Bluestem Prairie

IBEW Local 949 members picket People's Cooperative, part 2

Southeast Minnesota labor organizer Liz McLoone prepared for the worst as she watched the vehicle stop on the median of Highway 14 East just outside of Rochester. The response  from passing drivers to IBEW Local 949's informational pickets had been mostly positive, but experience taught her that some folks just like to argue.

"I brought you guys lunch," the man said, as McLoone's anxiety vanished.

"He was a retired Education Minnesota member," McLoone told me. "He'd been in the same place himself before, and wanted to help out."

So it went with yesterday's informational pickets outside of People's Cooperative Services. Workers at the electricity cooperative--many of whom took personal vacation days to picket--were joined by volunteers from other unions, both in the AFL-CIO and Change To Win unions.

The union members are picketing because of an impasse in contract talks with the cooperative, they told me. A relatively new manager, now negotiating her first contracts since be hired nearly two years ago, seeks to end seniority, gain the ability to fire at will, and make dozens of other changes to the contract.

Should her terms be accepted, cooperative workers told me, their union would be broken for practical purposes.

Progressives leaders visiting Rochester, including presumptive gubernatorial candidates St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, former Senator Mark Dayton, and current Speaker of the Minnesota House Margaret Anderson Kelliher, and local elected officials like state representative Tina Liebling, had rallied to the side of the picketers.

"I'm happy so many people are standing with these members, McLoone said. "It took a lot from them to do this."

That was obvious in my own conversations with the picketers, many of whom had years of working as linemen for the cooperative, going out into the worst of weather to restore electrical service to customers. Their pride in their work was evident, as was their frustration with contract negotiations.

"This isn't about pay or benefits," Ed said, his wife at his side holding her own picket sign and nodding as her spouse spoke. " It's about respect, about fairness . . . in my nearly 32 years here, I've never seen anything like this." He spoke of the dozens of changes the cooperative's manager sought and how those changes would gut the contract, disrespect the workers' knowledge of the lines, and potentially create safety and service issues for the co-op.

Outposts from the Small of America: Old creaky stairs

by Tom Driscoll

There is a heavenly blue hole burned clean through rumpled aluminum clouds with the intensity of an acetylene torch. Greened up hardwood bluffs all but blackened, but one lit bright as a slice of lime in the shade of a blue eye fixed on the horizon.

Hackberry, ash, walnuts and oaks that broccoli the summer woods are not original trees. As fast as farmers and loggers could clear the prairies, 19th century lumber mills sawed and shaped the spectacular hardwoods into rail ties and trestles, granaries, churches, houses, whole wooden cities.

When I removed the rotted-out old wraparound porch from the century-old bluffside house I’ve been renovating on Rushford’s historic Silk Stocking Avenue, I discovered fir stringers, 2x6s, 25-feet-long. The new porch frame of treated lumber rests on limestone columns, each hand-cut block harvested from a tumbledown wood barn south of town. The decking, salvaged from the former porch, is pristine fir still when it’s flipped over, revealing grade stamps from local mills in Lanesboro and Preston.

Last year, after removing 3-flights of “back” stairs beginning in the basement and zigzagging all the way up to the old attic, I fabricated new stairways, some 45-risers-worth, using the old technique of housed treads and risers secured against creaking with wedges. To accommodate wider treads and shallower risers, I had to remove old landings and sections of hallway covered in birch flooring. Bright, blue-ink mill stamps indicated the blemish-free lumber had been sawn and shaped in Rushford. Unable to toss it, I resawed the birch into thick veneer then laminated over a plywood core a bent stair-rail and spindles.

Dayton in Rochester: connecting with the base

After visiting the IBEW's picket lines, I was invited to listen in on a lunch meeting DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton convened with interested labor and DFL party activists in Rochester. Later tonight, he'll host a reception after the COPE banquet.

