Back in its brilliantly reimagined home on the U of M campus after three years in downtown Minneapolis, Northrop announced its 2014-15 dance season earlier this week. It’s an eclectic, international line-up of big names and newcomers to the Twin Cities, laced together by themes of rebirth and renewal.

On Sept. 27, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, now in its 60th year (with Taylor, 84, still choreographing two new dances every year), presents three repertory works including “Piazzola Caldera,” with live music by the Pablo Ziegler Quintet. Oct. 4-5: McKnight Solo brings an evening of world premieres by six McKnight Dancer fellows. Oct. 15-17: the Midwest premiere of Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s“Rosas danst Rosas,” a 1983 dance-theater piece Beyonce reportedly borrowed from for her “Countdown” music video. Co-presented with the Walker at the Walker’s McGuire Theater. Oct. 24: the Midwest premiere of the lively Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, whose works include a sensuous exploration of the Quebec city’s nightlife. Nov. 6: Making its regional debut, the Hong Kong Ballet performs “Turandot,” the brand-new toe-shoes version of Puccini’s opera. Dec. 4: The Suzanne Farrell Ballet presents works by Farrell’s mentor George Balanchine, including his one-act “Swan Lake,” with live music by a 50-piece orchestra. Feb. 17, 2015: Dance Theatre of Harlem, which ended an eight-year hiatus in 2012, comes to the Northrop stage. March 10: the 11 young male dancers of France’s Compagnie Käfig combine circus, samba, martial arts and hip-hop in a high-energy program that promises to be one of the season’s most viscerally thrilling. April 10-11: Over two nights, the Martha Graham Dance Company presents two different programs that include “Rite of Spring,” “Maple Leaf Rag,” and “Prelude and Revolt,” featuring U of M student dancers. Apr. 28: Russia’s Eifman Ballet ends the season with “Rodin,” a ballet about the sculptor’s life and the price of genius. Season tickets are on sale now; call 612-624-2345. Single tickets go on sale Aug. 4.

At an announcement event on Wednesday, Northrop Director Christine Tschida noted that the Paul Taylor Company recently broadened its mission to include works by modern dance masters from the past, redefining itself for the future. The Martha Graham Company keeps re-inventing itself by commissioning works inspired by Graham’s legacy; we’ll see a new piece by Greek choreographer Andonis Foniandakis. Dance Theatre of Harlem was reborn in 2012 with a new artistic director, former prima ballerina Virginia Johnson, a contemporary repertoire and fresh faces.

The “Star Trek” exhibition, opening today at the Mall of America, is for nerds. That’s not meant as an insult, simply as fact. If you don’t know the series, don’t care about the series, can’t tell a Vulcan from a Romulan, have never said “Beam me up, Scotty” or worn a set of plastic ears, if you don’t own a single “Star Trek” figure or com badge or comic, stay away. If you’re a fan of the canon — five television series and ten movies (so far), beginning in 1966 — then this show is your cup of tea. Earl Grey. Hot. So boldly go.

The exhibitors know that “Star Trek” nerds don’t give a flying Ferengi about things like displays or fixtures, so they kept those simple. Spaces are divided by black curtains. Overall, it’s a pretty low-tech show; revolving LEDs are as fancy as it gets. That’s because it’s all about the stuff. Artifacts, scale models, memorabilia, costumes and props. The engineering deck and sickbay from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” A Borg in an alcove. Captains’ chairs used in various TV series and films. And — steady, Trekkies — the bridge from the original “Star Trek” series, complete with Captain Kirk’s chair.

MinnPost photo by John Whiting

A Klingon on the engineering deck of the Enterprise-D from "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Along with the stuff, there are short films about the show’s origins, special effects, costumes and makeup, and a timeline that interweaves real NASA space program events with “Star Trek” events. Which is kind of weird, but also interesting. At the media preview, the MOA employees happened to be uber-knowledgeable “Star Trek” nerds who were very excited to be there. The exhibition is scheduled to run for six months; let’s hope nerds continue to staff it, and that MOA turns the lights up just a little. Open daily. Presented by EMS Entertainment. Tickets $16.99 adults, $9.99 ages 5-12. FMI.

The Old Log, now with new owners and a new artistic director, announced its 2014-15 season, a colorful mix of popular musicals, regional premieres and children’s shows. Opens June 24: “Free to Be … You and Me.” The upbeat message of this show never gets old. Aug. 22: “Life Could Be a Dream.” This doo-wop musical won the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award. Nov. 17: a regional premiere adaptation of the classic TV special “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Will this be the Old Log’s Nutcracker? Jan. 16, 2015: the regional premiere of “Outside Mallinger,” a romantic comedy and Tony Award nominee for Best New Play, penned by John Patrick Shanley (“Doubt,” “Moonstruck”). March 20: “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” based on the film and nominated for 10 Tonys. June 19: “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”FMI and tickets.

Two new State Fair grandstand shows were announced earlier this week. Sept. 1: Journey, with special guest Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. Arnel Pineda, Journey’s new lead singer (since late 2007), sounds uncannily like Steve Perry, the group’s former frontman. His discovery on YouTube was the subject of a PBS documentary titled “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Aug. 28: Fall Out Boy & Paramore with special guest Bad Suns. FMI and tickets (on sale this Saturday, May 17).

Comedian Bill Cosby has canceled his own Orchestra Hall concerts scheduled for May 31. Orchestra management said in a release that the cancellations were due to “lower than anticipated ticket sales,” and that the intent is “to reschedule in the future.” Cosby was originally slated to appear at Orchestra Hall in February 2013 but was bumped twice due to the 16-month labor dispute that ended in January of this year. “I was asked to move the date two times … and I complied even though I don’t use a band,” Cosby said in a statement. “When these performances are reset, I guarantee to perform two shows. Orchestra Hall and its supporters are my friends.”

Our picks for the weekend

Today (Friday, May 16) through Sunday in NE Minneapolis: Art-A-Whirl. More art than you can shake a stick at, in more places than you can possibly visit on a single weekend, with more people than you’ve seen since the State Fair. Presented by the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association (NEMAA), Art-A-Whirl is the largest open studio tour in the country. Well, it is. If you’re an old hand, you know what to do and where to go, including plenty of stops for beer and live music. If you’re a newbie, read the FAQs, pick up an Artist Directory and Guide and download the 2014 map. And don’t be intimidated. If you don’t see everything you want to see, there’s always next year. Just enjoy. This is a big, loose, colorful, fun event, one of our best. Tonight: 5-10 p.m. Saturday: 12-8 p.m. Sunday: 12-5 p.m.

Tonight through Sunday at the Cowles: Zenon Dance Company’s 31st Spring Season. Two world premieres including “Folktale Zero” by Daniel Stark, which re-imagines an Icelandic folk tale; a reprise of Danny Buraczeski’s “Ezekiel’s Wheel,” inspired by the writings of James Baldwin; and MacArthur fellow Kyle Abraham’s “My Quarreling Heart.” Writing for the Pi Press, Rob Hubbard called this “among the most physically demanding dance programs a Twin Cities stage has hosted in recent years.” Here’s a peek. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets here ($34).

Tonight at Douglas Flanders & Associates Gallery in Minneapolis: Opening night for Scott Lloyd Anderson’s “Paradise, Paved: An Oil Painter’s Exploration of the Suburbs.” Landscape painters usually take on subjects like fields and shorelines, mountains in the distance and woods in the fall. In his new series on display at Flanders, Minneapolis artist Scott Lloyd Anderson explores another American landscape: strip malls, office parks, fast-food franchises, car dealerships and asphalt. He paints things he sees around the Twin Cities and in his own Minneapolis neighborhood, so you can expect familiar scenes. Who knew a Best Buy parking lot could be such a beautiful thing? Reception from 6-9 p.m. Through July 5.

Courtesy of Scott Lloyd Anderson

59 Cent Soft Drinks, 30 x 40" oil on canvas

Tonight at SubText Books in St. Paul: Three Red Dragonfly Poets. Naomi Cohn, Scott Lowery, and Mike Hazard, a.k.a. photographer and filmmaker “Media Mike,” read from their new books, “Between Nectar & Eternity,” “Empty-handed,” and “This World Is Not Altogether Bad.” 7 p.m., free and open to the public.

Tonight at Sweet 317 in St. Paul: Fantastic Merlins with Jean-Brice Godet. The Twin Cities-based jazz/chamber trio of Nathan Hanson (saxophones), Doan Brian Roessler (bass) and Pete Hennig (drums) is joined by French clarinetist/bass clarinetist Godet for a night of collaboration and improvisation. 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30), 308 Prince St., $10 suggested donation. Can’t make it tonight? They’re at Icehouse on Monday. See below.

Sunday: May is Minnesota Museums Month, and Sunday is International Art Museum Day. At the Walker, get in free all day and see “Hopper Drawing: A Painter's Process.” Children are admitted free (with paying adult) every day in May to the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul and Mill City Museum in Minneapolis. Take a moment and download the Minnesota Museums App for your smartphone.

Sunday at Studio Z in St. Paul: Ellen Lease/Pat Moriarty/Michael Attias/Homer Lambrecht. New jazz and improv with Lease on piano, Moriarty and Attias on saxophones, Lambrecht on live electronics. Attias is in from New York for the premiere of his new big-band piece, commissioned by Roseville Area High School. For those not familiar with Lambrecht, he was on the scene in the 1970s and ’80s as an avant-garde trombonist and composer; live electronics are his latest thing. In Moriarty’s words, “Homer has developed a number of interactive soundscapes which we’ll use as the basis for improvisations that move in all directions.” 8 p.m., $10 ($5 students).

Monday at Icehouse in Minneapolis: the Minneapolis modern jazz group Atlantis Quartet (Brandon Wozniak, saxophones; Zacc Harris, guitar; Chris Bates, bass; Pete Hennig, drums) takes the stage at 10-ish, followed by Fantastic Merlins with Jean-Brice Godet at 11-ish. Take a nap after work so you can stay out late. $8 at the door.

Practice was over, and Seimone Augustus needed a chair. “Can I sit down?” she said Wednesday, shortly after the defending WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx finished up on Target Center’s main court.

The night before, Augustus and her teammates waited tables at a Champps in Minnetonka to raise money for two Lynx foundations. Coming back with a rugged two-hour practice the next morning left the 30-year-old Augustus — a four-time All-Star entering her ninth season in Minnesota — eager to get off her feet.

“The practices we’ve been having have been pretty tough,” she said.

At least no one else got hurt. Tuesday, veteran power forward Rebekkah Brunson became the third player among the Lynx top seven to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery since training camp opened, correcting ligament damage in her right knee. Brunson, the team’s leading rebounder, could miss up to two months, or more than half the 34-game season.

