How could you

not love the wingprints

of eagles

in the snowy field

beyond your barn

as they descend to catch

a morning

meal of meadow

vole

in sharp talons

made

for two things

only;

gripping the branch

and snatching

the prey

from its short-sighted

life?

Full disclosure: Darin’s a good friend, and I’m quoted in the article, but that does not detract from his, or the article’s, awesomeness.

Here’s the link to register and to vote for our project. I’ve been voting all month and haven’t gotten any spam from the company.

How often do you get a chance to vote for a good thing that you know is going to win? Today’s your last chance!

UMD’s Bohannon Hall 90

Free admission

Minneapolis videographer Mark Wojahn will be presenting his film, What America Needs, and discussing his work following the film.
From the film web-site:

So, now that I have had the city inspection of the house, I am ready to offer it for rent. So, the house I have for rent: nice 3-bedroom, 1.5 bath house for rent not far from UMD/Scholastica–close to Chester Creek Park, great neighbors, walking distance to cafe/bookstore, two buslines close by–really an ideal location for the best of Duluth urban life. Off-street parking. Great deck. Hot water radiant heat, newer fuel oil furnace, new hot water heater. Looking to rent to a family, if possible. $900 month plus you pay utilities. If interested e-mail me for more details: davidsyring@yahoo.com.

I suppose it’s been conventional that the rep comes from Duluth or the Range but from the geographic perspective, any resident of a district should be eligible to be elected as long as they meet other legal requirements, no?

To imply that someone who lives on the outer edges of a legally defined district should not be its elected rep seems specious to me. That’d be like saying a person who comes from Maine or Washington State or some such location distant from the geographic or population centers of our country should not be able to be elected president.

This is why it is important to pay attention to who gets to draw the legislative districts–there is real power in being able to carve up districts to benefit your party, especially given the information that is available via databases about demographics, voting patterns, income, etc.

I’m not a partisan of Cravaack and did not vote for him, so I am neither defending nor attacking him–just wonder if the PDD community has any thoughts on the idea that a representative should come from a particular part of district to represent it.

Local poet Connie Wanek’s most recent collection, On Speaking Terms is reviewed in today’s “Poetry Chronicle,” in the New York Times book review.

The end of the review says, “Nobody will call Wanek overly difficult. The most attentive readers will call her wise.”

Here’s to local wisdom without pretensions saying poetry needs to be difficult to be meaningful. I look forward to reading the new collection — you should too!

Definitions of local vary–Whole Foods Co-op uses 300-miles as a benchmark. Some of the Twin Cities coops allow anything that comes from a five state area (Minnesota and the states that touch it) to count as local. Other local grocery stores are using the term, too, though I’m not sure what criteria they are using. Other definitions are more restrictive.

What about a PDD definition? What counts as local food?

Local food usually means small to mid-scale production, requiring more human labor, but less fossil fuel–that means more jobs, but also potentially higher costs. How willing are you to spend a little extra money for locally produced foods? How much extra?

I’m going to have more questions about these topics as I’m currently involved in several research projects along these lines, but that’s enough for now.

Reminds me, too, of a Harper’s article from 2000 about dam building. There’s a quotation in that article that says: “The planet accommodates 40,000 large dams–dams more than four stories high–and some 800,000 small ones. They have shifted so much weight that geophysicists believe they have slightly altered the speed of the earth’s rotation, the tilt of its axis, and the shape of its gravitational field. Together they blot out a terrain bigger than California.”

So, any thoughts–think we’re headed towards shorter Perfect Duluth Days due to earthquakes and dam building?

So, they say they’re doing it ironically, but a liberal PR corporation is now running for Congress. Here’s a NY Times brief news, and funny-scary first campaign video. How long before a corporation actually does run for Congress? Any Duluth bookies making odds on that?

Thanks, mevdev, for sending me this one.