with, and as a businessman he has very good instincts. I’ve found him and the people around him quite smart.”

Back in Minneapolis in February for a single day amid a two-month barnstorming tour for his 2 Gingers whiskey, Folliard looks a wee bit ragged, like a couple more hours sleep might do him a bit of good. But he’s on the countdown to the opening of a 26,000-square-foot meat and dairy processing facility, and among other hassles, several vital chunks of equipment coming in from Italy are being held up by U.S. Customs in New York.

Two Gingers is the brand he sold to Chicago-based Jim Beam Inc. three years ago, retaining the titles of both chief Irish whiskey ambassador to pub owners, restaurateurs and liquor distributors, and CEO of the Irish distillery that cooks the stuff. The whiskey gig and the meat and creamery adventure are advancing simultaneously, which explains the fashionably haggard look.

Creating consumables

Nevertheless, Folliard guides a tour of the next stop on his “journey,” as he and his people are fond of calling the experience of life. What he refers to as “the food building” is a low-slung, mostly one-story aggregation of unremarkable architecture more or less catty-corner from the ornate Grain Belt brewery in Northeast Minneapolis, not far from Dusty’s Bar, home of “the homemade dago.” Were it not for the numbing 2-degree weather, the smell of dagos would likely be wafting his way.

For more than a year Folliard and his team of six, a couple of whom were with him when he owned the Local, the Liffey, Cooper and Kieran’s Irish Pub, have been putting the old (some parts of it very old) veterinary stable through a floor-to-ceiling renovation (total investment, $2.5 million). When completed, it’ll be the operational center of his next adventures in hospitality.

Red Table Meat Co., led by partner Mike Phillips, best known locally for his tenure in the kitchen at the Craftsman, the well-received East Lake Street restaurant, will specialize in aged, some might say artisanal, cuts from locally raised livestock. Skyway Creamery, managed by Reuben Nilsson and Folliard’s son, Seamus, will do much the same with a variety of dairy products, primarily cheese, from happy Midwestern grass-fed cows. Simultaneously, upstairs, in a not-at-all corporate office suite of exposed 100-plus-year-old brick and gnarled oak support pillars, Folliard will lead Digging, the marketing, legal and management operation for Red Table, Skyway and whatever else might come through the door. Folliard owns 49 percent of Red Table (Phillips owns 51 percent) and 70 percent of Skyway.

“The way to think of this,” says Folliard, “is that Digging is a holding company for Red Table Meat and Skyway. Mike and Reuben and Seamus are providing expertise or sweat equity for their share, while we apply the marketing and administrative talents, so to speak.” The endeavor he says was entirely self-financed, with the exception of a “small loan” from Venture Bank, “with whom I’ve done business for quite a long time.”

Phillips, an Iowa native, is nursing a bad cold but he jokes, “I’m sort of the guinea pig here, in this arrangement. But the important thing is that the decisions are still my decisions. Kieran and his people are here for consulting and the groundwork [of building out a vendor network]. The arrangement makes sense to me because the alternative is a single storefront somewhere. But supporting a 4,500-square-foot processing facility with a storefront gets tricky, fast. With Kieran you have a guy who has good relations [with restaurants, grocers and delis] all over the state. Everything is a gamble. But those established connections mean a lot.

“And he’s been hands-off. He’s a good guy who offers his advice when you need it and lets you do your thing.”

For a time, Digging, led by Carrie Nicklow (her husband is part of the famous Nicklow restaurant family), was known as “Driven Donkey.”

“But it was too good a brand to use for [a marketing business],” says Folliard as he points out rooms for community events, windows for visitors to look in on the creamery process (“not that it’s all that exciting”) and a sizable locker for aging Phillips’ meats. “Too good, especially with our tag line, ‘Kick your own ass.’ So we’re saving it for something else.” Which could be, maybe, fermented products like drinking vinegars and tempeh. “I think that’s going to be a growth market.”

“Digging” comes from a Seamus Heaney poem of the same name that famously asks the reader what sort of shovel he has to handle the tasks he’s meant to do.

A survivor with a wandering eye

The (very) short history of Folliard’s career in Minnesota, which means leaving out the two years in the late ’70s he spent raising milk cows with another restless Irishman in Saudi Arabia, goes like this: After arriving in 1987 as president of Andcor Cos., a venture capital gig with a specialty in entrepreneurial companies, he quickly grew bored with the corporate world, (“big companies struggle with innovation”) and gravitated to the one thing that all Irish lads and lasses know — pubs.

He’s had a few misses along the way. There was Molly Malone’s, where Haute Dish is now on Washington Avenue. A couple tony expense-account places — Merchant’s and Brasserie Zinc on Nicollet Mall — came and quickly went. But the losers have been outnumbered by winners, beginning with Kieran’s Irish Pub (since moved into Block E) and, unquestionably, The Local, where, with his eye for culinary talent, he hooked up with chef Steven Brown of Tilia in Linden Hills.