Already the Lynx lost versatile reserve guard Monica Wright, an emerging star, and backup forward Devereaux Peters. Both are expected to miss six games, perhaps more, with left knee problems. And this bug all started with Coach Cheryl Reeve, who had surgery in April to remove a benign tumor from her upper spine.

In their three-year run at the top of the WNBA, the Lynx won two championships and reached a third finals by avoiding extended absences by its core players. Not since 2010 — when Augustus missed the first nine games following abdominal surgery — have the Lynx managed more than a few games without a player of significance.

Now the Lynx will open the season Friday night in Washington with only nine healthy players, three of them rookies: forwards Damiris Dantas, Asia Taylor and Tricia Liston. And second-year pro Lindsey Moore will back up Lindsay Whalen at point guard.

That’s a lot of inexperience for a team aiming for back-to-back championships, something that has happened only twice in the WNBA’s 17 seasons — the Houston Comets from 1997-2000, and the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001-02. In the annual WNBA general manager survey released Thursday, 58 percent picked the Lynx to repeat.

The Lynx return home Sunday to face Connecticut at 4 p.m., with a championship banner-raising and ring ceremony scheduled for 3:30 p.m.

“We’re thankful for the three really healthy years that we had,” Reeve said. “We just look at it as, it’s the hand that’s being dealt. We know we can’t hide. The one thing we’re darn sure of is, nobody feels bad for us. It’s even more fulfilling if we can be successful with a trimmed-down roster. That’s the challenge. Let’s see if we can do it.”

Unlike most men’s pro leagues, the WNBA has no disabled list or injured reserve. That helps contain payroll costs, an important consideration in an NBA-subsidized league. Rosters max out at 12 players, one more than last year. Until this rash of injuries, the Lynx considered leaving the 12^th spot vacant, to save salary and travel expenses for someone unlikely to play much, if at all.

Expect Reeve to lean heavily on 2012 U.S. Olympians Maya Moore, Augustus and Whalen, her top three scorers, as well as center Janel McCarville while the young players break in. Brunson’s starting spot will go to either the 6-4 Dantas, a 21-year-old from Brazil with Olympic and world championship experience, or the 6-1 Taylor, a former Louisville standout whose 18 points helped the Lynx beat Chicago, 76-69, for the WNBA preseason tournament championship in Orlando last Sunday.

“The younger players are getting thrown into the mix sooner, so they’ll be ready when Monnie and Dev come back,” McCarville said. “Asia Taylor stepped into the starting lineup and she jelled with us immediately. Same with Dantas. When you have the continuity we have with at least four starters back, people kind of understand, and find a role they need to play.”

Taylor thinks she has. “It’s a championship team,” she said. “They’re not looking for starters, people who can come in and score 20. I do all the little things. I rebound. I defend. Get up into somebody. We’ve got all those great players who are going to do the big things. I’m not afraid to do the little things.”

Dantas, meanwhile, receives daily low-post tutorials from McCarville while trying to grasp the nuances of English. Reeve keeps a cheat sheet of Portuguese phrases in her pocket, and players are picking up words to help Dantas, who also speaks a little Spanish.

Augustus cracked up everyone in a huddle one day when Dantas asked the name of a play — “Nombre?” — and Augustus, with a choice of two languages Dantas could understand, instead blurted out in English, “Time out — after,” which made no sense.

“We have our core group here that has been here through a lot,” Whalen said. “We’re just doing what we can every day to help them along, telling them what’s expected. They’re watching us, seeing how it is, and going out and doing it.”

Moore said it took almost the entire regular season last year to figure out what she was doing, and what Reeve wanted from her. Rookie guards have it tougher than post players, Reeve said, because most of the league’s best players operate on the perimeter.

Either way, the Lynx need something from their younger players to keep up in the demanding Western Conference. Phoenix, led by the dynamic Diana Taurasi and 6-foot-8 Brittney Griner, poses a challenge. So does Los Angeles, with league MVP Candace Parker. Seattle gets back one of its seven-time All-Stars, point guard Sue Bird, but not the other, as forward Lauren Jackson sits out her second consecutive season following right knee and left Achilles tendon surgeries. And in the East, the teaming of Cappie Pondexter with recently acquired Tina Charles makes New York, coached by Bill Laimbeer, a trendy pick.

“They’re going to have to grow a little bit faster than most rookies,” Augustus said. “Their learning curve is a lot shorter. They’re going to have to step it up. I think they understand it. Every day at practice they stay a little extra to go over plays, or get here early to kind of get in there with the starting lineup to get a feel for how things are going to be.”

A couple of weeks ago, MinnPost reporter Pat Borzi wrote a story about Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve’s irritation with local media for marginalizing her team compared to the so-called Big 4 men’s sports franchises — the Twins, the Wild, the Timberwolves, and the Vikings. 

The story got a lot of attention on social media, and was one of our better-read pieces this month.

So it got us thinking: The Lynx get much less coverage than those other pro teams, but they do attract substantial crowds and have rabid followers, not to mention that they’re a lot more successful in the won-lost category than the men’s teams. Why not try providing regularly scheduled, smart, MinnPost-style coverage of them?

So starting today, Borzi will be writing a weekly report on the Lynx through the 2014 season, combining coverage of what’s transpiring on the court with behind-the-scenes stories about the team, its fans, and the business of women’s basketball.

Borzi, a frequent contributor to MinnPost, also freelances for The New York Times. Though known primarily for his baseball writing, Borzi has covered the NBA on and off since 1988, and written occasionally about the Lynx for MinnPost since 2010.

“The Lynx crowd is very much a MinnPost crowd — educated, passionate and engaged,” Borzi said. “That audience has been begging for something beyond the basic, meat-and-potatoes coverage. The Lynx offer so many great stories, and I’m thrilled for the chance to tell them.” 

As you know, quality coverage costs money. If you’re a Lynx fan and you appreciate our reporting on the team, please consider becoming a sustaining member of MinnPost. For as little as $5 a month, you can join more than 2,000 other MinnPost members who support the work we do to inform and engage our community.

Rep. Peggy Scott

The mere mention of abortion has appeared to derail a Minnesota push for a constitutional amendment overruling the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision.

That decision ruled “corporations are people,” upending corporate political spending bans as free speech violations. Several states have passed a resolution calling for a Constitutional Convention to supersede the court. The Minnesota Senate passed that resolution last year.

With the session nearing an end, Rep. Ray Dehn, DFL-Minneapolis, decided to try for a House floor vote Thursday. That’s when abortion came in to play.

Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover, made it clear that if the resolution was brought to the floor, she planned to call for an amendment to the resolution that would call for the Constitutional Convention to also deal with overturning the Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion.

Rather than wade into the politics of that old, passionate issue, Dehn said he likely would not bring his resolution to the floor.

Said Scott, “If you’re going to call for a Constitutional Convention because you’re not happy with a Supreme Court decision, you can’t just pick and choose. If they want to open the Constitution up on that issue, I think there are any number of other issues that should be open for discussion.’’ 

Creative Commons/Quasic

“I think people are comfortable with banning smoking throughout the parks,” said Park Commissioner John Erwin.

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation board is poised to ban smoking throughout the city’s parks — and become the first in Minnesota to ban e-cigarettes.

The current smoking ban, enacted in May 2010, applies within 100 feet of park buildings, playgrounds, pools and water play areas, on beaches, in park buildings and in park vehicles. Smoking is also banned within 50 feet of bleachers and youth athletic fields.

“I think people are comfortable with banning smoking throughout the parks,” said Park Commissioner John Erwin, who along with Commissioner Jon Olson, proposed the total ban. “Smoking pretty clearly isn’t something that makes people healthy.” 

Olson admits to being a smoker himself and is the person who advocated for including e-cigarettes in the policy. “There’s been enough time, it shouldn’t be a big issue for people,” he said.

“We don’t know a whole lot about the vapor and what is in the vapors,” said Olson, “People say it’s harmless but there is plenty of information that says it’s not.”

According to Erwin, “The existing policy was a great first step but it’s difficult to enforce,” noting that it is challenging for the public and Park Police Officers to measure the distance someone might be from a facility. “It makes it difficult for users to know where they can smoke.”

The current policy is not an ordinance, so park policy can’t issue a citation to offending smokers, only ask them to leave the parks.

Erwin and Olson have not decided whether the new ban would be an ordinance — but if it is, Erwin said he would like to delay issuing tickets for a year to give park patrons time to learn the new rules.

“I believe that when people go to parks they don’t want to inhale what other people are giving off,” Erwin added.

Currently, smoking is also banned from park gardens including the Sculpture Garden, The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden, The Rose Garden and the Roberts Bird Sanctuary, as well as the Lake Harriet Bandstand and the Wirth Winter Recreation Area.

The organization Tobacco-Free Youth Recreation lists tobacco restriction for 48 park organizations in the metropolitan area. Of those, half are given a high score for smoking bans including Golden Valley, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park and Maple Grove.

Minneapolis currently scores low.

“These policies are about smoking, not about the smokers,” said Emily Anderson of Tobacco-Free Youth Recreation who is pleased to see Minneapolis including the e-cigarette in its proposed smoking ban.

“The e-cigarette is so new it’s not in other park policies,” Anderson said. “The e-cigarette market is largely controlled by the tobacco industry, they don’t have peoples health in mind.

“We have worked really hard to get tobacco out of the public eye,” said Anderson noting that an entire generation of young people has grown up without seeing people smoking in restaurants, in offices and public buildings.

When Parks Commissioner Brad Bourn pushed for a total smoking ban four years ago, Erwin and Olson were among those opposed. “It sounds like there are folks who have changed their minds,” Bourn said.

Looking back Olson says “I really felt like we needed more time to get people comfortable with it (a total ban)” when he voted on the current policy. “It really spoke of big government pushing people around.” 

“People have had time to get used to it,” said Olson. “I think it’s great.”

The first public discussion of the proposed comprehensive smoking ban is scheduled for June 4, at a 5:20 p.m. Recreation Committee meets at 2117 West River Road. 

Kevin Terrell

Kevin Terrell, 50, a business consultant with previous involvement in foreign intelligence work for the U.S. government, will announce his candidacy this afternoon for the Independence Party nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Al Franken.

Terrell, who lives in the Lynnhurst neighborhood of Minneapolis, has his own one-man firm called Katana Consulting. He has been active publicly on the issue of airport noise, has been active in the IP for several years, and has been successfully vetted by the party to seek the nomination at its convention, which will be held Saturday on the campus of Minnesota State University in Mankato.

