Wine! Food! Beer! Cool Stuff! Good cause!

2nd Annual Chester Bowl Wine & Beer Tasting and Silent Auction
Saturday, October 17th, 6:30pm-9:30pm
Baja Billy’s Restaurant – Fitger’s – 600 E. Superior St.
$25 Per Person in Advance
$35 Per Person at the Door

This is the major fundraiser of the year for the ski program and other kids activities at Chester Bowl.
See more info and buy tickets online at chesterbowl.org

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Oct. 17 Twin Ports Anti-War Protest

Oct. 17 Duluth Anti-War March & Rally
NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTIONS TO END THE WARS

Saturday, October 17 is a national day of local actions against the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Around the country over 40 cities and towns will be holding protests, among them will be Duluth, Minnesota.

To give local citizens an opportunity to demonstrate their opposition to the ongoing wars this country is waging, we’ll be holding a march and rally in downtown Duluth starting at noon. We’ll be assembling at the Clayton, Jackson & McGhie Memorial at the corner of 2nd Ave. E. & E. 1st Street. From there we’ll march to the Duluth Federal Building.

Photo buffs read here!

I can see there are a lot of us out here that enjoy capturing the beauty of Duluth and the surrounding area. If you’re up for a fun challenge this Saturday, check out 12 Hours in Photography. A group of us from around the world have taken to occasionally having a “12 Hours in Photography” day from time to time. If you’d like to take part go to the site and follow the directions!
Cheers!

Silver Creek Cliff (less than an hour from Duluth)

Paul Lundgren kind of stole my thunder on this with his excellent photo-essay on the North Shore earlier this week, but I was out in the same neighborhood for a work project last week myself. Truly I was in a big hurry and swamped with about a dozen things, but I just couldn’t help but stop for half an hour and snap some photos on the way back. It was the same day as the big Vikings-Packers game and I thought if they turned out it might make a good PDD post/tip for armchair quarterbacks on a great (brief) weekend road trip, but … that didn’t happen and now we may be past peak colors up in those woods. Still its a great drive anytime of year. And it’s fun going through the tunnel, too.

Duluth 2009 General Election Sample Ballot

You’ll probably be surprised to discover there are two questions on the Nov. 3 ballot regarding amendments to the City Charter. There’s nothing highly sexy about the questions, so there hasn’t been much reporting about them. Read the questions and you’ll pretty much get the gist.

Another note: There are more races going on than the ballot image above indicates. What will be on your ballot depends on what precinct you vote in.

A complete and more legible list of candidates can be found here. PDD presents this ballot image because, well, some of us are visual learners.

Captured by Robots

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In reference to the Captured by Robots show at Pizza Luce, I believe Lumpy G put it best: “It’s like Chuck E. Cheese meets David Lynch.”

Another “harsh online critic” of the Duluth News Tribune

John Ramos’ Cheerleader Blog presents: “How to Control the Media: A Rant.”

Is Duluth “anti-growth”?

On his DNT blog, Buzz Duluth, Brandon Stahl interviewed St. Scholastica Econ Professor Tony Barrett about the city council’s frequent talk regarding “expanding the tax base,” and what that actually means. In the post, Barrett explains that the only direct way that the council can expand the tax base is to attract new business “through subsidies or TIFs,” or through zoning changes, or “to eliminate steps” involved with business development.

Barrett then goes on to explain that Duluthians are often resistant to this kind of growth.

“Every community has certain groups that oppose growth; environmentalists who don’t want to see trees cut down, or less green space… people who fear that growth is going to require higher taxes,” he said. “Duluth has a strong element of people who just don’t want Duluth to change. They like it the way it is. That’s why they didn’t move away to the Twin Cities, maybe get a better job. Duluth, of all the communities I’ve lived in, has the strongest anti-growth sentiment. And I think it’s really our culture of people liking Duluth just the way it is.”

The comments, of course, blame the DFL and “environmentalists.” But in light of the recent Honking House fiasco, the Lakewalk townhomes, and the debate over the reorganization of Duluth’s schools, it seems that the conflict in opinions is far more complex than some would like to admit.

So what do you think?

Peace Cabaret

Mississippi Civil Rights Project Fundraiser: Music and Performance

Carmody Irish Pub, 308 E. Superior St, Duluth, Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 7:30-10 pm
Peace Cabaret: Welcome by Claudie Washington. Barton Sutter, Rabbi Amy Bernstein, Mary Cameron, David Comer, Portia Johnson, and Claire Kirch read short pieces by Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Fannie Lou Hamer, Stokely Carmichael, Sojourner Truth, and Barbara Jordan. Jazz by Perfectini.

This November, photographer/activist Sue Sojourner is returning again to Holmes County after working there in the Civil Rights Movement for five years in the 1960s. This time the Oral History Center of the University of Southern Mississippi-Hattiesburg is holding a gathering for the surviving veterans of that Movement. The event uses a workbook Sue created on the Holmes Movement History as a memory catalyst. It will be a unique local-community-led oral history documentation project.

This fundraiser will help defray travel costs to Mississippi. It will also help Sue finish her memoir and catalog her historical collections for transfer to two archival institutions.

C&T release show Saturday!

We’ve posted three tracks from our album on the interwebs as well (MySpace. Tumblr. Facebook.)

Duluth’s western middle school plans

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Check out the plans for Duluth’s western middle school. Click here to see the PDF file.

Famous Beaver Bay Invention: Sexual Armor

SexualArmor00234The Green Door, a liquor store and bar in Beaver Bay, has a framed tribute to Ellen E. Perkins. She was the inventor of “certain new and useful Improvements in Sexual Armor.”

The account on the wall of the bar reads:

Surprisingly enough, the sexual armor invented by Ellen E. Perkins of Beaver Bay, Minnesota is not for defense against assault but to keep the wearer from playing with himself. In her 1908 patent she calls the practice that the garment is designed to prevent one of the most common causes of insanity, imbecility and feeblemindedness – especially in youth – and equally true of both sexes. Her profession, by implication nursing, had made her very familiar with the subject.

Fall colors on Lake Superior’s North Shore: Silver Bay and Beaver Bay area

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Someone left this for me to find on the footbridge across Penn Creek. Kudos to the artist.

Lost dog needs help finding her humans

On Sunday, October 12, I took off from my backyard in the lower Chester park neighborhood. It’s too damn cold now, and I need help finding my humans. I am an adult female (spayed) Springer Spaniel, mostly brown with some white on my paws and face. I was last seen either above or below E. 8th Street, east of Chester Creek.  I would like to go back to my humans, Nick and Echo, as long as they promise to take me on long walks each day and feed me bacon grease. Please call them at (218) 213-7817.

P.S. My human is either too much of an idiot, or not worthy enough, to post a photo of me.

Looks like Superior is one-up on Duluth today…

… that is, unless Duluth has produced any Nobel laureates (has it? Does anyone know?)

Superior native Oliver Williamson shares this year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences…. stories here and here.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!