One of the things I've noticed is the affection many DFLers hold for Dayton, whether or not he's their pony in the 2010 governor's race. That was clear among the dozen or so people who gathered at Gilligan's, and his ability to do up-close retail politics is a strong suit as well as his long-standing ties across the state.

We talked bit after the lunch crowd had gone their separate ways. I was impressed by Dayton's understanding of the free-wheeling nature of blogging and his new-found appreciation of Facebook and tweets. Then he was off to meet with the Post Bulletin and to join the picketline.

Bluestem Prairie won't be interviewing the candidates--at least not now. But I did broach an idea I'd like to try here.  Since writers here live in the agricultural-medical parts of Greater Minnesota, I'd like to run columns by Greater Minnesota supporters of each contender.  Not much interested in canned and bland policy statements cranked out by campaign staff, but personal, first person accounts about why the writer believes a candidate is best for rural Minnesota.

Any campaigns game?

IBEW Local 949 members picket People's Cooperative, part 1

Driving on back roads in McLeod, Sibley, Le Sueur, and Rice Counties on the my way to pick up MN 52 to Rochester, I saw 15 small flocks of turkeys, complete with this year's young, feeding beside the road.

Impressive, and a perfect set up for the human turkey stories I heard today on the informational picket line members of IBEW Local 949 are holding in front of People's Cooperative on Highway 14 just just of Rochester.

Yes, the co-op manager is that toxic.

The SE MN Labor Council had sent me an email explaining the situation:

Some of the issues at hand include but are not limited to:
-The management is attempting to negotiate directly with the employees rather than the union
-Surface bargaining
-Illegal policies are implemented under the threat of discipline
-Attempt to gut Seniority language
-Trying to remove work from the bargaining unit
-Other numerous unfair labor practices have filed as well
The workers at People's Cooperative are in the middle of negotiations and need the Labor Community's support in their efforts to get a fair contract. They are also dealing with Unfair Labor Practices.

I'll have more about the support the union members are getting on the picket line after attending a meeting Mark Dayton is having with DFL and labor activists in Rochester.

Photo: In town for the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Convention, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman stops by to express support for the picketers.

Another rhubarb recipe: Rhubarb Blueberry Pie

by Debra Hogenson

Rhubarb-Blueberry Pie

2 9-inch pie crusts
2 cups cut up rhubarb
2 cups fresh blueberries
2 - 4 tablespoons blueberry syrup (I used Knott's)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg (I use freshly ground)
2 tablespoons instant tapioca
dash of salt
2 teaspoons milk
1 tablespoon coarse sugar

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Place one crust in 9-inch pie pan, cutting off any overhanging pastry.

 In a large bowl combine fruit pour syrup over fruit and gently stir to coat.

 In a small bowl combine sugar, flour, nutmeg, tapioca, and salt.

Pour flour mixture over fruit. Again, gently stir to mix.

Spoon fruit into crust-lined pie pan.

Cut second crust into rectangles.

Arrange in a chess board pattern across the pie.

Use remaining rectangles around edge, overlapping to fit (you may have some remaining dough).

Gently crimp crust edges.

Brush crust with milk then sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Cover edge of crust with strips of foil to prevent burning and bake for 25 minutes.

Remove foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

Cool on rack for a minimum of 1 hour before serving.

Progressive activist Debra Hogenson and her husband on a farm in the prairie lands of southwest Minnesota. She has a private social work practice serving persons with intellectual impairment and related development disabilities. Bluestem spotted this pie on her Facebook page and had to have the recipe.

Housekeeping: Bluestem Prairie "About" page updated

I edited the About page for Bluestem Prairie 2.0 this morning for those who might have questions about the site.  More posts later in the day.  Field reports tomorrow.

DFL Senate District 27 Pumpkin Patch Politics: governor's race straw poll and great press

A recent DFL fundraiser near Austin--and an upcoming Republican gathering in Rochester--demonstrate that the wide-open 2010 gubernatorial contest is already catnip for attracting partisan activists. The media isn't far behind, if coverage of the DFL event is any yardstick.