Folliard laughs. “As I like to say, I began by flogging milk t’ the Arabs and I’ve ended up flogging whiskey t’ the Yanks.” Like all Irishmen, Folliard has no shame about dropping the same lines over and over again, and no one ever seems to mind.

“Beneath all that Irish charm,” says the South Dakota-born Brown, “is a lot of guile and grit. He’s learned a lot over the years. I’ve lost track of the number of times he’s told me, ‘I’ve fallen down seven times and gotten up eight.’ Hell, after [Brassiere] Zinc failed, he took a real beating. He put up his house to deal with that.

“But he’s one of those guys constantly generating ideas and energy. He gets the hospitality business. And especially now, after all he’s been through, he gets the business end of it.

“The Local,” Brown continues, “had great sales right out of the gate, but not so much profit. What Kieran learned was how to keep shuffling the deck. I don’t know how many general managers we went through until he found the team that made it work. ‘Slow to hire, quick to fire,’ is something he’s learned along the way. It’s made him both a great advocate and counselor.”

Back in Northeast, in the food building, Folliard flops on a workbench and says, “Thing is, y’see, even when I had the pubs, I wanted to be in the production business. T’ get back to the land, you might say. Somewhere I still have plan I drew up years ago for a sausage business. It would have been a wet sausage, not like Mike’s here, which will be dry. But I’ve always liked this sort of thing, always wanted to be in it somehow.”

Birth of the Gingers

Despite the Local’s renown as Jameson Whiskey’s biggest single account, Folliard had a wandering eye. His relationship with the Kilbeggan Distillery back in County Westmeath (a 70-mile drive southwest of Folliard’s home sod in Ballyhaunis), and its master blender, Noel Sweeney, led him to develop 2 Gingers in 2010. Named for his red-haired mum and aunt, he regards it as a “more accessible” whiskey.

It is, he says, a whiskey easily mixed for appeal broader than the manly, gasp-inducing traditional stuff. With team Folliard’s marketing wit, 2 Gingers clicked. Married to a not-so-strong ginger ale, garnished with lime or lemon, and served in “an egalitarian setting” like a fine Irish pub, even women fond of mix-amenable vodkas and gins liked what they tasted.

In a nutshell he says, “I wanted to go after domestic beer and vodka drinkers.”

On July 4, 2011, Folliard, bowing to a law prohibiting distillers from also selling retail liquor, sold off his Twin Cities restaurants to longtime employee Peter Killen. He won’t disclose the price. Barely five months later, Beam stepped in and bought up Kilbeggan’s parent company, Cooley (Ireland’s last independent distillery) for a little more than $95 million. Ten months later, in a deal a coy Folliard puts at seven figures, Beam picked up 2 Gingers as well.

As a further example of our “go big or go home” world, this past January Beam itself was bought up by the Japanese liquor giant Suntory in a $16 billion deal. For his part, Folliard is unconcerned. “There’s no reason for them t’ change anything we’re doing. For me, I suspect I’ll have to buy a couple more Rosetta Stone disks, but otherwise it’ll be business as usual. Things are on a good track.”

He shows off the door of a huge walk-in safe he rescued from Bjorkman Furs that now is installed in Digging’s office suite. The small room behind it could be a solitary detention cell. “I call this our employee motivation chamber,” he says, laughing. “You go in and stay until I hear some better ideas out of you.

“I wasn’t tired of the restaurant business,” he says. “I had no choice [but] to divest because of the law. But had I somehow kept them, I probably still would have started something new, I think. I like to start things. So this” — he glances at the polished floors, the pressure-washed brick and long runs of gleaming stainless steel awaiting product — “becomes an interesting leg of my journey.”

He says he likely wouldn’t have sold 2 Gingers to Beam if he owned his own distillery. “But I didn’t. So it made perfect sense, since we got on well, to ‘buy in’ to them, as I say, and use their marketing muscle to take 2 Gingers national. It would have taken years for us alone to have gotten it out of Minnesota. I love the business, but it is cutthroat — oh God, is it. The relationships are everything. But if I had my own distillery, here in Minnesota, it might have been different.”

On the road: the full Folliard

Metrics relating to 2 Gingers are a bit on the vague side. What Folliard (and Beam) will say is that they moved 20,000 cases of 2 Gingers in Minnesota alone before the Beam buyout. The goal — hence the crushing road show — was to have distribution in all 50 states by summer, with Kilbeggan furiously cranking up production. “Europe,” he says, “will have to wait.”

To appreciate what you might call the full Folliard in all his Celtic glory, you have to see him work a crowd — Jim Beam reps, the liquor store manager, a cute deli worker and the milling public — at a 2 Gingers tasting event in a place like the trendy Metro Market just north of downtown Milwaukee.

