We were finishing up a lit review for our grad course in Theories of Mass Communication, so we're a bit late with today's post.
MPR Midday: Audio available
Now that we're done writing the unified theory of micro-niche blogging, we're looking forward to listening to Gary Eichten's interviews with Walz, Ellison, and Bachmann. Audio here.
Almanac (12-15-2006)
The three first-term representatives were on Friday's Almanac as well. Video will be posted (though not yet). We'll post the link as it becomes available.
ICE raids update
The Worthington Daily Globe reported this morning on a prayer vigil for the detainees and for the reunification of a toddler and his mother:
Tears welled in the eyes of Amy Juarez Sunday night as she stood outside the Prairie Justice Center (PJC) in Worthington clutching a 14-month-old boy in a hooded winter coat and covered in a baby quilt. The boy has been pleading for his mother, Catalina, who has been inside a jail cell at the PJC since last Tuesday’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) action at Swift & Co.
Juarez was among nearly 50 people who gathered in a circle outside the front entrance of the PJC shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday to pray for peace — and to pray that a son will soon be reunited with his mother. . . .
This afternoon, MPR published an Associated Press story that the Mother detained in raid reunited with son.
Meanwhile, the Globe reports that unlike those who purchased ids to work at Swift, those who traffic in stolen ids are still openly plying their wares in the streets of Minneapolis: Fake ID sales continue in Minnesota:
A spot notorious for the sales of fake identifications was open for business this week despite the message immigration enforcers hoped to send with the recent high-profile raid on a Worthington meat packing plant.
Even the New York Times reported last summer on the spot - the parking lot of the Kmart department store on Lake Street - and when a reporter for Minnesota Public Radio went there he found four young men with fake IDs to sell. . . .
The Free Press reprints an editorial about identity theft from the Christian Science Monitor.
The Rochester Post Bulletin reports that Immigration raids prompt dual rallies in Austin:
Main Street separated two groups of people with opposing views on immigration as they demonstrated Sunday in Austin.
More than 100 people marched from Horace Park along Main Street in a show of support for undocumented workers taken into custody by federal authorities recently in Austin, Worthington, Minn., and other places. They carried signs demanding an end to the raids and the need to reform immigration laws.
"The people united will never be divided!" they shouted at one point along the route.
On the other side of the street, with signs stating "Illegal Immigration is a Crime" and "In the Spirit of Giving, Give Us Back Our Town," about 30 people from the Steele County Coalition for Immigration Reduction protested the marchers' cause. Some yelled out, "You can't stay!" to the other marchers, who included children and adults, Latinos and Caucasians. . . .
The Austin Daily Herald provides slightly different crowd figures in Debate hits the streets with double the number of folks protesting the raid, and one-third fewer counter-protestors:
Calling the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Worthington and Austin “brutal” and demanding a moratorium on deportations until comprehensive immigration reform is enacted, around 200 demonstrators marched through downtown Austin Sunday.
The demonstration was organized by Centro Campesino, a farm workers' organization based in Owatonna.
“The message is we are not criminals. We are the workers,” Centro Campesino founder Victor Contreras said.
Contreras said he believes migrant workers from Mexico and other South American countries come to the United States because the country's financial prosperity creates poverty in their home countries.
“Our country can't compete with that. That's why our people come here,” Contreras said.
The group marched down Main Street, chanting, “Si se puede,” or “Yes, it can be done,” and brandishing signs that called for immigration law reform and an end to all deportations.
Across the street, a group of around 20 anti-illegal immigration demonstrators played patriotic songs over a loudspeaker and held signs saying, “What part of illegal don't you understand?” and “Stop illegals from voting.”
The paper's editorial board praises both sides for keeping it civil:
It was a scene that had the potential to get ugly: anti-illegal immigration demonstrators and protesters demanding a moratorium on the deportation of illegal immigrants crossed paths on Sunday in downtown Austin - their contradicting signs coming close enough to touch. Both groups were riled up, both equally passionate about their causes.
Thankfully, there were no phyiscal confrontations, no shouting matches - not even words exchanged that would get worse than a PG movie rating.