It remains to be seen whether Terrell will develop into a serious contender for the Senate. But because of Minnesota’s unusual three-party system in which the IP generally holds centrist ground between the DFL and Republican Parties, an IP candidate always has at least the possibility of playing a role in the final outcome. Only once, with Jesse Ventura’s 1998 election as governor, has an IP candidate won a statewide race.

But Terrell’s race could also turn out to be vital to the IP’s future. The party has to reach at least 5 percent of the vote in at least one statewide race every four years in order to maintain its legal standing as a “major party” under Minnesota law, which gets the party easy access to the ballot, access to state matching funds and an extra argument for inclusion in televised debates (although that last one is not a legal matter).

Because the party didn’t make a serious run in the 2014 Senate race won easily by Democrat Amy Klobuchar, its major party status is on the line this year, although it could preserve its status by breaking 5 percent in the races for senator, governor or any of the statewide constitutional offices, all of which will be on the ballot.

I had heard persistent rumors that the IP was hoping to coax its founder, Dean Barkley, into the race. Barkley ran three times for the Senate as the IP nominee, cracking the 5 percent mark each time and reaching a high of 15 percent in the 2008 Franken-Norm Coleman-Barkley race. But Terrell told me that Barkley is supporting him and will be at the announcement of his candidacy this afternoon.

Earlier in his career, Terrell worked for the Defense intelligence Agency, overseeing analysis of Soviet troops in Belarus, the Baltic States and the Ukraine. His knowledge of the Ukraine gives him some involvement in one of the current foreign- and military-policy hotspots. After leaving the DIA, he said, he worked for five years a contractor for the CIA.

Terrell said that the general description of the Independence Party as “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” is a pretty good summary of his policy orientation.

Following up on the recent McCutcheon v. FEC ruling — in which the U.S. Supreme Court broke along the familiar five conservatives versus four liberals to allow wealthy donors to give more to candidates — Tom Edsall used his blog at The New York Times early this week to return to what he called the “80-year-old debate between those who contend that the Supreme Court decides cases on the basis of abstract principles of law and those who argue that judicial rulings are based primarily on political and economic considerations.”

It’s a long substantive piece in which Edsall aggregates a number of recent scholarly takes on that issue, so don’t attempt it unless you care about that issue. Edsall doesn’t enunciate a big ultimate finding of his own, but it’s obvious that Edsall — who leans left but is relentlessly substantive — and the scholarly community have concluded that — on the biggest, most important, most controversial cases — most of the justices are ruling along ideological-bordering-on-partisan lines. Suffice to say, the headline on the piece is “Supreme Injustice.”

The star whose study takes over the second half of the piece is University of Chicago constitutional law scholar Geoffrey Stone, who first surveyed law professors, asking them identify the 20 most significant Supreme Court decisions since 2000. The ultimate list included “rulings on the Violence Against Women Act; Bush v. Gore; parochial school vouchers; a challenge to a ‘three strikes’ law; affirmative action in higher education; the prohibition of ‘same-sex sodomy;’ the death penalty for minors; the display of the Ten Commandments in a county courthouse; a redevelopment plan affecting property rights; two cases involving Guantánamo detainees; partial birth abortion; integration in public schools; gun regulation; the Affordable Care Act; the federal Defense of Marriage Act; Crawford v. Marion County; Citizens United; and Shelby County v. Holder.”

As far as bloc voting by ideological group:

The five very conservative justices who served on the court from 2000 to 2013 — including four still on the bench, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and former Chief Justice William Rehnquist — “voted the conservative line in these 20 cases 98.5 percent of the time,” Stone found. The six moderate liberals — including four still on the court, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, along with former justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter — “voted for the ‘liberal’ policy position 97.5 percent of the time.” Altogether, these liberal and conservative justices took a total of 148 stands and in 145, their positions “tracked the presumed policy preferences of conservative and liberal legislators. Put simply, they voted in what seems to have been an ideologically result-oriented manner 98 percent of the time.”

Stone found that many justices break ranks with their usual bloc on many cases, but almost never on the biggest, most important cases.

Of course, the fact that they tended to vote by familiar blocs doesn’t necessarily reflect bias. It could be that by their judicial philosophy liberal and conservative justices tend to look at things differently. So Stone tested that idea by examining the rationale cited by the two blocs to see whether they sort neatly into those in which the liberals engaged in “judicial activism — overturning precedent or ruling congressional actions unconstitutional (commonly associated with liberalism)” — and those in which conservatives engaged in “judicial restraint (commonly associated with conservatism).”

Stone is just one scholar. And his method surely leaves some room for his own beliefs to express themselves. But in the big conclusion of his study, Stone ruled that while the liberals do seem to be voting their philosophy, the conservatives are voting for their personal policy preferences, which tend to favor the wealthy. The pattern of their decisions cannot, he argued, be explained by either of the two major intellectual themes of conservative legal thinking, judicial restraint and originalism. Wrote Edsall, after interviewing Stone:

“Something is motivating them other than a completely neutral detachment. They chose to be activist in certain types of areas, and strike down law when laws disadvantage the wealthy,” Stone said in my telephone conversation with him. The conservative majority takes “an aggressive, muscular approach” in striking down a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but then “suddenly becomes very passive in deferring to the legislature in the voter ID case.”

In his study, Stone concluded that in these cases, the votes of members of the court’s right flank were “determined first-and-foremost by their own personal policy preferences.” The court’s conservatives “no doubt believe that they decide each case as it comes to them, like umpires calling balls and strikes. But given the strikingly ideological pattern of their votes in these cases, and the absence of any plausible theory to explain them, this is simply not credible.”

When voters can almost instantaneously determine a female politician’s gender from her facial features, that politician is more likely to win her election — above and beyond any issues of competence.

And that outcome is especially true in conservative areas of the country.

Those are the intriguing (and discouraging) key findings of a study published Thursday in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

“Though perceptions of competence and attractiveness from politicians’ faces have been previously linked to political success, the current research demonstrates that gendered cues uniquely predict female politicians’ electoral success beyond these factors,” write the study’s authors.

This finding suggests “a discrepancy between traits used to evaluate male and female politicians,” they add.

A variety of cues

For the study, researchers used a software technology called Mouse Tracker, which was developed by the study’s senior author, Jon Freeman, an assistant professor and director of the Social Cognitive & Neural Sciences Lab at Dartmouth University. Mouse Tracker can be used to measure real-time computer mouse movements as people make snap decisions — in this case, the decision of whether a photo of a face flashed on a computer screen was male or female.

Previous research has shown that people use specific biological and social cues to identify gender from facial features. Larger eyes, for example, tend to suggest femininity, as do longer hair and makeup (at least in Western cultures). Prominent upper brows and wider jaws, on the other hand, tend to convey masculinity.

And, yes, most faces do contain some ratio of overlap between these gender categories. That’s why people can encounter a split second of uncertainty about another person’s gender upon seeing their face.

Following the mouse

Freeman and his colleagues decided to assess if and how that initial gender uncertainty could predict real-world electoral outcomes. First, they assembled almost 200 images of men and women who had run in a gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race between 1998 and 2010. Each image was rated for perceived attractiveness and competence by an online panel recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website. The researchers excluded from the images any well-known politicians, such as former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska), and included only a few non-white candidates to avoid introducing racial bias in the participants’ responses.

The researchers then asked 32 Dartmouth undergraduates (including 21 women) to use a computer mouse to categorize each of the images as either female or male — and to do it as quickly as they could. The students were also asked if they would vote for the person in the image (on a scale of 1 to 6), although they were not provided any information about the politicians’ political views or background.

The results showed that the longer it took for the students to select the correct gender of a female politician’s face, the less likely they were to say they would vote for that candidate. The same was not true for the male politicians.

Predictive of election results

Freeman and his colleagues then recruited 260 people (119 women) through the Mechanical Turk site to complete the same categorization of the images online. The researchers compared the speed of these participants’ mouse-tracking responses to the politicians’ latest election results — specifically, their margins of victory or defeat.

They found that the split-second speed at which a female politician’s gender was selected could predict her electoral outcome. The longer it took for the respondents to process her gender identity, the less likely she was to win her election.

“These effects were independent of other social dimensions previously implicated in political decision-making, such as competence, attractiveness, and familiarity,” Freeman and his co-authors write.

We’re not talking here about a long hesitation, either.

“A female politician’s success was related to how feminine or masculine her face was perceived less than on half-second after its initial exposure, suggesting that the way a face’s gender is rapidly processed may translate into real-world political outcomes,” said Freeman in a statement released with the study.

The influence of political leanings

The researchers also found that the effects seen in these experiments were more pronounced among participants in conservative states. (They determined a state’s conservative/liberal leanings by looking at the results of the last five presidential elections.)

“It is important to note that participants across these different regions were equally sensitive to gendered facial cues,” write Freeman and his colleagues. “Rather, what varied was the relationship between this partial activation and electoral success, as more masculine female politicians received a lower percentage of votes in more conservative constituencies."

“This finding could be explained either by conservatives’ appreciation of traditional gender norms, their aversion to uncertainty, or both,” they add.

You can read the study in full online. And you can view a video demonstrating the Mouse Tracker technology in action on the website of Dartmouth’s Social Cognitive & Neural Sciences Lab. The video shows the differences in results when study participants were shown the faces of Nikki Haley, the current Republican governor of South Carolina, and Judy Bear Topinka, the comptroller of Illinois who ran on the Republican ticket for governor of that state in 2006. Haley won her gubernatorial election by a four-point margin; Topinka lost hers by 11 points.

Earlier this week, you may have heard about the most recent kerfuffle retailer Target found itself in (yes, again). This time, Target’s culture was the bullseye. A former employee went off to Gawker (classy move, by the way) and vented.

One day later, Target CMO, Jeff Jones took to LinkedIn to share his views, and basically respond to the Gawker article. You can read the full post here. (Side note: Yesterday, Gawker published yet another article responding to Jones and yes another disgruntled former employee (again, high road–nice).

The post clearly struck a nerve with folks. 163,000+ view. 2,100 likes on Facebook. And more than 300 thoughtful comments (most were positive, by the way). People defending Target and Jones. People attacking Target. You name it–it’s in the comments (although I should say, most of the comments I read were fair and above board–unlike the comment streams you see in media articles).

But, what I thought was most interesting about this whole scenario was this: Jones posted this all on his own.

No corporate hand-holding from the PR team.

No approval (seemingly) from his fellow executives (this, according to an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Thurs).

Potentially no heads up at all.