It’s the fifth of seven scheduled events on the second day of his Milwaukee visit, a two-hour meet-and-greet with whoever steps up to try a sample. One minute he’s cajoling two young women to declare an early happy hour, the next he’s trading tales with the store’s Polish liquor manager, a lifelong bar-owner. Check back a minute later and he’s posing for pictures, pretending to smash a bottle of 2 Gingers over the head of his designated pourer.

A fashionable Bay Area couple, Jim and Cindy Cleveland, in town for a funeral, can’t hide their amusement. Told that Folliard is a well-known presence in the Twin Cities, Cindy says, “I can see why.” Eventually Folliard rotates by, and the three lock up in an informed discussion of the best mixes for lighter whiskeys.

A Beam exec, Mike O’Leary, watching the show, says, “He’s a natural salesman. We couldn’t ask for anything more.”

A few hours earlier, at a window table in Mo’s Irish Pub in the heart of downtown, Folliard explains that the vibe of his pubs, the branding of 2 Gingers, and by extension Red Table Meats and Skyway Creamery, is rooted in a family ethos that values a job well done, with little stock in affectation.

He grew up working on the family farm, and, he says, “my father would forever tell me, ‘If you’re not going to do a job well, then don’t do it at’all.’ And being a teenager, I‘d tell him, ‘Fine, I won’t do it at’all.’ ‘Get your butt back out there,’ he’d yell at me.”

“I don’t like snobbery. When I had the pubs, these sales guys were always coming in talking up their stuff as ‘the most exclusive this’ and ‘the most elite that’ and how everything they had in their bag was steeped in tradition. Like we we’re all going to put on our tweed jackets and go out huntin’ foxes later,” Folliard recalls. “I had to tell them, ‘Come on lads, knock it off. Don’t give me all the bullshit. Will ordinary people drink it? That’s why we have the tagline for 2 Gingers that simply says, ‘Drink with friends or with ice.’ ”

(Another team Folliardism about 2 Gingers: “It can stand on itself, even if you can’t.” Folliard’s wife, Lisa Kane, an oncology dietitian by profession, came up with a poster that says “Danger: Women and whiskey.” She is also, Folliard says, “my branding guru.”)

Live the mission, dump the slogan

Clearly, Folliard intends for the egalitarian qualities of his pubs to extend to both 2 Gingers and various products coming out of the Food Building.

Folliard tells of talking to a group of Carlson School of Management students at 6 on a Friday night not so long ago. “I started out by saying, ‘What in the name of God are you doing here at this hour? Why aren’t you at a pub enjoying happy hour’? And one of them piped up, ‘We just came from there, and we’ll be goin’ back as soon as you’re done.’ But I still waffled on for an hour and a half, so I did.”

Naturally, the incipient entrepreneurs wanted to know “the keys” to doing it right.

“You know how you walk into some big companies and up there behind the reception desk you see the mission statement in big fancy gold letters? It’s complete bullshit. Nobody lives that, and I’m not just talking about Wall Street.

“So I told the kids that night, ‘If you start anything, don’t put it up on a wall. Have people know it by what you do every single day. By how you relate to people. How you treat people. How you treat the community, your resources, all those things.

“I‘m too old for the bullshit,” Folliard adds, “and all that gets in the way of the important ingredient of . . . clarity. Are we clear about who we are and what we’re doing? It may be the wrong thing, but are we clear about it?

“Do that and, hell, you’ll save yourself signage.”

This article is reprinted in partnership with Twin Cities Business.

President Obama will take a June 26 fundraising trip to Minnesota to support congressional candidates in this year's mid-term elections.

The 5 p.m. gathering will be at the Minneapolis home of Sam and Sylvia Kaplan, long-time supporters of Democratic candidates and liberal causes.

Obama appointed Sam Kaplan as U.S. Ambassador to Morocco in 2009. He served there until last year.

Suggested donations for the fundraiser range from $32,400 per couple, to $20,000 for dinner and photo opportunities. The funds will go to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Rep. Jim Oberstar

WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, who represented northeastern Minnesota in Congress for 36 years, died in his sleep early Saturday. He was 79.

Oberstar, a DFLer, was elected to Congress in 1974 and served until 2011, making him the longest-serving Congressman in Minnesota history. He was a strong supporter of federal transportation and public works projects, a long-time member of the House Transportation Committee and its chairman between 2007 and 2011, when he left office after a surprise electoral defeat. A portrait of Oberstar hangs in the Transportation Committee Room in the Rayburn House Office Building.

Oberstar represented Minnesota’s 8^th District, and he’s credited with securing millions of dollars in federal funding for the state during his long tenure, thanks to his position as head of the Transportation Committee. Jason George, the political and legislative director for the Local 49 operating engineers union, said, “we never had a better champion in our entire Local history than Chairman Oberstar.”

“He really believed in infrastructure and transportation and the jobs it creates,” George said. “He really cared about the men and women that built our country.”

