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Of course, I have no idea what complications future developments in the matter of Keith Ellison’s candidacy for Minnesota attorney general might bring. But after consulting Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon over the weekend, I can shed some light on a question about which politically obsessed Minnesotans may have been wondering, namely: What would happen if information should come to light that would cause the DFL to want to substitute someone other than Ellison as the DFL nominee for attorney general? The short answer is, as of today, there is no credible or reasonable way for the DFL to get a name on the November general election ballot other than Ellison as their candidate for attorney general, or to get Ellison’s name off. The deadline for the parties to finalize the names of their nominees is 79 days before the general election. That deadline passed yesterday. After that, a name can be removed from the ballot only if the nominee has died, has suffered severe … [Read more...] about Why there’s almost no way Ellison’s name won’t be on November’s ballot

One of the members of the DFL’s central committee who voted to endorse Keith Ellison for attorney general Saturday said his decision was both personal and political. Joel Heller, an Iraq war veteran from Duluth, said descriptions of domestic violence like those given by Ellison’s former girlfriend Karen Monahan remind him of abuse he suffered as a child. “The triggers hit,” Heller said. Heller said he cried when Ellison addressed the DFL's executive committee Saturday, and said that he asked Ellison three different times during the course of the morning whether he was telling the truth in denying allegations brought forth by a former Ellison girlfriend, Karen Monahan. “When someone comes up to you and they look you straight in the face, when they say, ‘Hey, I didn’t do it,’ you’ve got to take a person’s word,” Heller said. But Heller said he knows the consequences if it turns out that he and the party put trust in … [Read more...] about The DFL’s risky, inevitable endorsement of Keith Ellison: ‘If he breaks our faith right now, it’s going to devastate the party’

Within the last few weeks, a rare blood infection, caused by a species of bacteria found in the mouths of cats and dogs, killed a 58-year-old woman in Milwaukee and caused another Wisconsinite, a 48-year-old South Bend housepainter, to lose his legs and hands. The bacteria species is Capnocytophaga canimorsus, which exists in the saliva of up to 74 percent of dogs and 57 percent of cats, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Yet, despite the bacteria’s pervasiveness, cases of people becoming infected with it are extremely unusual. A CDC spokesman told NBC News that the agency received only 12 reports of such cases in 2017. When people do become infected, however, the outcome can be devastating. It can quickly cause septicemia (a blood infection) or endocarditis (inflammation of the lining of the heart), leading to amputations (from gangrene), heart attacks and death. Usually, the infection spreads through a dog or cat bite, although the CDC … [Read more...] about Cats and dogs can pass on infections and other illnesses — usually spread through a bite

The United States is helping to create what the U.N. calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and could be abetting war crimes as well. What’s worse, it’s not really clear why. For most of the past three and a half years, the conflict in Yemen has seemed like troubling background noise almost no one wanted to hear. Even among those sympathetic to global human rights issues, it has had to compete for attention with the plight of millions of Syrians, of refugees clinging to leaky boats in the Mediterranean Sea, of Central Americans fleeing gang violence, and of Myanmar’s Rohingya population. The deaths of 54 people — 44 of them schoolboys — earlier this month in an airstrike conducted by a Saudi-led military alliance got the attention of Congress, which now is requiring the Trump administration to certify that the Saudis and their allies are trying to avoid civilian casualties in Yemen. The conflict has left 75 percent of the population in need of … [Read more...] about The U.S. is making the humanitarian crisis in Yemen worse — and it’s not even clear why we’re involved there

A tornado is defined as a rotating column of air with a funnel shaped cloud. A cyclone is a large violent rotating windstorm without the funnel. Back in the 1800s and 1900s, the two words were used interchangeably. On August 20, 1904, a large cyclone hit the City of Waconia, changing the face of the city forever. The storm began about 6:00 pm, with sporadic rain, before the clouds passed over. The sky became green, blue and yellow as the storm moved in, due most likely to electricity in the air from lightning. The rain started again at 7:30pm, with raging winds. Eyewitnesses experienced the sounds of homes crashing down, sparks flying from the wreckage, and intense wind and rain getting worse. One man, A.C. Klancke, had just arrived in Waconia on the train and was attempting to reach town. He was picked up by the storm, carried some eight blocks, and dropped. While bumped and bruised, he was fortunately not killed, only injured with a few broken bones. Buildings all over Waconia, both … [Read more...] about August 20, 1904: The day a cyclone slammed Waconia