Over at mnpACT!, Dave Mindeman has posted the results of Saturday's straw poll at DFL Senate District 27's Politics in the Pumpkin Patch fundraiser:

Total ballots = 129

21 - John Marty (16.28%)

20 - Mark Dayton (15,50%)

16 - Chris Coleman (12.4%)

16 - R. T. Rybak (12,4%)

12 - Tom Bakk (9.3%)

10 - Matt Entenza (7.75%)

10 - Susan Gaertner (7.75%)

10 - Paul Thissen (7.75%)

6 - Steve Kelley (4.65%)

4 - Margaret Anderson-Kelliher (3.10%)

4 - Tom Rukavina (3.10%)

Mindeman notes that these results can be interpreted just about any way his readers wish. i'll be equally bland and suggest that the results illustrate that there's no clear frontrunner. 

Less subject to interpretation is the great press the event received in area media. The Austin Herlad and  sister paper the Albert Lea Tribune previewed the fundraiser, coverage that was digested by MinnPost's Joe Kimball.

The Herald and the Tribune followed up with It's politics at the pumpkin patch:

The brainchild of state Rep. Robin Brown, DFL-Moscow Township, and her husband, superintendent of the Grand Meadow Independent School District Joe Brown, Politics in the Pumpkin Patch was a new event this year designed to generate grassroots interest in the party and do it in a fun way.

Joe Brown said the event reminded him a bit of the Iowa caucuses, and there was even a straw poll to make that comparison more complete — won by Sen. John Marty of Roseville, who edged former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton by one vote. . . .

In an article digested by MinnPost, the Rochester Post Bulletin's Heather Carlson reported in Gubernatorial hopefuls gather in Farmer John's Pumpkin Patch:

Health care reform battle lines form in rural Minnesota: air war v. citizen action

Talking Points Memo reports in RNC To Spend $1 Million In August To Fight Health Care Reform that Minnesota's First and Seventh congressional district congressmen are targets; Kevin Diaz at the Star Tribune notes in RNC health care ad aims at rural MN Dems:

With the health reform fight in full swing in Washington this week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is launching radio ads targeting rural Democrats in conservative or centrist districts, including Minnesota Reps. Collin Peterson and Tim Walz.  The hope, of course, is strengthen the hand of opponents worried about growing budget deficits.[emphasis added] “If Barack Obama and the Democrats get their way, the federal government will make the decisions about your health care,” a radio voice says. “And, their plan costs a trillion dollars we don’t have.” The RNC declined to disclose the cost and reach of the ad campaign, which will likely be matched by liberal groups that support the Democrats’ health system overhaul. But in Peterson’s case, at least, the RNC might have missed the mark a little. It criticizes Obama’s stimulus package and suggests that listeners “look at their record.” Well, a look at Peterson’s record shows he voted against the stimulus package.

Update: The RNC’s LeRoy Coleman (native Minnesotan who worked for an unrelated U.S. senator by the same name) responds: “The ad refers to the record of President Obama and Congressional Democrats, and urges Minnesota voters to hold Congressmen Walz and Peterson accountable if they support (the health care bill).”

Republicans may have a difficult time with that goal in either district. While the RNC has launched an air war, organized labor and it allies are mobilizing a member call in. Moreover, both Walz nor Peterson have yet to face a serious Republican opponent for next year's election.

The case for savory baby beet pickles

However tardy our tomatoes may be this mild summer, there's no shortage of beets in Minnesota's home gardens. This surplus, along with the reasonable temperatures, made yesterday an ideal day for canning beet pickles.

Pickled beets are a noted Midwestern favorite, an immigrant good that is a favorite from Scandinavian countries. It's no surprise that with our Norwegian and Danish heritages, Michael and I are pickled beet fanatics.

Most beet pickles include more sugar than the recipe Michael and I used to can baby beet pickles at his weekend home in Kandiyohi County, but he thought the more savor concoction would incorporate the root vegetable's natural sweetness.