If you’ve worked as part of a corporate PR team (I spent 10 years working on the corporate PR side), you know how out-of-the-ordinary this is.

Add in the fact that we’re talking about Target–one of the biggest retailers in the country–and it gets even stranger. Not to mention, it’s an organization coming off its biggest crisis in the company’s history and a CEO who was just forced out.

But, there was Jones. Crafting and posting a big message on a public social network for all to see.

A number of questions come to mind.

Why did Jones choose to respond? He was actually lauded in the initial Gawker article.

Why did he choose LinkedIn as his platform of choice?

Why did he decide to completely circumvent his fellow execs and the Target PR team?

All valid questions–let’s discuss.

Why did Jones decide to post all on his own?

Why did Jones decide to make the post to LinkedIn, all on his own? It’s an interesting approach–and one we really haven’t seen much of from execs and big organizations. Especially one like Target going through the pains and struggles it’s currently experiencing. A CMO with a Fortune 100 company in crisis essentially going out on his own to deliver a major message in a time of turmoil. If you’ve worked on the corporate side in PR, you know how big of a move this was.

Typically in these types of situations, the corporate PR team would help the exec write the message–many times, they would pen the entire thing and merely get a sign-off from the exec. In this case, from what we can tell, Jones was all on his own. No corporate approvals. No buy-in from his colleagues. No nothing. Just Jones posting a major message (on behalf of the company, really) on LinkedIn. Big-time cowboy move–but, I tend to think it paid off for that same reason. You see, by doing this all on his own, and NOT going through the corporate machine, Jones avoided watering down the message by putting it through its approval paces (which was sure to happen, given Target’s prior communications). By doing this on his own, it gave Jones the leeway he needed to be much more personal. To be unfiltered. To be himself. And in this case, that’s really what was needed . A stiff, corporate message wouldn’t have played the same way. Employees, shareholders and customers needed to hear it from a real person. Jones delivered.

Why did Jones choose LinkedIn?

Why the decision to publish on Linked vs. any number of other outlets (including their great Bullseye View blog, which they used as a platform throughout the financial crisis)? This one’s actually pretty easy. Jones is an “influencer” as defined by LinkedIn–and he does have some 9,000 followers. Even though that’s child’s play in the context of big corporate execs (Virgin’s Richard Branson has 4 million-plus followers, Likable CEO Dave Kerpen has 370,000-plus followers), it’s still a big factor. And obviously, we all know LinkedIn is theprofessional social network, so it makes sense from that vantage point, too. But maybe the biggest reason Jones chose LinkedIn (me speculating here) is that it’s a publishing tool he could use that didn’t require him to go through official Target channels (like the Bullseye blog would have). Translation: Jones could write something up, hit publish and it would be seen by hundreds of thousands of people within 24 hours (which is pretty much what happened)–without having to get a single “approval” from HQ.

Was his message effective?

The most surprising part about this whole situation? The tone and style of the message. Jones’ message was much more personal and less “corporate-y” than previous messages we’ve seen from the Target camp–especially as of late. I thought the message came off as honest, open and, to an extent, vulnerable. I mean, just look at the title (“The Truth Hurts”). Heck, look at the first line of the post (“To say that the last five months at Target have been difficult is an extraordinary understatement.”). Then, take a look at this paragraph:

In reading this account of life at Target, I’ve gone through a range of emotions – first anger, then wondering why any team member would say what they said. And while it was difficult for me to read this account for many reasons, the reality is that our team members speaking with honesty is a gift. Because much of what they are saying is true. While we would have preferred to have a conversation like this with the team member directly, speaking openly and honestly, and challenging norms is exactly what we need to be doing today and every day going forward.

Jones is essentially admitting that much of what this person said on Gawker is true. He’s not refuting it. He’s not calling anyone a liar. He’s not calling out Gawker. He’s owning up to it. Full on. When was the last time you heard a corporate executive do that?

Let’s read on. Here’s what Jones had to say later in the post:

The culture of Target is an enormous strength and might be our current Achilles heel. In the coming days and weeks we will embrace the critiques of Target, — whether it’s from outsiders or our own team — like an athletics team puts the negative press on the wall in the locker room.

Again–taking the criticism head on. And, like I said at the outset, Gawker had another attacking email from a former employee yesterday. I’m sure it won’t be the last. But again, here’s Jones, saying, effective, “Bring it on. We’re listening.”

What’s really interesting is this: Do you think Jones would have been allowed to post this message if he would have went through the proper channels within Target? Now *that’s* a very interesting question.

But overall, there’s a lot to like in Target and Jones’ approach here. But, as they say, the proof will be in the putting. A message is just that–a message. Ahead lies the hard work for Target–transforming a culture that is clearly in need of repair. Whatever you think of Jones’ response, the big red bullseye obviously has a long, tough road ahead.

Back to the initial question: Was Jones’ post a cowboy move, or brilliant communications strategy?

I think it was a little of both. You?

This post was written by Arik Hanson and originally published on Communications Conversations. Follow Arik on Twitter: @arikhanson.

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As you've no doubt heard, unless you've been on an extended visit to Planet Beta Zeta V, the Green Line — aka, the Central Corridor LRT — will have its grand opening June 14. The train will provide a connection between the Twin Cities' two downtowns — though how efficient that connection will be is still an open question. Test runs have clocked the trip at a full hour.

In response to questions about that, Susan Haigh, chair of the Metropolitan Council, which is in charge of the line's construction and operation, asserted Wednesday that Metro Transit is still working on syncing up signals. Anyway, "Not everybody will ride it end-to-end," added Haigh at a press conference to draw attention to the $2.5 billion in new residential and commercial construction that has occurred within a half mile of the LRT

But the new line brings with it a concern more significant than the speed of travel. In cities across the nation, new transit lines see developers bidding up the cost of land, even before the train starts operating. That's already occurred along the Green Line. Some land that cost about $8 a square foot 10 or 15 years ago now sells for $35 a square foot. Higher property values lead, of course, to higher rents, generally pushing out people with low or modest incomes.

The proof? A 2010 report by the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University studied change in 42 neighborhoods served by new train lines in 12 cities. The results: between 1990 and 2000, rents increased more quickly in 62 percent of the new transit zones than in the surrounding metropolitan areas, and so did the incomes of the inhabitants. Urban renewal by transit worked out, in many cases, to be poor-people removal.

Well aware of this concern, the Big Picture Project, a consortium of some 43 representatives of community groups, government agencies, foundations, funders, nonprofits and consultants, got together two years ago to assemble a "Central Corridor Affordable Housing Coordinated Plan." (One is the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative, which supports Cityscape.) Its overarching aim: to prevent displacement of low-income people by building and preserving low-income housing.

The entire corridor, of course, is not a low-income neighborhood. The 11-mile-long LRT line passes through six different areas. At one end is downtown Minneapolis, which includes both fancy-pants condos and the giant (low-income) Cedar-Riverside housing development. From there, the train proceeds to the University neighborhood, then through a kind of industrial area now referred to as Midway West, to the modestly gentrifying Hamline area (Midway Central), Frogtown (Midway East), hard-hit by foreclosures, and then to the Capitol and downtown St. Paul.

The Big Picture, with the help of Wilder Research, periodically tracks "change indicators" to measure progress. Out this week, the current report offers a big but also mixed picture. Yes, the feared influx of so-called market-rate housing is occurring. For every new subsidized unit added along the corridor from 2011 to 2013, there have been 12 new market-rate units. But the rising buildings are not yet displacing the poor.

70 housing developments

The Big Picture's numbers tally somewhat with a spreadsheet provided by the Met Council (which has a more open-ended timeline of 2006 to 2016) listing some 70 housing developments along the Green Line that are either completed, underway or merely under discussion. Totaling about 12,000 housing units, some 46 percent will be market rate, 21 percent student housing, and 13 percent divided among senior (some affordable, some not), homeless and youth housing and housing whose type is as yet unknown. Only 21 percent or 2,440 units will be affordable, and 1,800 of them are in the Cedar-Riverside behemoths that were recently renovated. If you subtract them out, then, the portion is only about one in 20.

Central Corridor median rent

Source: Twin Cities LISC

Rents have also risen along the corridor. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment leapt to $1,400 in the third quarter of 2013, up from $1,225 during the same period in 2011. But, as the Big Picture report notes, the rent increase in the area likely reflects the increase in apartments located in downtown Minneapolis and new student housing located near the University. In point of fact, it went on to say, "the changes do not appear to be pushing out lower income households."

Eric Muschler, program officer for the McKnight Foundation, one of the constituent members of the Big Picture, was cautiously optimistic. "The signs so far are really positive," he says.

In fact, if you pinpoint the new and pending developments on a map of the Green Line, you'd find most of the market-rate housing bunched where market-rate housing already exists: in Minneapolis' North Loop and Downtown East neighborhoods and in downtown St. Paul. Affordable units are concentrated in Frogtown and along University Avenue. Environs around the U of M will be receiving large clumps of — duh — student housing.  

Source: Twin Cities LISC

Most of the market-rate housing along the Central Corridor is bunched where market-rate housing already exists.

So you could say that the existing character of the neighborhood — or the existing characters of the six neighborhoods involved — is staying pretty much the same. Unless there's a huge sudden surge of the well-to-do moving in from Edina and Minnetonka, it's unlikely that Frogtown or Cedar-Riverside will gentrify.

"You can't force market-rate housing where market rates can't support it," says Russ Stark, St. Paul City Council member and chair of the Big Picture steering committee.

Adverse effect

The bunching of poor people in already poor neighborhoods, however, does have an adverse effect: It keeps them in highly segregated schools, which by their nature, are inferior. Stark and the other folks behind the Big Picture, however, are hoping for and encouraging developments with a mix of the have-somes and have-not-so-muches. As an example, Muschler pointed to the 250-unit Boeser project in Prospect Park, proposed by The Cornerstone Group. It is slated for an 80-20 percent combo of market-rate and subsidized units.

Efforts to keep poorer families in their homes have not surged, either. Only in one area — mortgage foreclosure assistance — has the project already exceeded its 2020 goal of 303. But the project has granted just 51 home-improvement loans — though its goal is 598. There have been 25 vacant properties redeveloped (the goal is 150) and 98 first mortgages, in contrast to a goal of 402.  Of course, there are five-and-a-half more years for this project to run. "We're on a good track," says Stark. "But we need to get more resources in home improvement."

The Green Line, however, has potential benefits for low-income people that could offset possible hikes in their rent. Higher housing values around transit do generally result in denser development. The Met Council's spreadsheet shows 50 different renovation and construction projects. Some are in the two downtowns, but out in the nabes there are plans for breweries, restaurants, office buildings and retail — all of them bringing jobs. And with more housing will come more opportunities.