Funding for highways, airports and bikes

Oberstar was born on September 10, 1934 in Chisholm, Minn., the son of an Iron Range miner. He earned political science and French degrees at the University of St. Thomas, and he studied in Belgium, Quebec and Washington, D.C. before joining the staff of U.S. Rep. John Blatnik. He worked as administrator of the Committee on Public Works for three years until he was elected to Congress in 1974, succeeding Blatnik.

Over his tenure, Oberstar had a generally liberal voting record but also championed causes close to his district, especially mining and labor. His constituents rewarded him with what were often double-digit re-election victories before he was defeated by Chip Cravaack in 2010, caught up in a Republican wave. Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan now represents the district.

"It's a devastating shock," Nolan said Saturday from Duluth. Nolan and Oberstar had gotten together just this week, he said. "Jim Oberstar’s death is a tragic lose for his family, his friends, his state, the nation and all of us up in northeastern Minnesota."

Oberstar devoted his entire public career to improving transportation and infrastructure, chairing first an aviation subcommittee early in his congressional tenure and then the full Transportation Committee for the final four years of his career.

Bill Richard, Oberstar’s long-time friend and chief of staff, said Oberstar was most proud of the way he managed to dole out federal transportation dollars to all the various industries that wanted them, from highway and rail and aviation all the way to bicycling — Oberstar, a bicycling enthusiast, told MinnPost in 2011 that he rode more than 1,400 miles the summer after he left Congress.

“His view was, you've got to make peace between those modes, and the way you do it is to get them enough funding so they don’t fight among themselves,” Richard said.

Building an Iron Range coalition

Oberstar was proud of his Iron Range heritage, Richard said — his father Louie was the first card-carrying Minnesotan of the United Steelworkers. In the 1980s, Oberstar attached an amendment to a transportation funding bill mandating projects use only American-mined steel, a requirement Richard said endeared Oberstar to the mining industry he represented.

“He was the complete package in terms of being a congressman,” Richard said. “He put people first, the district first, and never tired of working for them.”

Aaron Brown, an Iron Range writer and former DFL operative, credited Oberstar’s work on transportation projects with building the range up over his tenure. He was a “steadfast voice” on labor issues during his time in office, Brown said, and that secured support from the range’s union workers.

But Oberstar contributed more than just infrastructure improvements and new public works projects, Brown said. He was also able to hold together a political coalition of social conservatives and economic liberals who were focused on improving the range first and foremost.

“He was obviously a Democrat and carried a lot of water on Democratic issues for the region, but I think what he really did was connect many different generations and many different groups that lived here, and despite the dramatic partisan changes between the two parties, he kept a coalition together that made a lot of sense for the Iron Range,” Brown said.

At a press conference the day after his 2010 electoral defeat, Oberstar listed off a series of 8^th District-specific projects he was most proud of: new bridges along Interstate 35, a new airport terminal in Duluth, a customs and border control facility in International Falls and the Gitchi-Gami State Trail along the North Shore. Projects like these, he said, “will be there long after I leave office.”

Oberstar kept a tally of his work on the Transportation Committee, as well. In his 2010 House farewell speech, he highlighted the committee’s work during his chairmanship: 317 hearings covering 1,028 hours, producing 179 public laws and resolutions.

He took credit for provisions in the 2009 stimulus act that he said created 1.3 million construction jobs.

“I can look back on my service and say, I’ve given it my best, I served the people to best of my ability and to the gifts that the good Lord has given me, and that my parents stimulated in me,” he said.

Minnesota lawmakers: Oberstar a mentor and a friend

Members of the Minnesota congressional delegation lauded Oberstar on Saturday as a mentor, a friend and a focused and successful lawmaker.

Nolan, who served alongside Oberstar in the House in the 1970s, said he still sees Oberstar's influnce everywhere he goes in the 8th District.

"You can’t get together with people anywhere here in the 8^th District without listening to stories or reveling in tales about what Jim Oberstar did for this district," he said.

"His purpose? To make life better for the people of northern Minnesota and our world," Sen. Amy Klobuchar in a statement. "His method? Knowing all the facts and never giving up just like the people he represented."

Gov. Mark Dayton called him “a true champion for the people of the 8^th District, and for our entire state.

“He worked tirelessly to bring jobs, economic growth, and a better quality of life to his constituents,” Dayton said in a statement.

"Our country and its infrastructure are a better place because of the work of Jim Oberstar,” Rep. Collin Peterson said in a statement. “He was a brilliant man and a dedicated public servant."

Rep. Betty McCollum said, "Throughout his career Jim’s commitment to improving America’s transportation system saved thousands of lives, kept millions of Americans on the job, and strengthened Minnesota’s and our nation’s economy. Most of all, Jim Oberstar was a truly wonderful man who was filled with joy and compassion.”

Oberstar was a “titan of the Transportation Committee,” said Rep. Tim Walz, who serves on the committee. “Jim put people before politics and always fought tooth and nail for his constituents. He was the true definition of a public servant and someone I was proud to call a mentor and friend."