Savory pickled baby beets

1 pound beets
1 white onion, sliced
1 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup sugar (or quantity to taste)
1 tablespoon cardamom
1 tablespoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon ground allspice

Follow standard instructions to prepare two quart jars or four wide-mouth pint jars, lids and screw bands for canning (we used wide mouth pints). You'll also need a boiling water canner and a jar lifter.

1. Trim off the leaves and tap roots of the beets, leaving 1/2 inche of tap root and leaf stalk to prevent too much "bleed out."  (Beet leaves work well in any Swiss chard recipe).

2. Place your beets in a large saucepan, adding enough water to cover them two inches. Heat to boiling, then reduce heat to medium low. Simmer the beets for 10-15 minutes.

3. When the beets are tender but still firm, drain, reserving two cups of the liquid for the pickling brine.

4. Cool the beets in cold water.

5. While you're waiting for the beets to cool, combine the two cups of reserved beet cooking water, vinegar, sugar, cardamom, cloves, allspice and salt in a saucepan and warm using medium heat. Stirred until the sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to low.

6. When the beets are cool enough to handle--and while the pickling brine  slip their skins off. This is done easily while the beet is in the cooling water. Trim off the remaining stem, tap root, and any skin or blemishes that remain. Quarter any baby beets which are extra large.

7. Place a slice of onion in each jar, then pack the beets in. We put the larger baby beets in the bottom of the jars (wide-mouth jars allow home canners to pack in the whole baby beet).

8. Pour enough of the pickling brine in each jar to cover the beets totally, leaving  1/4 inch at the top of each jar.

9. Using a hot, damp towel, wipe the rim of the jars clean. Seal each jar with a lid and screw band.

10. Using the jar lifter, place the jars in the hot water canner for 15 minutes.

11. Using the lifter, remove the jars and place them on a cooling rack or a thick towel spread on a sturdy table or counter.

12. After the jars cool, check for a good seal. (You'll hear the soft popping sound as the jars cool and a seal is made). Refrigerator any jars which didn't take a seal.

13. The pickles should be ready in a week of so, though most people wait a bit longer. Consume the beets within three months.

Use the pickled beets as a garnish, a side dish, or as an ingredient in salads.

Photo: Beets, from the National Garden Bureau.

Climate change bill and farmers: bearable and profitable?

A friend and farmer's wife in Southwestern Minnesota emailed yesterday with a question about whether ag producers will see any gain from the climate change legislation under consideration by Congress. She'd heard a lot of negative things.

Not so fast, says House Ag committee chair Collin Peterson, who had conducted tough negotiations to obtain better terms for farmers under the bill. According to Reuters, the Seventh CD lawmaker told soybean growers yesterday that the Climate bill impact on U.S. farms [was] bearable:

The impact on U.S. farms and ranches from climate-change legislation will be bearable, partly because of the chance to earn money for controlling greenhouse gases, said the House Agriculture Committee chairman on Tuesday.

Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, during a speech to American Soybean Association members, pointed to think-tank estimates the climate bill passed by the House would drive up crop production costs by 1.8 percent-4.6 percent in the near term.

"We don't want to increase your costs but it's not the end of the world," said Peterson. The bill was amended to put the Agriculture Department in charge of farm-sector activities to lock carbon into the soil.

"With USDA running it, I believe you're going to see more than 4.6 percent payback" he said, since practices like no-till farming would be eligible for carbon sequestration contracts. "We got EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) out of your business."

Peterson's observations echo points made by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

Outposts from the Small of America: Hunting to survive

by Tom Driscoll

Omar Bongo, president of Gabon for 41-years, died on the 8th of June at a hospital in Barcelona, Spain. The autocrat-for-life who many believe pilfered the country’s treasure, was buried in Franceville, an easy hour’s drive on a paved road that leads to Lewai, the small village where Bongo was born, aptly renamed Bongoville.

