News and Current Affairs Posts

Amy Klobuchar’s Hot Dish Recipe

Amy Klobuchar’s Taconite Tater Tot Hot Dish recipe is now available for all who remember when tater tots were not the enemy of school lunches that Michelle Obama has made them out to be in her campaign to bring health lunches to schools. Anyone else notice the irony of this “situation?”

G. Love & Special Sauce at Clyde Iron Works on April 27

G Love & Specials SauceFirst Ave. is announcing G. Love and Special Sauce with special guests The Belle Brigade will be performing at Clyde Iron in Duluth on Wednesday, April 27, 2011. Tickets on sale this Saturday, January 29 at 10:00am.  I am assuming via Ticket Master but I do not see that show listed as of yet on ticketmaster.com.

“G. Love’s new album, Fixin’ To Die, is set for release on February 22nd on Brushfire Records. Recorded at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, NC, and produced by Scott and Seth Avett (The Avett Brothers), this new body of work is arguably G. Love’s most sincere and candid work to date.”

Read More at www.first-avenue.com

Tim Pawlenty: President of the United States of Apocalypse

Ventura vs. DHS & TSA

Jesse Ventura is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration for violating his rights.

The former governor was patted down by a TSA agent in November and he says his “basic rights to privacy and dignity, and his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures” were violated.

Read the whole complaint.

Let’s Discuss Social Security

Someone recently wondered why there had not been a PDD post regarding Social Security being “bankrupt.” Here goes:

Social Security currently has a 2.5 trillion dollar surplus. This is partly due to Ronald Reagan raising SS taxes on working people. Then he started to raid the fund to make it look like he could cut taxes on the rich and corporations, bloat the military, and still “balance” the budget. Well, he still wound up turning a surplus into a massive deficit, but I digress.

Kessler leaving Northland’s NewsCenter — third notable Duluth TV departure of 2011

The Duluth News Tribune is reporting that Northland’s NewsCenter meteorologist George Kessler is leaving Duluth for the state of Virginia.

This follows the previously announced career change of Eyewitness News‘ Sandy Drag and retirement of Dennis Anderson.

The icons fly from us.

Minnesota woman’s pregnancy survives
falling cow, tornado

And the dish ran away with the spoon!

From the Star Tribune.

A Minnesota woman who was pregnant when a tornado dropped a cow on her last summer has given birth to the baby.

Do words, language and images matter?

I grew up with a father and friends who were hunters. Hunting is a way of staying connected to the land and procuring food,  at least that’s what it was when I was growing up. My father rented a meat locker, we ate venison, and Mom and I each got a leather coat, gloves and matching purses. Mine was a buckskin fringe jacket, the envy of my Minneapolis cousins.  I wore it for five years, then my brother wore it for another five years. One thing we did not do: Joke about guns or shooting someone.

Karen Diver and Barack Obama

Fond Du Lac Chairwoman Karen Diver seated next to President Barack Obama at the 2nd White House Tribal Nations Conference in December. You can read about it in this months’s Fond Du Lac Band Tribal newspaper.

This story also made the DNT but somehow it only rated a “Faces and Names” mention in the DNT, below Shania Twain, Jermaine Jackson and Stephen Baldwin in the online version that I called up today. Who knows? Maybe they did another story somewhere but I missed it.

Scott Tridgell has been found!

Duluthian Scott Tridgell has been found in Oklahoma City. He’d been missing since Dec. 14.

New Year’s Eve Road Report

Anyone been out there today? What’s the story on the road conditions? We may venture out for a bit tonight if we can make the ice-filled walk to the car and then navigate the inch of ice on the driveway.

Grand Marais’ Lonnie Dupre to attempt Denali in January

Lonnie Dupre to attempt Denali Solo

Lonnie Dupre of Grand Marais wants to be the first person to summit Denali solo in January. I wish him good luck and look forward to following his blog at lonniedupre.com along the way!

Learn More Here:

Who’s running for mayor in Superior?

Dave Ross is out after two terms as Superior mayor. He’s taking a job as secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing.

Candidates must file the required number of signatures by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 4 to get on the ballot for mayor in Superior.

Duluth Arena archive photos and timeline

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With the grand opening of Amsoil Arena, the News Tribune Attic has been featuring a look back at its predecessor, the Duluth/DECC Arena, with photos and a timeline of notable events.

Am I the only one who sees this coming?

I have been reading a lot about peak oil and peak natural gas production lately. To me, these seem like they will be the biggest issues of the 21st century. We need oil and natural gas to drive our cars, heat our homes, grow our food, transport our goods, etc. Our whole economy relies on cheap, non-renewable fossil-fuel energy, so why is nobody talking about this?! I honestly feel that most of our national problems (the war in the Middle East, the economic recession, etc.) are largely due to a declining production of energy.

I know that some people are aware of this issue, but it seems most folks either don’t understand the full implications or simply just don’t care. It just grinds my gears when people assume that we will always be able to run our economy the way we’re running it now. What do you all think about this? Should we start preparing Duluth for a post-oil world, or do we just ignore it and see what happens?

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