Comments (0) We were out about town the night before elections and found this:
The location is both a church and a designated polling place for the next-day election.
A row of parked cars indicated a meeting in progress. When we wandered past later, the meeting had broken up. Cooler and wiser heads must have prevailed, since the sign had disappeared.
Continue reading 'Election Eve Schenanigans'»
A couple of weeks ago, I was phoned by the St. Paul Pioneer Press. They offered me six weeks of the paper for free. All I had to do at the end of 6 weeks was write “Cancel” on the invoice.
I assume this was a last-gasp attempt to boost circulation at the end of the big Back-To-School advertising season. I’ve received this sort of offer from them in years past.
This morning my wife fielded a call from the Pioneer Press disavowing the offer. I also received an invoice in the mail TODAY, instead of receiving it in six weeks. Thus, my free offer has been aborted about five weeks early.
Continue reading 'Pioneer Press Reneges'»
MNDOT has finally announced the design for the replacement bridge over the Mississippi in Hastings. It’s an arch-style bridge, repeating the past two river bridge designs.
The design cost came out about $100 MILLION lower than the MNDOT estimate. I suspect this is because the arch isn’t quite as huge as we might have expected. I think the proposed appearance looks fine.
OK, no, the Star Gazette newspaper is still there. At least, we’ve received recent issues. But the Star Gazette on-line version has gone through a misguided makeover. I remember being to reach articles just by clicking. It doesn’t work any more.
Clearly this is a recent change. The site has a FAQ section that shows just how much trouble customers are having. So it’s not just me.
Continue reading 'Losing the Hastings Star Gazette'»
There’s an article in Atlantic about the decline in the news industry and the rise of Google, news and all. The article, like most Big Media coverage of the topic, focus on the risk to Big Media news operations, like offices in Kabul or investigative pieces on government waste and coverups.
When I look at Google News, what I most often see are 1,200 copies of locally-published articles that are in fact Associated Press stories. These are classic “straight news” reports: announcements by officials describing crimes, legislation, accidents, celebrity activities, and so on. It is in fact rare for Google News, or any other news source, to produce the sort of in-depth reporting that might vie for a Pulitzer.
Yes, the traditional funding sources of such things are drying up. Yes, they play an essential role in self-government. But somehow we’ll find a way to pay for these things. Maybe Google will trip over a new business model as they blunder about, or maybe someone else will.
Continue reading 'Saving the News'»
Things seem to be moving forward on much of the proposed Hastings river bridge. The pic below is an artist’s rendering of downtown near the replacement bridge. This shows the ‘arch’ alternative – they still haven’t decided if it will be an arch or ‘cable’ design.
Two additional riverfront projects emerged while planning this bridge: 1) moving the electrical substation that blights the riverfront landscape, and 2) building a pedestrian ‘spiral’ – homage to the long-gone Hastings Spiral Bridge – to connect downtown and the pedestrian walkway on the bridge deck.
Neither of these will be part of the bridge project.
Continue reading 'The Bridge and The Riverfront'»
Real Winter has arrived at our home today. The Weather Service calls it ‘blizzard conditions’ so I skipped the rush-hour trip to a volunteer breakfast in St. Paul.
There is an honest-to-gosh snow drift in the driveway. Next door, I hear Mark running his snowblower. No doubt that’s my exercise for today.
A Burnsville Scoutmaster has been accused of molesting three troop members.
It’s impossible to 100% prevent such incidents, just as it’s impossible to prevent death and injury during scouting events. Scouts are specifically taught how to identify and deal with potential abuse situations. Leaders are taught to avoid situations that might enable abuse. For example, individual leaders are never supposed to be alone with individual scouts. We call this “two deep leadership.”
Continue reading 'Abuse by a Scout Leader'»
This salad is made with spinach, strawberries, brie, and a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. It is wonderful at Easter.
We had a salad like this at the St. Paul Hotel many years ago, and Lesley created her own version at home. She has substituted fat free Rasberry dressing nicely.
Continue reading 'Strawberry Brie Salad'»
Hacked chicken is generally served as a cold appetizer. If prepared correctly, the marinade makes it a spicy dish
This originated with our friend Joanne Luciano. We’ve modified it a bit over the years and it’s now one of Lesley’s signature dishes.
Continue reading 'Hunan Hacked Chicken'»
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