Not far past Bongoville, in Leconi, the asphalt ends. Or it did 26-years-ago when I was a Peace Corps volunteer there. After Leconi, the highway disintegrated into deep sand tracks meandering like rivers all over le Plateau Bateke looking for passage to the next remote village, and the next, 14-in-all as I recall, scattered along the watershed straddling the border with Congo-Brazzaville.

There were no gas stations up on the Plateau, no grocery stores, no hospitals or clinics. Every village had a little shop though that sold warm beer, canned sardines and soap, provided their supplier had passed through in recent weeks to restock them.

No electricity in those 14-villages. No wells. Little measurable wealth by economic standards. Just mud huts, an occasional tin roof. Every family farmed a small plot of sand. Every family member carried a rusty knife or a machete sharpened on rocks. Some villagers maintained fish ponds, others fished in Plateau rivers and lakes. Men, women and children alike trapped animals, birds, insects for food.

Hunting big game was the job of men and boys of every age from every family. Hunting parties used nets to surround islands of forest dotting the otherwise barren Plateau landscape. With machetes, hunters broke the necks of smaller animals chased into the nets by wily dogs and leathery sorcerers. Once in a great while, an elder marksman would expend a precious shotgun shell to drop a large antelope.

When enough meat was harvested, but not so much it couldn’t be cooked-and-eaten or smoked before spoiling, hunters cleaned the fresh kill, butchered it right there in the sand. One trusted black hand weighed lumps of rump, loin and shoulder, livers, tongues, stomachs and intestines while everyone looked on, nodding, grunting approval as meat piled up on dozens of broad green leaves. Everyone got a package of meat wrapped in a leaf and tied with liana, men too old to hunt, women too pregnant to farm, children too small to carry a knife. Everyone in the village benefited from the hunt.

That’s the way it worked, simple and fair, little competitive market prejudice to warp an essential human service with speculative motives. While Omar Bongo siphoned oil revenues into offshore bank accounts and Parisian real estate, members of Bongo’s tribe living in those remote villages on le Plateau Bateke sustained the welfare of the collective by caring for the individuals.

President Barack Obama appealed to Congress, health care providers, drug manufacturers, insurers and the nation last week to pass a health care reform bill estimated to cost one-trillion-dollars. Majority Leader Harry Reid announced yesterday that the Senate will not take up reform legislation until after the summer recess. Delaying the debate until fall won’t upset 1st District Congressman Tim Walz. According to the Mankato Free-Press, Walz is more concerned about getting health care reform right than getting it done quickly. “I don’t think an issue like this is going to lose momentum (between now and the end of the year),” said Walz.

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s largest employer, the Mayo Clinic, continues to lobby for value-based healthcare using a quality care index as an incentive to providers to improve outcomes and lower costs.

Read about subsistence hunting on le Plateau Bateke.

Read another cultural tale, Hmong Deer Hunters in 2005.

Minnesota writer Tom Driscoll reports on politics, economic development and life in rural America at The Small of America.

Need a dish to pass? Vampire issues? Garlic dipping sauce solves both dilemmas

There's nothing more Minnesotan than a good potluck or cookout. Lately, the members of the South Fork Secret Supper Club^ in Hutchinson have been roasting meat over wood fires.

More on that in a later post. One of the SFSSC hit side dishes is provided by a Moldovan-American member of the eating club, Yuriy Gritsenko. His mother's garlic dipping sauce, served with French bread, disappears faster than ice cubes on a hot summer evening. 

Here's his mom's recipe, written down for the first time. According to Yuriy, most of the traditional recipes the family brought from Moldova when they immigrated during his childhood are still part of an oral tradition.

For the recipe below, you'll need these ingredients:

One dozen eggs
One dozen cloves of garlic
Three pinches of salt
Six teaspoons of cider or red wine vinegar
Sunflower oil
Paprika

Note that the one-to-one ratio of eggs to garlic cloves make the recipe easy to expand or contract with your guest list.

Yuriy notes:

Here is the recipe pretty much how I wrote it as my mom made it. 