The following is an editorial by The Mankato Free Press. It is a sure-fire applause trigger at President Donald Trump’s rallies: a call to add a sixth branch, the “Space Force,” to the military. Trump and his core supporters may love the idea. The Pentagon has resisted the notion, although Defense Secretary James Mattis has dropped his opposition. Key members of the Senate are opposed. We think the opponents are correct. The military’s space operations do require reform and resources, but they don’t need a new, built-from-scratch bureaucracy to get the job done. The better approach is the one outlined Aug. 9 by Vice President Mike Pence as a transitional measure — the establishment of a “Space Command,” akin to the current geographical commands, which draw resources from the existing military arms (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard) and coordinate activity in specific domains. Given this president’s habitual unconcern … [Read more...] about Space Force the wrong approach to a genuine threat

In 1941, Minneapolis leftists from the Socialist Workers Party and Teamsters union local 544 were accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government under the Alien Registration Act. Twenty-nine were indicted; eighteen were convicted and sentenced to prison. On June 28, 1940, the “Alien Registration Act” (or “Smith Act,” after its author, Virginia senator Howard W. Smith) was signed into law. In addition to requiring immigrant registration, the act outlawed “subversive activity”—that is, activity that seeks to undermine or overthrow the government from within. The first citizens accused of breaking this law were members of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and/or Teamsters local 544. Many SWP members had been leaders in the Minneapolis 1934 Truckers’ Strike and still held important union positions. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, worried that the SWP’s anti-war position and its ability to organize transportation workers … [Read more...] about In 1941, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI targeted Minneapolis union members

Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society John Quincy Adams, editor of The Western Appeal was one of the most successful African American newspapers of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. At the height of its popularity, it was published in six separate editions in cities across the United States, including St. Paul. The Western Appeal was first published on June 5, 1885, in St. Paul. African American newspapers were common at the time, but few of them lasted longer than a year, since they were started for cultural purposes more than commercial ones. There had been many previous African American newspapers in St. Paul, including one printed in 1876 also named the Western Appeal. It had no affiliation with the paper established in 1885. The 1885 Western Appeal was started by Samuel E. Hardy and John T. Burgett with Frederick Douglass Parker, who also served as the newspaper's first editor. It was a weekly paper, with an edition each Friday containing news, … [Read more...] about From St. Paul, editor John Quincy Adams built ‘The Western Appeal’ into a national African American newspaper

The Beltrami County Poor Farm provided shelter and care for elderly and disabled people from 1902 until 1935, when old-age assistance programs replaced the poor farm system. In 1901, the Beltrami County Board of Commissioners decided to purchase land suitable for a farm complex that would care for the county’s poor citizens. While large cities in Minnesota (and across the US) supported poor houses and houses of charity, rural areas established poor farms and tried to make them well run and self-sustaining. Beltrami County was one of the sixty-three Minnesota counties, out of a total of eighty-seven, that maintained a poor farm at some point in its history. Beltrami County purchased the property on August 2, 1901, from Rien Kilgard in Section 14 of Bemidji Township, directly east of the city limits. It advertised for bids for the main building and a second small building for quarantine and hospital purposes in September 1901, and the buildings were erected soon afterwards. On … [Read more...] about Before there was Social Security, Beltrami County had its poor farm

Of the 10 most widely recognized federal holidays, only 1 in 20 Americans say that the Fourth of July is their favorite — far behind Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. Chuck Slocum I think that the patriotism undergirding the celebration of our nation’s birth deserves a higher ranking, particularly at this time when so many of us are apparently disillusioned with the direction in which our nation is headed. There are those who blame America for much of what is bad in the world. On the political left, many fault the USA because of our history of slavery and for continuing challenges with inequality and racism. On the right, traditionally the home of national boosterism, we hear influential figures say that America has become, essentially, decadent. In surveys I have recently seen, less than 1 American in 5 trusts the federal government. While the numbers are more favorable for state and local government, each of those government entities generates respect from fewer than … [Read more...] about Thoughts about America and our 4th of July celebration