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry

Minneapolis Bike Week is now underway, with organized events for pedalers scheduled for each day through Sunday.

Organizers hope to encourage non-riders to take to the streets on bicycles by organizing more than 50 events during the week. Included are free bike lights, bike repair, support and encouragement to make cycling more accessible and enjoyable for novice bikers.

The Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition sponsors the events, with help from local institutions, businesses, schools and organizations.

More information on specific events are available online.

The group explains the themes for each day:

Tuesday, May 6: Nice Ride Day

You’ve seen the iconic green bikes throughout Minneapolis. By mid-2014, more than 700,000 rides were taken on Nice Ride bikes. Now it’s your turn to join in the fun! On Nice Ride Day, stop by a station demonstration location to pick up your free pass and a helmet to try out a Nice Ride bike – there will be plenty of people throughout town to help make your  Nice Ride experience safe and fun.

Wednesday, May 7: Bike to School Day

Parents, staff and students at Minneapolis Public Schools, University of Minnesota, Augsburg University and more will be celebrating Bike to School day with free tune-ups, bicycle light giveaways and celebrations at individual schools throughout the day. Not riding to school? Don’t miss the Commuter Pit Stops throughout Minneapolis featuring free bicycle tune-ups, snacks, bicycle lights and resources.

Thursday, May 8: Bike to Work Day

Continuing the annual celebration at Government Plaza, Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, Hennepin County and the Office of the Mayor of Minneapolis will host a morning party for bicycle commuters featuring free coffee, light breakfast snacks and prizes from local bicycle friendly businesses. Minneapolis City Council Members will be leading rides from their wards to the morning celebration downtown. This is one commute you don’t want to miss!

Friday, May 9: Bike and Ride Day

Want to ride a short distance, but travel farther? Stop by one of Metro Transit’s Park-and-Ride locations with your bike and you ride into the city for free! Commuting in the city? It’s the last day to visit a Commuter Pit Stop with free tune-ups, bicycle lights, snacks and resources to take with you.

Saturday, May 10: Bike to Local Businesses Day

Minneapolis is a fantastic place to live, work and play – and that’s in no small part due to how friendly our local, independent businesses are to people riding their bikes. Enjoy discounts at some of your favorite businesses and check out a block party! Block parties – several with live, local music – will be held in the following areas: East Harriet, Kingfield, Lake Street, Northeast, North Loop and Tangletown.

Sunday, May 11: Mother’s Day & Family Bike Day

Minneapolis neighborhoods are special; there’s no better way to experience them then taking a bicycle ride with your family. Minneapolis neighborhoods feature gardens, historical sites, beaches, lakes, golf courses, our neighborhoods and more. Ride with your family to a park, and take in some of the best outdoor spaces in the country. Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition will also be hosting several family bike rides throughout the day.

Senate Democrats were the last caucus to unveil their 2014 construction-projects wish list, but the extra time behind closed doors may mean their vote counting is already done.

Urban and rural Senate members praised Monday’s $1.1 billion package, which came months after Gov. Mark Dayton released his bill and weeks after the House unveiled its proposal. Even rank-and-file Republican legislators said the Senate bill was moving “in the right direction.” The bonding bill needs GOP votes to pass.

The Senate’s proposal borrows $846 million and spends another $200 million from the state’s $1.2 billion budget surplus on everything from fixing crumbling buildings on college campuses to local roads and bridges (go here to see the full list of projects).

DFL author Sen. LeRoy Stumpf says the plan pumps much more money into transportation projects, water infrastructure and housing than the governor or House counterparts, while investing money in civic center projects in the state’s regional centers and key urban projects like the redesign of the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis.

Three civic centers are funded in the bill — Rochester ($34.5 million), St. Cloud ($11 million) and Mankato ($14.5 million) — while the Duluth Zoo and NorShor Theater also get funding. In Minneapolis, the redesign of Nicollet Mall would get $20 million.

Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, praised Stumpf for putting nearly $300 million into the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MNSCU) system and tackling large projects in the metro area. 

Most of the bill's cash portion — $126 million — is spent to complete the Capitol restoration project, which Dayton included in his proposal. Stumpf also matched the governor on priorities in the human services, including $56 million for upgrades to the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter and $7.5 million for redesign on the Minnesota Sex Offender Program campus.

Stumpf said he’s lined up with the House and Dayton in quite a few areas, but there are some key differences that will have to be worked out in negotiations.

“It’s a delicate balance. We’ve tried really hard this year to bring the Democrats and Republicans and the rural and urban people together,” Stumpf said. “Right from the very beginning, I tried to emphasize that we wanted to try to do the basic kind of things —asset preservation, the transportation needs and housing, realizing that there’s going to be communities that want, let’s say, a sculpture garden or some other project that probably many people think is more of a frill than a need ... but you have to have those projects in there, too.”