Source: Twin Cities LISC

Poorer households may be less burdened by their rents if the Green Line allows them to cut their transportation costs.

Poorer households may be less burdened by their rents if the Green Line allows them to cut their transportation costs. The annual rush-hour fare on the LRT is $540. Owning and operating a small- or medium-size car runs nearly $9,000 a year.

But that could be a big if. While the Green Line may attract new residents who will commute to high-paying jobs in the two downtowns, current residents who moved in before the line was built may still have to travel by car to less accessible areas of the metro. In that case, rising rents will push them out.

The new rail station near Target Field in downtown Minneapolis will open with speeches and festivities Saturday afternoon for several hours leading up to the Twins game.

The grand opening of the station — at 5th Avenue N. and 5th Street N. — begins at 1 p.m., with music and exhibit tents and food you can buy. Activities will continue until the Twins game vs. Seattle starts at 6:10 p.m.

Organizers hope those attending will buy a ticket for the game next door, but say that the baseball action also will be televised on a big video screen in the station.

The new station will be a hub for all kinds of transportation in the North Loop, with trains coming and going on the METRO Blue Line (Hiawatha LRT), METRO Green Line (Central Corridor LRT, when it starts running June 14) and Northstar Commuter Rail, as well as  bus trips and miles of bike and walking trails.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony starts at 3 p.m., followed by departure of the first train, and then a host of speeches from:

• U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar
• U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison
• Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin
• Mike Opat, Hennepin County Board Chair
• Jim Pohlad, United Properties and Minnesota Twins
• Dan Griffis, Target vice president
• Derrell Turner, Federal Highway Administration
• MnDOT Commissioner Charlie Zelle
• State Rep. Alice Hausman
• State Sen. Scott Dibble and state Rep. Frank Hornstein
• Metropolitan Council Chair Susan Haigh
• Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges
• Ed Hunter, Director of Interchange Project Office, Red Hawk Consulting

Just a guess, but we may be seeing a lot more of this … . Brett Neely of MPR reports,“Democrats appear to be less worried about the political fallout from the troubles of the Affordable Care Act. Second District DFL candidate Mike Obermueller’s first TV ad embraces the law and condemns the multiple votes incumbent Republican Rep. John Kline has taken to repeal it. The ad shows insurance company executives dancing at the thought of the law being repealed by Congress (actually, the health insurance industry’s primary trade group backs the Affordable Care Act) and ties Kline to last fall’s federal government shutdown.” 

Eden Prairie will send the most riders down the Southwest LRT. At MPR, Laura Yuen says,“Projections by the Metropolitan Council show that the line would be most popular with people traveling to and from select stations in Eden Prairie, Hopkins and St. Louis Park. The opposite is true for the three stops that skirt the edge of north Minneapolis … .”

MPR's Jon Collins has a sweet story on the sunsetting of Project 515, which was set up to undo 515 Minnesota laws "that once treated same-sex couples differently than straight couples. The laws touched on areas as distinct as hospital visitation rights to being able to buy a family fishing license." Last session's gay marriage bill fixed all that, so it's time for Project 515 to close.

The deputy shot at in an incident up in the northwest corner of the state last month has been declared justified in firing at the suspect.The Forum News Service says, “Norman County Deputy Nathan Warner returned fire after being shot April 15 near Perley in northwest Minnesota. Warner was shot in the back in his bullet-resistant vest, and another round struck his portable radio on the front of his vest. … [Steven] Henderson and his brother had just traveled from Oklahoma to Minnesota when they were pulled over April 15 in a pickup that Henderson had stolen the day before in Kansas or Nebraska. He had found a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun inside the glove compartment.” I believe the key words here are: “Pickup,” “stolen,” “found,” “.45”.

Water use permits are getting a work over … . The AP says, “The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is rolling out a new system for managing water use permits as part of its continued effort to assure the sustainability of precious groundwater. The DNR has created an Internet-based system to make it easier for people to apply for permits or seek changes in current permits.”

It's in the bill, but Strib outdoor writer Dennis Anderson says the legislature can do the right thing by the Bell Museum. “The Legislature has a chance in its final days to atone for a long-festering funding embarrassment and set in motion construction of a new Bell Museum of Natural History and Planetarium. … why should the U’s administration support a proper learning environment for science, technology and related education and outreach when there are so many athletic facilities to upgrade, coaches to buy out and bills to be paid for canceling Gophers football games the team fears it might lose?” Heh, heh, heh.

This is not good … . Eric Litke of Gannett Media Wisconsin reports, “Heroin continues to leave its deadly mark on Wisconsin, claiming a record 227 lives last year, according to Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team research. The death toll is a 10 percent increase from 206 deaths in 2012.”

Does this mean more or fewer of those “40% off the already on sale, yellow-tagged, not-to-be-confused with red-tagged discount items prior to 15% coupon” deals? John Ewoldt of the Strib tells us, “Herberger’s has opened its first free-standing outlet store in the Birch Run Station shopping center, one block west of Maplewood Mall. … Herberger’s 27,000-square-foot outlet space in a former OfficeMax includes a large selection of ladies, kids and men’s clothing, accessories, shoes and home goods at discounts of 60 to 80 percent.”

This week’s breathless “Best of" collection appears in the Strib. Among the usual ad-enticing touts is “Best new arts neighborhood,” which coincides with this weekend’s Art-A-Whirl. “Northeast Minneapolis has long been the city’s mini-Bohemia, but the area bordered by Central to Madison (east/west) and Broadway to 18th Ave. NE. (south/north) has become a beehive of new energy in the form of studios, microbreweries, boutiques and ethnic dining.”

Barring a blizzard, there should be good crowds all over Nordeast for the annual art crawl.Erik Thompson at City Pages puts up a list of the bands (and times) playing at various venues. “The sheer amount of outdoor music (and art, naturally) during Art-A-Whirl weekend in Minneapolis is already quite staggering. With 331 Club, 612Brew, Indeed Brewing Co. already announced, more stellar lineups from the Anchor Fish & Chips and Grumpy's NE are crowding the schedules.”

Mike Obermueller

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s approval ratings have dipped in Minnesota. The public remains divided on the health care law nicknamed after him.

But Democratic congressional candidate Mike Obermueller said he doesn’t think it’s time to play defense on Obamacare.

Obermueller released an ad Friday hitting his opponent, Republican U.S. Rep. John Kline, for voting to repeal law, and promising to “work to fix Obamacare” if he’s elected to Congress.

The campaign isn’t releasing details on the buy, except to say the ad is running on cable in the Minneapolis market. A national Republican source said the buy is a very, very small one — just $400 — making the ad a gussied up fundraising appeal more than anything else (it sends viewers to a webpage asking for donations).

Regardless, the video is an indication Obermueller isn’t going to shy away from addressing — and even embracing — Obamacare this cycle. In fact, he said he plans on talking more about what he considers the benefits of the law and the costs of repealing it between now and Election Day.

“The problem is we’ve given the Republicans the microphone on this issue for too long,” he said in an interview. “The benefits are just coming online now. …  I think it’s important to talk about what happens if they get their way, like Kline wants to do, and repeal it.”

In terms of fixing the law, as he said he'd do in the ad, Obermueller said lawmakers should look at ways to bring down the cost of health care through preventative services. He said he’d consider supporting some type of legislation allowing individuals to keep health care plans that don’t meet the law’s minimum coverage requirements, as well as a repeal of the law’s medical device tax, if it's found to be hurting manufacturers' research and development efforts.

Kline has supported every bill to repeal all or parts of the law since the GOP took control of the House in 2011. He’s one of a handful of committee chairmen tasked with writing a Republican Obamacare alternative, a package leadership had hoped to introduce this spring, though that process has been delayed.

Kline spokesman Troy Young responded to Obermueller by tying him to several tax increases within the Affordable Care Act.

"Mr. Obermueller is grasping at straws to do anything he can to resuscitate his failed campaign based on a track record of supporting billion-dollar tax increases on working families and voting to specifically tax our veterans and our seniors,” he said in a statement.

But Obermueller said he’s not worried about any political fallout for supporting the law.

“I don’t think there is a concern for Democrats,” he said. “The real failure here is the Republican Party’s opposition to this.”

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

Darrell Seki, the treasurer of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe has been elected tribal president, beating Floyd “Buck” Jourdain, who's been president for the past 10 years.

The final results:

• Darrell G. Seki - 1907
• Floyd “Buck” Jourdain - 1284
• Kathryn “Jody” Beaulieu - 192
• Ron Lussier - 57

Jourdain first became president in 2004, finishing the term of Gerald “Butch” Brun, who had died, according to the Bemidji Pioneer. Jourdain was then elected to two four-year terms.

Jourdain told the paper he has pushed hard for improved education. He had been in office only a short time when the tribe was rocked by a school shooting; a 16-year-old went on a rampage, leaving 10 dead.

“The school shooting in 2005 was something no one can ever anticipate. It made me a strong leader,” Jourdain told the paper. “I was there for whatever reason, I was supposed to be there at that time.”

When Minnesota schoolchildren learn about Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark school desegregation decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court 60 years ago Saturday, it’s as a chapter in history. Rarely do our children learn about the integration of Minnesota schools and the Civil Rights era from members of their own community.

And with schools throughout the country more segregated than at any time in history, it's probably hard to imagine that the very personal pain and hope that accompanied Brown — and its slow and reluctant implementation — was lived experience for people near and dear to our kids.

This week MinnPost reached out to a number of African American Twin Cities residents to ask for personal recollections of their experiences surrounding the decision. Edited versions of those conversations follow.

The images that accompany this story are from Minneapolis Public Schools archives and depict the schools mentioned by our subjects. Two of the schools in question were razed years ago as integration efforts reshaped the district. 

Those who would like to further observe the historic anniversary are invited to attend an event posted by the Minnesota African American Museum Friday, May 23, from 5-8 p.m. at the Capri Theatre, 2027 W. Broadway, in Minneapolis. Scholars from University of Minnesota will be on hand to talk about the Harlem Renaissance and the infamous black doll experiment that Thurgood Marshall wrote so movingly about in Brown.

Lucille Jones

Jones, who celebrates her 85^th birthday this week, has had numerous connections to Minneapolis Public Schools over the years, including a career of more than 30 years as an administrator at the long lamented Minneapolis Central High.

Jones is the mother of two MPS graduates, the artist Seitu Jones and Bennice Young, who is currently the principal at Elizabeth Hall International school in north Minneapolis. Other notable Hall principals of the past include Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson and Johnson’s grandmother.