When the Fergus Falls State Hospital opened its doors on July 29, 1890, it became the first state institution in northern Minnesota for patients considered insane. The hospital had a sprawling campus and large stately buildings, built according to the influential asylum plan developed by Philadelphia physician Thomas Kirkbride in the 1850s. By 1885, Minnesota's state institutions for people with mental illnesses were badly overcrowded. The State Board of Health declared in 1872 that the facilities at the St. Peter Hospital for the Insane were appalling and a disgrace to the state. Even after a second hospital was established in Rochester in 1877, conditions remained inadequate. In response, in 1885, the state legislature commissioned the Third Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane. Since the existing hospitals were in southern Minnesota, the new hospital was to be north of the Twin Cities. Fergus Falls was soon chosen as the hospital site, and the name of the institution was changed … [Read more...] about Built to relieve overcrowding at Minnesota’s mental institutions, Fergus Falls State Hospital quickly became overcrowded itself

When the Fergus Falls State Hospital opened its doors on July 29, 1890, it became the first state institution in northern Minnesota for patients considered insane. The hospital had a sprawling campus and large stately buildings, built according to the influential asylum plan developed by Philadelphia physician Thomas Kirkbride in the 1850s. By 1885, Minnesota's state institutions for people with mental illnesses were badly overcrowded. The State Board of Health declared in 1872 that the facilities at the St. Peter Hospital for the Insane were appalling and a disgrace to the state. Even after a second hospital was established in Rochester in 1877, conditions remained inadequate. In response, in 1885, the state legislature commissioned the Third Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane. Since the existing hospitals were in southern Minnesota, the new hospital was to be north of the Twin Cities. Fergus Falls was soon chosen as the hospital site, and the name of the institution was changed … [Read more...] about Built to relieve overcrowding at the state’s mental institutions, Fergus Falls State Hospital quickly became overcrowded itself

Innocent civilians were rounded up, put onto trains, and deported to a network of 25 concentration camps where they suffered torture, medical experimentation, starvation, disease, and death. Those who didn’t perish in the concentration camps were sent on a death march, a forced march during which the prisoners were left to die along the way from hunger, thirst, disease, abuse, or outright murder. Ellen J. Kennedy An estimated 1.5 million men, women, and children perished. This was a systematic slaughter aimed at eliminating a minority religious group that the majority had labeled ‘vermin.’ This was not the Holocaust. This was the genocide of the Armenians, 1915-1923, what Winston Churchill described as an "administrative holocaust," and he noted, "This crime was planned and executed for political reasons … for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race." Who speaks today of the Armenians? Adolf Hitler used the catastrophe to justify the Nazi murder of 6 … [Read more...] about Genocide over and over again: From the Armenians to the Syrians

In the fall of 1925, a series of six signs advertising Burma-Shave, a new brushless shaving cream, appeared for the first time along highway 65 from Minneapolis to Albert Lea and on highway 61 to Red Wing. The signs began an advertising phenomenon using clever rhyming jingles that lasted into the 1960s, including: “Your shaving brush / has had its day, / so why not / shave the modern way / with Burma-Shave?” In the early 1900s, Robert Odell, a Minneapolis attorney, was seeking a second source of income. He decided to manufacture an aromatic liniment, which he named Burma-Vita. He chose “Burma,” which was the source of the liniment's ingredients (cassia, camphor, and cajeput), and vita, which is Latin for life. Odell promoted it as a remedy for aches and pains, burns, wounds and sores, skin irritations and rashes, and other ailments. In 1925, the Burma-Vita company was in dire financial straits. Robert’s son, Clinton, had the idea to develop a brushless … [Read more...] about A local co./ was going broke/ till clever ads/ demand awoke/ Burma-Shave

Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society Dr. Ruth Boynton On March 15, 1918, the University of Minnesota Board of Regents approved “the immediate establishment of a University Public Health Department” funded by a student health fee of $3 per semester. Following the Regents’ action, U of M President Marion Burton commented on the importance of the Health Service to the university’s mission: “The Health Service is indispensable to the operation of a large institution. It exists to protect the health of students and prevent disease ... it puts a heart into the university.” Dr. John Sundwall, the first director of the health service, noted that “the best scientific treatment and care of illness and injuries must be one of the major concerns of the Health Service, but (it must also function) in a more progressive and advanced state, in the vanguard of the public health movement.” With this aspiration, the Health Service developed a … [Read more...] about Boynton Health: A 100-year-old model for today’s health challenges