Major sticking points among the three DFL leaders remain:

The Senate puts $13 million into the Lewis and Clark Regional water pipeline, which is stalled after federal funding dried up. Dayton emphasized the project in his State of the State address last week and calls for $20 million this year to complete the first phase. Republican legislators say they want the full $70 million allocated in this bonding bill to complete the project.

“We will enter into negotiations with the governor or whoever, and if more cash falls our way we will definitely consider it,” Stumpf said.

House Capital Investment Chair Alice Hausman said a priority is $50 million for the University of Minnesota Bell Museum of Natural history redesign and planetarium. Stumpf does not include that project in his bill.

Republicans will also need convincing to support the bill. So far, they are holding the line on an $850 million bonding limit for this year at the end of last session. The cash portion of the bonding bill allows Democrats to get around that agreement and spend more, but the three DFL leaders would like to spend beyond that. 

Stumpf said he has been working closely with GOP leadership in the Senate to select projects. “That will pay off,” he said.

Because of a 60-percent supermajority requirement, Stumpf needs the support of every member of the DFL caucus plus two Republicans to pass his bill, but he seemed fairly confident he had those votes already lined up.

Still, a group of GOP rank-and-filers said Monday that Democrats still have the wrong priorities. While they liked that the Senate fully funded the Capitol restoration project and stayed under the $850 million bonding limit, they criticized projects like improvements to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

They said Democrats should be focusing money on roads, bridges and infastructure.

MinnPost photo by Briana Bierschbach

GOP Sen. Roger Chamberlain and Reps. Steve Drazkowski and Sondra Erickson criticized some of the bonding projects as examples of misplaced priorities on the part of the DFL majority.

“Is this bonding bill bill going to be about fixing roads and bridges, or is it going to be about cherries on a spoon or snowmaking equipment?” Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, asked.

The Senate will vote the bill out of the Capital Investment Committee Tuesday. Stumpf anticipates a short conference committee between the two bills, meaning each chamber will have to pass their bill off the floor at least twice.

The "ratlike cunning" that served as praise in Steinhafel's family when he was growing up ran out for the Target CEO Monday. A Cinco de Mayo letter from Gregg Steinhafel to the Target Board of Directors offered the resignation of a CEO.

The board's statement accepting the resignation might lead someone to believe that Steinhafel's tenure was, by and large, successful. The truth is that the Milwaukee native and 35-year company veteran's six years at the top spot cannot be described as anything but embattled. When Target’s history is written, it's more likely that Steinhafel's time at the helm will go down as one of the retailer’s most tumultuous, and self-destructive, and a period during which the CEO — and Steinhafel's leadership team — did irrevocable harm to the brand former CEO Bob Ulrich built.

Yes, Gregg Steinhafel inherited Target in 2008 during the trough of the financial crisis, and as consumer spending and confidence was tanking. But Target was not alone in the marketplace facing these difficulties. It was in this "unprecedented economic environment" that he attempted to claw back some profitability by eliminating about 1,000 jobs at its headquarters in Minneapolis — a move, amid offering existing employees little or no pay increases and cutting hours, that did not endear him to his internal team even as his personal compensation jumped 72 percent in 2010 to $25 million.

That same year, Steinhafel and Target blundered into a PR disaster that, in many communities, still sees the brand's name synonymous with homophobia.

The public reaction to Target's 2010 campaign giving to conservative anti-gay candidates supported by the MN Forward fund are not the reason Steinhafel stepped down today. But they certainly should have a been a dire warning that the CEO and his top management circle was in danger of driving the entirety of the Target brand into the ditch in pursuit of a few minor tax cuts. Target (and Steinhafel's family personally) supported candidates for no other discernible reason than that they claimed to be "pro-business."

The data breach and unexpectedly large losses from new Canada operations could just as easily have occurred. But Target would still likely retain an image as a forward-looking retailer that customers — especially socially progressive millennials — could feel self-satisfied about handing their money over to. In 2010, in the world of big box retailers, Target was the hip "good guy." Today, Wal-Mart is getting great press about locally grown foods and Costco has become a fair-pay meme.

Last year, a petition created by a Target team member and signed by hundreds of thousands asking Steinhafel to reconsider a decision to open Thanksgiving evening was met with indifference (and, locally, a truly salt-in-the-wound editorial from the Star Tribune, which a cynic would point out continues to enjoy Target advertising largesse in lean newspaper times).

Ratlike cunning, indeed. With income disparities and struggling part-time work part of the national conversation, Target had a prime opportunity to redefine its brand. It did not, further eroding team member morale — morale that would have been helpful to have when the data breach scandal hit.

Gregg Steinhafel

There were other subtle signs that Target under Steinhafel was unraveling internally and losing its soul.