Jones’ children began attending MPS schools in 1957, three years after Brown but 15 years before the state court suit that forced the district to begin taking steps to desegregate.

I'm from Chicago. I lived in a neighborhood that was all black and I went to school that was all black and I didn't want that for my children. I thought the school should be mixed.

My folks were from Mississippi. My mother had two sisters. My grandfather was afraid to let those girls go into town. So he built a schoolhouse on his property and hired a teacher. My grandmother lived in such fear we couldn’t get her to talk about it.

Courtesy of Minneapolis Public Schools

A scene from the 1960 groundbreaking at Elizabeth Hall International.

My grandparents moved to Chicago from Mississippi because there was no education for my father after a certain age. They moved to a neighborhood that was all black but because of his test scores he went to an all-male school, Tilden Tech.

The school we went to was all-black because of the area we lived in. The area we lived in was very, very nice. But Chicago was segregated. I’m sure there were kids in Chicago who attended mixed schools.

I moved here in 1949. My first child was born in 1951. My son was in Sister Kenny for a while. They thought he had polio but he had something called Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He was paralyzed. He lost the use of his legs and his arms. My mind was so full of trying to make sure he got the full use of his limbs back I wasn’t thinking about much of anything else.

We lived over north then. When we moved on the south side, my son was maybe in the second or third grade. My daughter would’ve been in kindergarten. The elementary school that was in our neighborhood was half a block away. It was mixed. There were not many black kids there but it was mixed.

We had an incident with my daughter when she was in the first grade. I was working. My husband worked at the post office and got home earlier than I did. He had gotten called up to the school. She had had a problem with the little white boy.

The teacher was going to punish her by making her move her seat. She refused to get out of her seat. My husband went up to the school and she told him there had been a problem and the teacher was going to punish her and not the boy.

He never did tell me what he said to the teacher but he brought my daughter home and sent her back the next day. I know there were more incidents but the kids wouldn’t talk about it, they wanted to handle it themselves.

I did talk to the school social worker after the incident with my daughter and told her if it happened again I would want to have a meeting with her, the teacher and the parents. They never called us again.

I never felt like kids were denied an education, that they were forced to go to a segregated school then. We had to talk to the children. There was a lot of publicity, a lot of talk when things were changing.

There was a time when the children were in high school when I called a meeting of the mothers of the black children. Something must’ve happened but I don’t remember what.

After my daughter graduated she worked out in private industry. Minneapolis Public Schools wanted more minority teachers. They developed a program with one of the colleges in St. Paul so the minority people who had a degree could go to school for a couple of years and then teach in Minneapolis.

Gary Cunningham

Cunningham is a member of the Met Council, Chief Program Officer at the Northwest Area Foundation and, of course, husband of Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges. Long before any of those titles, though, he was an associate superintendent for Minneapolis Public Schools, and before that, an MPS graduate. He began attending a majority-white school that has since been torn down — four years before MPS was forced to begin integrating schools.

I moved from over north in 1968 or 1969 — it was the year after the riots actually. We moved over to Phillips, which was white working class and Native American. I went to a little school called Greeley.

Courtesy of Minneapolis Public Schools

Greeley Elementary in 1916.

There was boy in my class whose name was James Cunningham and he happened to be black. When the teacher left for some reason one of the kids said, “We got niggers in this class.” These are first-graders. This had already happened to James. They lined up to punch me in the face one by one.

Gary Cunningham

When the teacher came back and I was crying and I told her what happened she said, “Oh no, that didn’t happen.” I didn’t really know what a nigger was, but I knew I was being teased for the color of my skin and I knew that it mattered.

I went to Minneapolis Central High School where there was a magnet that was started to fight white flight and segregation. They brought in all these students from all over.

And it changed the educational experience completely. I had all these friendships across all these groups. It was a rich experience. There were issues, and race mattered. But I would not have made those friendships without that rich environment.

I think if you think about Brown and what it was after, it was that richness. It really helped shape the next generation of American politics.

Nekima Levy-Pounds

A professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School, Levy-Pounds directs the Community Justice Project, an award-winning civil rights law clinic. In addition to serving on the board of the Minneapolis Foundation, she writes and speaks powerfully about race, equity and education. The mother of five, she has been forced to advocate for her own children’s education in ways white parents typically don’t need to. 

Nekima Levy-Pounds

For three decades in the aftermath of the decision, schools in cities across the country, and particularly in Los Angeles where I grew up, remained segregated. I went off to boarding school in New England at the age of 14 so I could receive a quality education.

I think the Supreme Court's call for “all deliberate speed” still rings true to this day because there has been some progress but not enough and not soon enough. There has been a reticence to make sure that all children, regardless of their race or ethnicity, have access to a quality education.

Beyond that, we have seen a scaling back of the number of teachers of color. Predominantly African-American schools had high numbers of African-American teachers. In the aftermath of the decision, many of the schools in those neighborhoods were closed and those teachers lost their jobs. I still don’t think we have made up the difference from those losses.

So in some ways Brown moved us forward integrating our society. But one could also argue that in some ways that set us back.

Theatrice (T.) Williams

A former member of the Minneapolis School Board, Williams has worked in district schools as a substitute teacher in recent years. The oldest of his three children started school in MPS in 1968; the youngest finished in 1989.

For me integration was the kind of thing I thought about in terms of political and economic power. I recognized where political power was. Those people who were making political decisions about implementation were going to be acting in the best interest of their kids — who did not look like mine. I figured if my kids were in a place where their kids were it would make it harder to leave them out.

I want to make it as difficult as possible for you to discriminate against me and to make it as obvious as possible if you do. My support for integration has been along those lines. Not necessarily that my kid is better educated if he sits next to a white student.

We forgot about some of the stuff we had to endure back in the good old days. They never lived in the '50s as I did. When we came to Minneapolis in 1965, North High School had for many, many years been integrated. But the black students did not have the same opportunities at that school as the white students did. There were no black girls on the polar dance team.

My kids never went to a school where the majority of students were of color. There are so many more of them now than when my kids were in school. The parents are so much younger now. Now people with kids in school for the first time they may be 20 years old.

When I substitute taught recently I went to schools on the north side where 90 percent were African American. That was never the case when my kids were in school.

Classroom behavior is more of an issue now than when our kids were in school. The other thing that was different in the case of the community is the gangs were not so prevalent as they are now. We never had an issue of our kids being exposed to an organized gang, not that they didn’t exist.

Our strategy has been to move the bodies. So we move the black and brown bodies into buildings. When charter schools came, it became an opportunity to get my kid out of those schools. In many cases it had less to do with academics than with feeling safe.

We know where students of color are more than 35 percent, white kids are not going to stay. So they end up in communities with very, very little power. If we’re going to have a neighborhood or community school we’re going to have to support it.

Mahmoud El-Kati

A professor emeritus of history at Macalester College, El-Kati was born in Savannah, Georgia, and lived a number of places before enrolling in one of only three historically black colleges in the North, Wilberforce University in Ohio. The school is named after the abolitionist William Wilberforce. El-Kati is host of “Reflections and Connection,” broadcast at 6:30 Tuesdays on KMOJ.

studiotobechi.com

Mahmoud El-Kati

Here's the way I think about stuff. In post-war America is when our society and the leaders of our society made some decisions about the race thing and decided it needed to change. The Cold War was an issue. But the major factor was the Third World revolution.

There had always been a Civil Rights movement here from the start of the 20th century. There were lawsuits against all kinds of institutions, medical schools, etc. But the first big decision was Brown versus Board of Education. It was the first meaningful way the government reacted seriously to the Negro issue. It did so by overturning Plessy versus Ferguson.

And then came the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It’s all of a piece. What it did was defeat officially the cast system. We don’t talk about this, but black people lived under a cast system. So the 1964 law lifted the veil on that system.

I don’t think it’s personal, it’s political. It has to do with power and how it’s shared and not shared. And with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that’s when society really began to change.

Whatever I’m doing as a teacher or whatever you want to call me I’m driven by the social justice question. What I fear is another generation of children — white, black, what have you — will fall into the trap of thinking we solved the race problem.

Education is a system of indoctrination. What education should be is liberating the children. But you can’t do that with the curriculum we have now. There will always be an achievement gap so long as that’s in place.

State Sen. Jeff Hayden

The father of two, DFLer Hayden represents Senate District 62, which encompasses several blocks on either side of the swath of Interstate 35W that runs from downtown Minneapolis to 50^th Street. Before he was elected to the Senate in 2011, he occupied the House seat now held by Susan Allen. He was among the first Minneapolis African American students bused to a school outside his neighborhood by court order.

Sen. Jeff Hayden

I really think the reason Brown v. Board of Education was pivotal was because the schools people were going to were substandard and communities around them were poor. So long as the community is strong and healthy, it makes sense to have a community school even if it is majority one race.

So here's the question for me: How do you build a healthy and vibrant community that supports good schools? I lost 50 percent of the African American people in my district between 2000 and 2010 because they moved to the suburbs because of the perception of better schools.

I don’t think it’s as easy anymore to say, you put these kids in integrated schools and they’ll do well. People automatically think suburban schools with predominately white people are automatically better than predominantly minority communities.

I’m 48 this year. I started school in 1971. That was during the time right before busing started. I remember distinctly I was in the fourth grade. We lived over near north. I was six blocks from Lincoln but bussed to Jefferson on Hennepin.

For me personally it was enriching. I have good feelings about it. I do remember friends in Kenwood wanted to swap their pastrami and rye for my free hotdog. I didn’t get what that meant to them, but I remember it.

It probably would’ve been better for my community and easier for me to walk six blocks to Lincoln. I just remember getting on the bus and going to school a long way from my house.

My wife is three-fourths white and one-fourth Latina. My kids are very comfortable in their skins and have a great mixture of friends.

I’ll give you an example: So at prom, we go to the Sculpture Garden to take pictures. There’s a striking young man in a tuxedo. So the next day I said, ‘Wow that’s a striking couple.’ And my son said, ‘Oh, that’s Susan and Jenny.’

This is DeLaSalle, and they’re just fine. I still think we have a long ways to go as adults, but I’m hopeful about the kids.

Travel times on existing Central Corridor routes

from streets.mn by Mike Hicks

With the recent news about Green Line training and test trains taking long amounts of time to travel end-to-end from Saint Paul Union Depot to Target Field in Minneapolis, I thought it would be useful to take a look at how long it takes to travel a similar distance on existing buses (according to the published schedules). Routes 16, 50, and 94 each connect the two downtowns. The 16 is the main service, an urban local route along University Avenue which runs at all hours of the day, 7 days a week. The 50 is a limited-stop service overlaid on the 16 route, primarily operating during peak periods and only running on weekdays. The 94 is an express bus running along Interstate 94, also operating 7 days a week, roughly 20 hours per day—its 94B and 94C variants make stops at Snelling Avenue, but the 94D goes directly between the two downtowns (some westbound 94D buses also stop at the oddball Huron Boulevard station—but there is no facility at all for eastbound connections).