Let's hope that future demonstrations in Austin on this heated topic remain as civil.
Student loans: the view from Rochester
The Post Bulletin takes a look at the cost of higher education from a local perspective in Debt load burdens students:
When Jared Stene graduates from Winona State University, looming over his future will be something of a black cloud: a staggering student debt of $48,000.
Although the Woodbury native is considering graduate or law school, he said the pressure to begin paying down that debt might short-circuit those plans and force him to find a job immediately.
Students across the state have begun to groan under the weight of their debt load, if a Web page set up by the WSU student leaders is any indication. The page allows students to log the amount of debt they expect to incur by the time they graduate. Numbers range from $4,000 to $120,000. The total amount of accumulated debt so far at WSU: $7.7 million.
"It's really simple: This state has reneged on its commitment" to affordable higher education, said DFL Sen.-elect Ann Lynch, a Rochester legislator who will serve on the Senate Higher Education Policy and Finance division.
The growing debt load of students will be a high-profile issue during the 2007 session, which begins Jan. 3. DFLers blame Gov. Tim Pawlenty for the 50 percent hike in student tuition over the last four years, arguing that his fixation on no-new-taxes came at the expense of students' financial hides.
Pawlenty also threw himself into the debate during the election campaign, proposing free tuition for students in their first two years for students who graduate in the top 25 percent of their high school graduating classes.
Students with the Minnesota State University Student Association are asking legislators for a tuition freeze in the next biennium. But the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system is shooting for something a little less ambitious: Its budget request is seeking a system-wide 4 percent tuition cap.
"It would ultimately be less (of an increase) than what we've been going through," Stene said. "It (will) keep it lower, but ultimately, we would like a freeze."
The Post Bulletin also reports that the cost of higher education has caused enrollment to dip at the local community college in Enrollment drops at RCTC:
The effect of increasing Minnesota higher education costs are being felt close to home.
Rochester Community and Technical College experienced its first enrollment decline since its merger in 1996.
"We believe that economics has somewhat caught up with students and their ability to access higher education," said RCTC spokesman Dave Weber. . . .
New Ulm Journal on budget forecasts: Get real!
The New Ulm Journal editorial board suggests that the state economic forecasters should tell it like it is:
Sen. Dennis Frederickson has been giving the same answer whenever he is asked what the state should do with the projected $2 billion budget surplus that state revenue forecasters are predicting by the end of the 2007-09.
“Don’t count on it being there,” he says. And the reason for that is that since 2002, the state government has ordered the Finance Department to take inflation into account when it does its revenue forecast, but not when it figures the state’s expenses.
This is like the average wage earner planning to buy that new fishing boat because he figures he’s going to get a four percent raise next year, but he’s assuming that gasoline will cost the same, groceries will cost the same, health insurance premiums will cost the same, and everything else he spends money on will cost the same. He’s going to have a hard time figuring out where all his extra money went when inflation hits the rest of his spending.
This inflation dodge is a bit of political trickery that some politicians have used to make their financial decisions look better than they really are. The Legislature and governor ought knock it off and tell state forecasters to make realistic forecasts based on realistic expectations when they look into the fiscal crystal ball.
DM & E: More scrutiny
Today's Post Bulletin is smokin' with news. In additon to the coverage of immigration rallies and higher education, it takes a look at a new wrinkle in the DM & E drama: Coalition says DM&E will face tougher scrutiny:
The Rochester Coalition says public documents show that the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad will face scrutiny longer because it has not adequately addressed safety problems, as required by a federal agency.
The Federal Railroad Administration extended the time it will continue to review DM&E's safety record, according to the coalition. . . .
Netroots
Still detoxifying from his recent Santa Claus addiction, the Wege writes some media criticism about the press's coverage of student loans. Excellent work.
Matt at MnPublius looks at a Strib article on DFL 2008 Senate hopefuls. Tim Walz goes into the newspaper's "coy" category. Walz seems like a guy who isn't coy about the word "no" (or much else), but we could be wrong.
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