In 2012, Target abruptly canned Wieden+Kennedy, its longtime ad agency that had been the retailer's partner during a period when the retailer defined itself as the chicest and hippest of the big-box retailers. That split came just a year after Target had consolidated its ad work with Wieden+Kennedy by firing local Minneapolis boutique agency Peterson Milla Hooks, whose cutting edge, game-changing work with Target since 1999 made it the brand it was when Steinhafel took over. Peterson Milla Hooks cast the now iconic red-and-white Target logo as the center of the brand's image, invented the Target dog and dreamed up the groundbreaking complete takeover of the Aug. 22, 2005, issue of The New Yorker.

This concept that moving numbers around on the ledger, or branding by accounting, seems to have infected Steinhafel's Target. That suggests that the CEO did not understand that a brand promise is an agreement between the brand owner (Target) and the brand consumer (customers) about what the brand stands for.

It is a common executive mistake to think their brand owns itself. When the Target data breach was revealed, what was Steinhafel's communication to customers? He offered an in-store, single transaction, two-day 10 percent discount, saying, in the tone-deaf spirit of the 2010 MN Forward donations that "We're in this together."

Taking into account that a Steinhafel-led management so misunderstood the data breach and feelings of consumers, is it any surprise the retailer's move into Canada is such a disaster?

Steinhafel's time at Target should also be a cautionary tale for the board as it looks for its next CEO. Loyalty is all fine and good, but it's not enough to know where all the doors in the building go.

No end of reporting/analysis of Gregg Steinhafel’s resignation at Target:

The Busines Journal's Jim Hammerand notes Steinhafel will earn at least a $9.3 million payout as part of his contract. The Strib's Patrick Kennedy puts it at up to $26 million, a figure Hammerand notes comes if Steinhafel is let go without cause.

Elizabeth Harris in The New York Times says, “ … in notes to investors on Monday morning, retail analysts said Mr. Steinhafel’s resignation did not bode well for the company’s performance.‘Presumably the board was not pleased with Steinhafel’s performance, and we think that it is fair to assume that current business trends are not particularly good,’ Faye Landes, an analyst at Cowen, wrote in a note to investors. ‘The board also may have come to the conclusion that the problems leading to the credit breach were the results of underinvestment, which is a CEO decision, and the after-effects of the breach may ultimately be quite costly, which we believe to be the case.’”

For Businessweek, Michael Riley and Dune Lawrence say, “Brian Yarbrough, an analyst for Edward Jones & Co. in St. Louis, called the data breach ‘the final straw,’ adding to concerns about lackluster U.S. sales and a Canadian expansion that’s lost three times the money Target initially expected.‘The business has been struggling, the Canadian operation, and then you throw on top of that this massive data breach and the board probably sat down and said, it’s time for some change here,’ said Yarbrough.’"

In The Wall Street Journal Paul Ziobro writes, “Target has hired Korn/Ferry International to conduct the CEO search and will consider internal and external candidates. Potential candidates include two female executives at Target — Kathryn Tesija, head of merchandising, and Tina Schiel, who heads up the store operations — who since the data breach have taken on more of the day-to-day responsibility at the retailer while others have focused on dealing with the fallout.”

For Forbes, Samantha Sharf says, “Target shares were down close to 3 percent in morning trading following the news to as low as $60.05. The discount chain’s stock is down about 2.5 percent from December 18, 2013 — the day the breach was made public — and up about 18.7 percent since Steinhafel became CEO. (The S&P 500 is up 35.5 percent since May 2008.)”

Here in Minnesota, the Senate’s vision for building projects around the state will hit $1.16 billion.Stribber Baird Helgeson says, “Senate DFLers would spend $411 million in economic development projects, including roads and bridges. They want to spend $298 million on state colleges and universities, along with another $80 million in new housing around the state. It would be the largest investment in public housing in state history.” Briana Bierschbach's MinnPost analysis is here.

In The New York Times, Ashley Southall says of the late Jim Oberstar: “Mr. Oberstar was a reliable vote for Democrats on fiscal issues and played a pivotal role as the Transportation Committee chairman in passing the 2009 stimulus act, which increased demand for steel from his district. He also helped enact a long-stalled water resources bill in 2007 over President George W. Bush’s veto.”

For the Washington Post, Tom Hamburger says, “His legacy is visible throughout his home state, where his Washington influence secured funding for public works projects including the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, a commuter rail system in the Twin Cities and a state-of-the-art water treatment plant in Ely. Although he was a prolific user of ‘earmarks,’ or federal spending tailored to particular projects, Mr. Oberstar had a reputation as a serious and hard-nosed expert in public works and transportation issues.” The complaint in the enlightened tide of 2010 was that he was “out of touch,” as I remember.

Still dry in SW Minnesota and … getting drier … . The AP says, “Heavy irrigation in farm country and increasing demand in the Twin Cities have raised recent concern among many Minnesotans about the adequacy of their water supplies. It’s an old problem in southwestern Minnesota, but one that is becoming more expensive to solve. This spring, for example, the city of Marshall, 95 miles northeast of Sioux Falls, is laying a $13 million, 27-mile pipe to bring water to its residents and businesses.”