Reflecting Union

from Thoughts Towards a Better World by Dick Bernard

The whole concept, “Union”, has been abundantly kicked around in recent years generally by the old trick of labelling: pick what seems to be a bad example, publicize the daylights out of it, then expand it to cover everyone: “they’re all alike”.

Of course, Unions are simply groups of people working together to represent their interests. They are not ‘cookie cutter’ models. In the teacher union context, I have watched our Union evolve over more than 50 years. Any teacher Union (we always called ourself “Association” – same difference) is a conglomeration of differing priorities and concerns: men, women, elementary, secondary, coaches, special education on and on and on.

Cycling in the city: the law, the dangers, and my two cents

from Thoughtful Bastards by Paul Udstrand

My perspective may be a little different from yours because I’m not a bikers-biker in a lot of ways, I own but do not wear a helmet, and my only concession to bike “fashion” is high a few high visibility t-shirts and jackets. I ride one 30 year old Gitane and a basic Schwinn Hybrid. My biking attitude is best aligned with Grant Petersen’s “Just Ride” philosophy.  You can read my book review of Peterson’s book here and another long muse about bike safety in America here.

Spring warbler migration — Wood Lake

from Macaroni by John Toren

For many birders, the arrival of the warblers every spring is the peak of the birding year. Colorful and diverse, but also tiny and often very active amid the higher branches, many warblers remain elusive, and often difficult to identify. They’re also fleeting. Their arrival is their departure, to a large degree. Many species are just passing through on their way to nesting grounds further north.

The end of the line

from St. Paul by Bike by Wolfie Browender

Snelling Avenue is one of Saint Paul’s best known, most diverse and busiest streets. Snelling is slightly more than six miles from Saint Paul’s border with Falcon Heights on the north to the southern end at West 7th Street. Also known as State Highway 51, everything from homes, apartments, restaurants and schools, to churches, hardware stores and two colleges line Snelling Avenue in Saint Paul.

Today I rode two different segments of Snelling totaling about a mile and a quarter.

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Wikimedia Commons

I have a very hard time picturing Jacqueline Kennedy sitting on the "Tonight Show" couch, weeping to Jack Paar about President Kennedy’s affairs.

In light of Monica Lewinsky’s recent essay regarding her affair with President Bill Clinton, perhaps some of you would like to take a moment to remember someone who never wrote any such essays, much less granted any interviews, about any sort of affairs. Or about almost anything else.

Mary Stanik

That someone would be one of the last century’s most famous, most analyzed women, former first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, who died 20 years ago on May 19. Much has changed in the world since her death, including the rise of 24/7 television and social media that often is anything but the sort of “social” the white-gloved Jackie might have approved. And thanks (or maybe no thanks) to these media, it’s quite easy for people to bare their real and/or scripted thoughts and tears on just about anything from obesity to divorces to delivering presidential pizza while wearing a fetching thong.

To be sure, it’s not as if Jackie had nothing to bare. But I have a very hard time picturing her sitting on the "Tonight Show" couch, weeping to Jack Paar about President Kennedy’s affairs. For those of you who don’t know who Jack Paar was, well, he was the closest thing to TMZ available in 1962, minus the OMGs but with doctorate level vocabulary and better tailoring. Jackie could have bared her soul, because we now know she knew about those affairs. But she did not.

Amusing but vulgar

Sometimes, I wish we had a video of her, perhaps stretched out on her blue silk chaise, smoking an L&M and sipping a daiquiri, and casually yet caustically telling Marilyn Monroe she could have Jack (as a number of sources varying in reputation have said she did), as long as Marilyn also assumed all of the first lady’s duties. We can only imagine if she asked if Marilyn knew consummated from consommé. But I’m guessing Jackie would have considered such a video to perhaps be amusing but quite vulgar, and just another floater in what she called “the river of sludge.”

Even now, Jackie is not spared from that river’s flow. One book released this month alleges that she said quite sludgy things about people such as Nancy Reagan and Queen Elizabeth II, and that she supposedly had affairs with lots of dashing men, including Paul Newman and Warren Beatty. Still, even if communication with the other world could be achieved by satellite, I rather doubt she would perch on an otherworldly chaise and admit or refute anything, sludgy or not.

It’s true that at one time, Jackie did speak for the record in ways that would make for slightly salacious viewing today, in the 1964 recordings she made for the Kennedy Library that were released in 2011. In the recordings, we hear matches being struck, ice clinking in crystal, and Jackie talking much more knowledgeably about her husband’s administration than many believed possible. She also said rather nasty things about people such as Lyndon Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But as just about everyone she mentioned is now dead, as Jackie knew they would be once the recordings were made public, it’s not as if anyone needs to take to Vanity Fair to ask for any pillbox hats (or berets, I suppose) to be burned.

As noted earlier, we live in a time when current and would-be celebrities spill any number of guts in books, on television, or in Twitter and Facebook postings that might be better saved for therapists or death beds. But minus those 1964 recordings, we almost never heard from Jackie after she left the White House, except when she asked reporters to leave her and Aristotle Onassis alone after their wedding, and in a few pieces she wrote about historic preservation and how happy she was to be a books editor.

Live it, don't spill it

Almost all of what we know about Jackie has been disclosed by others, only some of whom are credible. Though we've just learned some details of her feelings about her marriage to Jack Kennedy from 30 letters she wrote between 1950 and 1964 to an elderly Irish priest, letters that will go on auction in Ireland on June 10. 

For instance, we’ve heard from enough good sources that she called President Kennedy “bunny.” We don’t know if he called her “lapinette” (little bunny). Does it matter as to what we don’t know about their French or English terms of endearment? I don’t think so. Do you feel better knowing Bill Clinton wrote in his memoir that he had to sleep on a couch (in a White House full of comfortable guest rooms) after he admitted to the Lewinsky affair? I don’t.

And so, as many devour Monica Lewinsky’s article and comment on the somewhat seductive pose she affected on a chaise for the accompanying photo (wearing, many have noted, a sultry, but clean, white dress), I wish more of us, celebrity or not, would consider words Jackie did say for the record: I want to live my life, not record it.

Or spill it.

Mary Stanik, a writer and public-relations professional, lives in Minneapolis. She is the author of the novel "Life Erupted."

WANT TO ADD YOUR VOICE?

If you're interested in joining the discussion, add your voice to the Comment section below — or consider writing a letter or a longer-form Community Voices commentary. (For more information about Community Voices, email Susan Albright at salbright@minnpost.com.)

Every year, the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and MAP for Nonprofits honor organizations that achieve innovations in technology and presents them with the Dot.Org Award. Created in 2007, Dot.Org Awards showcase the cutting-edge work of nonprofit organizations, especially those that use technology in new and different ways to share the stories behind their work. 

These categories demonstrate how this year’s winners are at the forefront of reimagining ways to provide their services to the community, while also engaging constituents through website design, social media, interactive multimedia campaigns, online activities, navigation, data visualization, server and data systems. 

Caring Bridge

What They Do: Founded by Sona Mehring in 1997, CaringBridge is a nonprofit that provides an online community of support, well-wishers, and donors to individuals struggling with an illness. CaringBridge's resources aid its users in their journey towards health and healing. Users can sign up for a CaringBridge website that includes a journal feature, a personal planner, and a guestbook so that details about their lives can be shared and viewed by a larger network. CaringBridge makes it easier for people to find love, hope, and compassion on a large scale when they need it the most.

Why Dot.Org Loves Them: Past, present, and potential CaringBridge users were given the opportunity to upload photos, videos, or descriptions illustrating the unique ways in which they share their love and support with others. Visitors to the site voted for their favorite entries, bringing in 10,000 new visitors and more than three million social media impressions. People from across the country casted 7,300 votes for 315 user entries, which goes to show just how much stories of compassion make an impact.

Minnesota Literacy Council

What They Do: Started in 1972 in a church basement, the Minnesota Literacy Councilhas always operated on the concept that we are all teachers and that the greatest way for a community to advocate for itself is to learn and seek education together. They annually serve nearly 90,000 Minnesotans of all ages by providing free classes like job readiness and English language courses, and by supporting hundreds of statewide literacy programs.

Why Dot.Org Loves Them: Minnesota Literacy Council decided to show appreciation to their volunteers, students, and staff by surprising them with an award of their own. The recipients of the Teach It Forward award were honored in a 13-stop road trip that was captured on video and shared via social media in order to encourage donations for Give to the Max Day. As a result, 25 percent of the gifts received on Give to the Max Day were from new donors.

Minnesota Historical Society

What They Do: Since 1849, the Minnesota Historical Society has worked to preserve the diverse stories and cultures of Minnesota’s past and uses that history to connect the community to our present and future. They maintain a vast collection of artifacts in the form of books, letters, photos, art, and historical records and certificates. They also offer online resources for those wishing to learn more about their personal past, and tons of historical exhibits, music shows, pub crawls, lectures, and programs all year round. They support 26 different historic sites and a museum, while also maintaining the largest historical society press in the nation. 

Why Dot.Org Loves Them: The Minnesota Historical Society, in an effort to engage field-trip-bound fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, created Play the Past. This new educational model works to capitalize on the learning style of today’s young people by integrating web and mobile technologies in order to bridge the gap between the modern day classroom and museum. Play the Past enables students to use iPods to interact with Minnesota Historical Center exhibits. The games give students the chance to explore historical events and time periods, and encourage students to use that information for further research once they get back to the classroom.

Oak Meadows

Who They Are: Oak Meadows provides affordable residences and dignified community living for seniors on a stunningly beautiful campus. They believe that the golden years of one’s life should be filled with engaging activities, lifelong learning, and a loving environment for the tenants and their families.

Why Dot.Org Loves Them: Oak Meadows’ recent website redesign places emphasis on aesthetic, provides ease of access, and aims to identify and address the various needs of its many visitors. Seniors and family members can drop by this new site for interactive tours of the Oak Meadows facilities, tips on transitioning into an assisted living community, newsletters, and information on upcoming events.

The progressive work of 2014’s Dot.Org award-winning organizations gives us a look into the future of involvement and outreach; their achievements are examples of how nonprofits can use their resources to create powerful change and engagement in new and exciting ways.

