Minnesota
gregladen | May 2, 2008Vaccine denialism and related issues is something that I took a great interest in many years ago with the publication of Laruie Garret's "The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance," a book which presaged a great deal of later popular and more technical literature on diseases. My interested was piqued in connection with an interest in so called "emerging diseases" that came from my work at that time in emerging disease land (the northeastern Congo forest). (Yes, these are all linked in various ways. But my interest in writing about these issues has been dampened…
gregladen | April 11, 2008Minnesota Third Congressional District hopeful, Democratic candidate Ashwin Madia, was endorsed by Fifth District's Keith Ellison.
You will remember that Keith Ellison attained sudden national attention when he was first elected to congress last year because he is not a Christian, and many right wing fanatics thought maybe he'd swear his oath of office on the Koran, thus ruining everything....
Indeed, many hard right wing groups continue to spew anti-Ellison propaganda. He is everything the right wing hates ... non Christian, Muslim, and Black.
Ellison is a very popular figure in…
gregladen | April 10, 2008
This is the first time we are forced to weather a major storm in the Twin Cities without Paul Douglas! We're doomed!!!! This storm is supposed to go for another 24 hours or so.
I am reminded of last spring when there was a particularly bad storm raging outside...
... and Amanda and I had the TV on with Paul showing all the cool radar signals and telling people what was going to happen next. Suddely, he zoomed in on our neighborhood, had a look at the radar, and got a very worried look on his face. He turned to us and said "If you're in Blaine or Coon Rapids right now, go to the…
gregladen | March 29, 2008
The Penny Dreadfuls: works by Bohemian Press
U of M Printmaking Collective
Opening April 3rd 6-9 Northrup King Building
(1500 Jackson Street NE)
April 3-16 2008
Gallery hours:
Th-F 12-5
Sat 12-4
gregladen | March 28, 2008
Details:
LIGHTNING + THUNDER CD RELEASE PARTY
Friday, March 28th, 2008
Varsity Theater (1308 - 4th Street SEth, Minneapolis, 55414
21+. Doors 9:00pm. $7.
TRU RUTS/SPEAKEASY RECORDS + SMOKESIGNYL PRESENTS LIGHTNING + THUNDER CD RELEASE
First Compilation of its kind in Minnesota fusing Reggaeton, Dancehall, Reggae + Hip Hop
Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records + Smokesignyl Productions join forces to release HIGHSTYLEKYLE + TRU RUTS present LIGHTNING + THUNDER (VOLUME ONE), the first compilation of its kind in Minnesota, fusing reggaeton, dancehall, reggae and hip hop. Featuring the talents of twenty…
gregladen | March 24, 2008Myers? Myers? .... Myers? ..... Myers? (He's not here, Ben ... Your producer threw him out.)You know about the incredibly ironic dust up, whereby Expelled! producers kicked PZ myers out of line at a pre-release showing, but failed to notice that Richard Dawkins was standing right next to him. The evidence suggests that this major bit of bad publicity for Expelled! may have led to the movie being pulled from some pre-release showings. It it too early to be sure of this, and there may be several factors other than the utter embarrassment of this incident at play here. For instance, it is…
gregladen | March 21, 2008As you have undoubtedly heard, a group of evolutionary biologists and evolutionary biology supporters attended a showing of the movie Expelled, in the Twin Cities, last night. This group included the very famous Richard Dawkins and the only slightly less famous PZ Myers. PZ and Richard, in fact, were together in line, along with PZ's spouse, a daughter, and a future son in law. Other evolution supporters and at least one local evolutionary-type blogger were also in line.
While waiting in line and minding their own business, PZ was spotted by the Expelled! production staff, and EXPELLED…
gregladen | March 1, 2008Americans revel in violence. We have an excuse for almost any kind of violent or oppressive act. When a young boy poking around, on a dare, in what he thought was an abandoned house was shot dead by my neighbor last year, the boy was vilified as a threat and the trigger happy crazy guy lauded as a hero, by my other neighbors. Why would that be? Earlier this week, an event happened in a nearby town that helps us to understand the sorry state our culture has attained.
During a high school basketball game between local teams Shakopee and Prior Lake, a "fan" ran onto the basketball court…
gregladen | January 15, 2008While Duluth is having a balmy morning, just over 10F, here in the twin cities we are hovering a few below zero. Despite the cold, the ice is simply not as thick as people expect it to be. Bradley Erikson's truck went through the ice on Leech Lake last night. Bradley got out of the water but died on his way back to his camp. Today is the 100th day of work on the new bridge, replacing God's Bridge, on Highway 35W, which fell down last summer. (Maybe 35E is the holy branch of the now nationally famous Highway 35, and 35W is the evil twin ... ever think about that?)
Garrison Keillor is…
gregladen | December 10, 2007We're Number Five for the Bridge Collapse:
Bridges failed this year in China and in Guinea, killing 64 and 70 people, respectively. But the disaster that really grabbed U.S. headlines was the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis on August 1, where the death toll reached only 9.
I was in the Kalahari when the bridge fell. I heard about it this way:
"Oh, did you hear that the bridge in Minnesota fell down yesterday?"
(they don't have a lot of bridges in South Africa. That would require rivers..)
"Which bridge?" I asked.
Next day: "Oh, I found out, it was the bridge over the…