Year-round Honeycrisps … . Says Reg Chapman of WCCO-TV, “Apple fans in Minnesota will soon be able to find a favorite apple in grocery stores year-round. … the patent on the apple has expired, but the university still has rights over international production. So, university researchers helped develop orchards in South America to deal with the demand.The apples are now grown in Chile and New Zealand.”

Also in foodie news … . Keane Amdahl at City Pages says, “Certain areas of the Twin Cities are about to have much easier access to fresh food. The Amherst H. Wilder Foundation is sponsoring a new grocery-store-on-wheels program called Twin Cities Mobile Market. The foundation recently procured an old Metro Transit bus, which it will convert for use as a mobile market, bringing fresh food and produce to underserved areas of the Twin Cities.” What? So no Slim Jims and Little Debbies?

A trio of Wall Street Journal reporters say,“Mr. Steinhafel, after spending 35 years at the discount retailer, will collect an exit package estimated to be worth $37.8 million, based on Target's Monday closing share price, including cash severance and accelerated vesting of stock, calculates Mark Reilly, a compensation consultant at Verisight Inc., who has never advised Target.” Compensation-wise, there are no failures in the corner office.

The Strib's Lee Schafercasts Steinhafel's ouster as a sign of Target's health, in this the best of all possible worlds. The Canada-expansion fiasco cost a billion but Target still made 3 bil last year, Schafer notes. He works his way through I.T., customer-count, and other screw-ups as signs of The Bulls-eye's vim and vigor. "Healthy" companies can make a bunch of money until they don't, right K-Mart? Speaking of healthy operations, another senior at Best Buy is gone.

And yes, the Strib editorial page salutes Target's board, too. Did we miss their prescient take calling for Steinhafel's ouster? Don't miss our own Abe Sauer's Target appraisal. 

Pot is on the move … .The AP reports,“A bill to legalize medical marijuana is headed to the Senate floor after passage by the Finance Committee. The committee passed the bill 14-7 on Monday after adding a few wrinkles to the legislation. It would track medical practitioners who issue opinions that cannabis likely would alleviate a patient's symptoms. It also would track the conditions being treated.”

And it’s getting tougher to vape … . Says Tom Scheck for MPR, “A bill that would ban e-cigarettes in indoor public places was approved by a key Senate committee today. The Senate Finance Committee approved the bill 11-8. The proposal would include electronic cigarettes under the same rules as smoking.”

Also from Scheck… “The Senate Tax Committee today removed a provision in a liquor bill to allow craft taprooms to sell growlers of beer on Sunday. The measure would have opened the door to allowing a form of Sunday liquor sales in Minnesota. The move came after officials representing the Teamsters Union, which delivers alcohol on behalf of beer and liquor wholesalers, said Sunday growler sales would force them to reopen their contracts with distributors.”

Settled … mostly. Steve Karnowski of the AP says, “Attorneys for a former Boy Scout who alleges that he was sexually abused by a Minnesota scoutmaster said Monday that their client has reached a legal settlement in principal with the Boy Scouts of America. … Attorney Jeff Anderson said he wasn't ready to disclose the terms until the details are nailed down. But he said they settled only with the national Boy Scouts of America.”

Who needs a stadium? Let’s get those hands up … . Eric Roper of the Strib tells us, “[T]he Armory in downtown Minneapolis may soon get yet another life. ... a $22 million plan is inching forward that would convert it into a multiuse space for concerts, galas and athletics.” Finance & Commerce's Adam Voge reports yet another music-and-event space might actually be needed; a 6,000-concertgoer space with a dance floor would compete with Roy Wilkens Auditorium, which ain't exactly Orchestra Hall.

The sign-off on the latest gun grab could be real soon … . The Forum News Service story says, “A bill to take guns away from Minnesota domestic abuse suspects awaits Gov. Mark Dayton's signature. The Senate passed the measure 60-4 Monday, the final step before the governor signs it into law. Protect Minnesota Board President Joan Peterson applauded the vote. Peterson's sister was killed with a gun by her estranged husband.” MinnPost's Doug Grow saw the issue coming here.

This is why I never throw anything away … . Dan Kraker of MPR files a story saying, “The rising price of iron ore and other metals in the last decade has led mining companies to an important discovery: There's money to be made in what was once considered waste. ... A newfound interest in the leftover rock is leading to a resurgence of mining on the western edge of the Iron Range, between Grand Rapids and Hibbing.”

Another eulogy for Jim Oberstar. This one from veteran newsman Al Eisele on the Huffington Post. “I interviewed him on his last day in Congress in January 2011, and while he admitted he was disappointed that the voters whose interests he had served so well had turned against him and said he would miss being in public life, showed no bitterness. … Jim Oberstar was the quintessential congressman and I doubt we'll see his likes again.”