To the recipients, we say congratulations—and thank you. Thank you for telling engaging and relatable stories about the human condition. Thank you for presenting vibrant visuals that are well organized and easy to interpret. Thank you for helping to bring resources into the community. Thank you for reaching out to your community and inviting us to reach back. Thank you for your past, present, and future service. And, thank you to everyonewho applied for this year’s award; you all do fantastic work!

This article was originally published at BePollen.com.

Whether she’s scooting across town for a meeting about Rock the Garden, bopping over to First Avenue to catch a band, or heading to the Fitzgerald Theater to live-Tweet the Wits radio show, Ali Lozoff rarely drives a car. She doesn’t own one. Yet, as group marketing manager for Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media, Lozoff’s on the go — a lot.

She also lives in Uptown Minneapolis and works in Downtown St. Paul. But she’s gotten around just fine in the Twin Cities without owning a car for more than 25 years. She relies on Metro Transit.

Lozoff doesn’t profess any particular disdain for cars. She will happily accept a ride from a friend when it’s convenient. But after a quarter century, she’s found public transportation — trains and light rail — are often the easier option, especially in winter.

She once owned a car, when she moved to the Twin Cities in 1988. But “the snow emergencies were so terrible I happily got rid of the car, and said I wouldn’t have one again until I had a garage to park it in,” she says.

While winters in Minnesota haven’t gotten any better since the late-1980s, public transit options have. It’s those frozen mornings when the air fills with the sounds of ice scrapers on windshields and muttered curses under frozen breath that Lozoff says she is especially appreciative of Metro Transit to get her around town.

“I just walk by in my hooded puffy coat and get on a bus that’s already heated and head downtown,” she said.

Embedded in the community

While her friends are white-knuckling it in traffic, Lozoff might be buried in a book or quietly decompressing from a busy day. More likely, she’s keeping up with her Twitter account — @AliLozoff — where she often recounts her colorful experiences on public transit.

“I see little vignettes and little snapshots play out on the bus every day,” she says. “Pretty much every day there’s something I have to tweet about.”

She watched one relationship blossom from casual flirting to dating to becoming a family with a toddler. She’s seen heartwarming acts of kindness and courtesy along with moments of conflict and despair.

“Tension can get high on the bus,” she says. “I’ve seen some real clashes of cultures. I’ve seen people not respect each other. You are definitely in contact with your community in a way that being alone in a car doesn’t really allow you to do.”

Photo by Kyle Mianulli

“Pretty much every day there’s something I have to tweet about.”

Sometimes that contact with the community gives Lozoff a unique peek at what the public is saying about MPR’s radio programming. She’s usually a quiet observer on the bus, and will sometimes listen as others discuss that day’s radio show, noting what went over well and what did not.

From convenience to lifestyle choice

The longer Lozoff goes without a car, the more reasons she finds to avoid getting one. What began as a matter of convenience, she says, is now more of a conscious lifestyle choice. Compounding environmental concerns make it even harder for her to think about caving in and purchasing a car.

“I keep waiting for some technology that’s affordable to really come along and change the dynamic,” she says.

A different sort of innovation is also making it easier than ever to get away without a car. Services like Car2Go make having a vehicle at the ready a real convenience.

Though she may only use them a couple times a month, Lozoff says those services are “game-changers.” In addition to being able to take home the big jug of laundry detergent from the market on occasion, Lozoff appreciates the spontaneity Car2Go allows.

“If I walk out my door and there’s one there, I’ll think to myself, ‘Huh, what do I want to do today?’”

Health and high heels

There is one way Lozoff might own a car. She could soon be inheriting a 1952 MG convertible that her uncle built from the ground up. She wants to keep it in the family and take him for joy rides around the lakes when he can’t drive the car himself. But that’s about it.

Public transportation is all she needs to traverse the cities. If more people would give buses and trains a try, she says, the city, our environment and public health would all be better for it.

“I am not a hardy person,” she says with a laugh. “I am a wimpy person who wears high heels wherever I go. If I can navigate this city all hours of the day and night on a bus, then anyone can do it.”

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. Kyle Mianulli is The Line’s development news editor. 

Tricia Cornell

Minnesotans get weirdly giddy about our farmers markets. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we’re thrilled to see that something besides icicles can grow here, or maybe because many of us are just a generation or so away from our agricultural roots. Or maybe we’ve discovered that fresh, local produce tastes worlds better than the plastic-wrapped substitutes that get shipped here from far away.

Food writer Tricia Cornell has always paid attention to flavor. Her family kept a massive garden and put up vegetables every year. Home-cooked food was a given, and cooking was a fact of life rather than a DIY experiment. “We were taught that if you liked something, you could make it. When I left home and started cooking for myself as an adult, I was exposed to cuisines we hadn’t had at home and I realized I could make those things, too,” she said.

Cornell’s food writing appears on the Heavy Table, and her first cookbook, “Eat More Vegetables” (Minnesota Historical Society Press) came out in 2012. She was inspired to write that book in part by the CSA share her family signed up for. She needed simple, tasty ways to use that weekly produce before it spoiled. Once she tamed the box of veggies, she wanted more, and found herself at the farmers market, shopping and meeting the people who grow food in our challenging climate. That led to her new book, “Minnesota Farmers Market Cookbook: A Guide to Selecting and Preparing the Best Local Produce” (Voyageur Press).

MinnPost: What did you want to accomplish with this book that you weren’t able to with the last?

Tricia Cornell: There’s a lot more text versus recipes in this one, so I was able to go in-depth about each vegetable and talk about its origins, its uses, and how to prepare it. It’s a cookbook to read for fun as well as cook from.

MP: You also write about the history of farmers markets in Minnesota. I had no idea the St. Paul farmers market dates back to the early 1850s — before statehood.

TC: Yes, it’s true. But also, farmers markets are sort of a new phenomenon. Just since the early 2000s, we’ve seen the number of farmers markets explode. It’s mostly an urban thing, but the suburbs and outstate are starting to take notice as well. The Nokomis neighborhood is opening a new market this year. There is a real hunger for them in particular places, and those neighborhoods can make it worthwhile for the farmer. We now have at least one farmers market open every night of the week somewhere in the metro area, plus weekend days.

MP: How much of your weekly shopping is done at the farmers market?

TC: Well, we have a CSA, which we love. But we buy meat, eggs and things we don’t get from the CSA at the market. You can’t do a full weekly shop at the market, but you can get close. There’s a forced exploration with a CSA — suddenly the food is in your fridge and you have to figure out how to deal with it. The markets give you choices. For instance, the market has golden and Cioggia beets, beets with the greens on, beets with no tops at the end of the season, when the cold weather changes the flavor. It’s never the same food. Both CSAs and farmers markets are so much better than buying produce at the store, because there, you shop in a rut, and buy the same sad sack of green beans every week. You miss out on quality, freshness, and variety.

MP: Over your years as an observer of farmers markets, what changes have you seen?

TC: It’s really exciting to see what the Hmong vendors are bringing to the market. So many new kinds of greens, bitter melon, a lot of surprising things that challenge you to try something new, like mustard greens, which are a fantastic alternative to spinach or kale. I am also seeing a lot of East African shoppers leaving with these huge, massive trash bags full of greens or peppers. I wonder what they do with it all.

Shaved asparagus salad

MP: You’re passionate about vegetables. You even get excited about kohlrabi, which is one vegetable a lot of people reject. Do you dislike any vegetable?

TC: To be honest, the vegetable I really hate — and I mean hate — is winter squash. I just hate it. I have been trying my whole life to like it and people are always saying, ‘Well, that’s because you haven’t tried it with blue cheese, or brown sugar, or hot peppers.’ But no. I still don’t like it.

MP: In the book, you emphasize the importance of talking with the farmers. What do you learn from them?

TC: Things are harder to grow than you might think. Some things are always at the grocery store and so you think, that’s no big deal, but when you learn about the labor that goes into bringing those things to market, you learn to appreciate their superior taste and quality. Sugar snap peas are one — they are very labor intensive, and you must handpick them at the right time. There’s a short window of time to catch them at the markets, so you’d better grab them when you see them, because they are wonderful. No comparison at all to what you can get at the store.

MP: This was a tough winter, but the markets are already open. Are you seeing any impact from the weather?

TC: We forget what’s normal in terms of winter. This year seemed harsh but it was not especially long. Farmers were able to get out there and plant at the usual time. Last year the snow never ended, so things were more impacted, even though it wasn’t as cold.

MP: I’m seeing a lot of discussion among farmers about learning how to deal with global warming. Is that impacting the markets?

TC: Farmers are doing remarkable things to extend the season and deal with the crazy extremes we’re experiencing. The level of innovation is amazing. There is a lot of experimentation going on, such as the high tunnels, which are plastic hoop houses dug down into the ground. Farmers are smart, innovative people dealing with unpredictable conditions. Some of that is responding to climate change, and some is just trying to be a farmer.

MP: We’re also hearing about meat prices going up, as drought affects feed and disease impacts animals — particularly pigs this year.

TC: I haven’t noticed the meat prices at the market being unexpectedly high, but prices are higher at the farmers market in general. You pay for better quality and taste. If you are looking at chicken that is $6 a pound, you might plan meals differently. Don’t have chicken every day of the week. Have it once a week or maybe have beans and rice one of those days. I mean that literally; we need to accept cheaper, more sustainable protein sources. This is something we are all going to be looking at in the near future — less meat will become the new reality for all of us, like it or not.

MP: Speaking of sustainability, is selling at farmers markets a viable business model?

TC: I have heard from a lot of farmers that it is hard to make the math work. Small farmers in neighborhood markets aren’t making their costs back. Some of them regard it as marketing; if they stand behind that table on Saturday morning, they won’t make money, but they will get their brand out there. For the larger operations — the things that aren’t grown here — it doesn’t matter as much. You likely don’t even look at the sign above their heads to see who they are. But our Minnesota farmers are struggling.

MP: So are we in danger of losing farmers markets?

TC: There’s going to be some shakeout. It’s something our farmers markets' associations are going to have to look at. These folks are getting up early to pick our produce, load it up, drive to the markets and set up a table, and if they aren’t making enough to pay back their costs, we’ll lose those farmers and lose some markets. But there are experiments going on. This year, the Linden Hills market is doing a Sunday morning wholesale market, where the early hours are open to restaurateurs and wholesale buyers, and then later, the general public comes in. That could support the sales volumes needed to make this worthwhile.

I’m guilty of this myself, but many shoppers look at the markets as entertainment, a place to listen to music, see friends, and maybe pick up a bag of carrots. If we like our markets, we need to do more of our shopping there.