Garlic Dipping Sauce:

1. Hard-boil a dozen eggs and peel them.

2. Take egg yolks only and mash them up in a bowl. Use whites for something else (deviled eggs? potato salad?)

3. Add 3 fingers-pinch of salt to the bowl and some paprika.

4. Add 1 clove of minced garlic for each egg. (12)

5. Mix!!!

6. Add apple cider (or red wine vinegar) - ½ teaspoon for each yolk so 6 teaspoons.

7. Mix!!!

8. Add sunflower oil (or olive oil) – oil must be absorbed by yolks, so this will take some pouring and some mixing. Continue until a thick liquid (not paste) consistency is obtained.

9. Add salt and paprika (and vinegar) as necessary, to taste.

10. Stir prior to serving as the sunflower oil and the yolk/garlic will separate after standing for only a few minutes..

The resulting amount disappeared in a few minutes along with two loaves of bread when served to six.

*Secret supper clubs are far less mysterious than the traditional Southern institution suggests. Friends in the Hutchinson area have adopted it to pin a name on flash dinners we have every week or so.

BSP column on health care reform republished in Rochester Post Bulletin

 In late June, Bluestem was pleased to publish a column about health care reform and activism by SE Mnnesota Labor Council President Laura Askelin.  BSP had solicited the June 29th post after reading Askelin's great tweets about health care insurance reform.

Yesterday, the column was reprinted in the Rochester Post Bulletin, though the paper didn't mention its prior publication online. 

Center for Rural Affairs releases report on public option

Yesterday, Wallace's Farmer reported in Report Explores Why Rural America Needs Public Health Insurance,

"Rural Americans are less insured, more under-insured; when rural Americans go without health insurance they are uninsured for longer periods of time," [Director of Research and Analysis at the Center for Rural Affairs Jon] Bailey, said. "Rural America, of course the economy is dominated by self-employment and small businesses who are having a very difficult time affording health insurance either for themselves or their employees. When you start adding all of those issues together and the effect that they have on people, we just ended up at the place where we figured that a public health insurance option is really needed for rural Americans."

Bailey says they aren't necessarily saying that everyone should be enrolled in a public option but it gives another choice to rural Americans to look at to see if it is affordable for themselves, their families, their employees and whether is provides adequate coverage. Also they found there is a real lack of choice on health insurance in rural areas.

The Center for Rural Affairs' white paper, "Why Rural America Needs a Public Health Insurance Plan Option," is available here in pdf format.

Key points from the short report:

• The cost of health insurance is crushing the self-employed and microbusinesses that form the bulk of the rural economy.

• The availability of affordable and quality health insurance is the primary barrier to entrepreneurship—the most effective rural development strategy—reaching its potential for rural people and rural communities.

• Individual and business mandates with the current system as the only health insurance option are unlikely to address unique rural challenges.

• Workplace characteristics more common in rural areas are risk factors for higher rates of uninsurance, underinsurance and greater dependence on the individual insurance market, conditions all subject to issues of cost, choice and level of coverage that a public health insurance plan could address.

• Public health insurance plan available as an option helps address the rural risk factors leading to rural insurance instability and would act as a backup for all of the rural factors leading to greater insurance instability.

• A public health insurance plan could lead to significantly lower costs for businesses and households. Models show public health insurance plan premiums would be 16 to 30 percent lower than private plans, and premium savings would be up to 41 percent greater with a public health insurance plan.

Midwest Rural Assembly to gather on August 10-11

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and  more than 20 other organizations from around the Midwest are hosting the Midwest Rural Assembly on August 10-11, 2009 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, just across Minnesota's southwest border.

According to the web site announcing the conference, participants will:

• Share resources and strategies for rural economic and community development opportunities;
• Hear from and talk with local to national policymakers about your rural policy priorities;
• Meet other rural leaders and welcome new voices; and
• Begin building a regional network to advance policies and initiatives that can help revitalize rural communities.

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, Nebraska State Rural Development Director Maxine Moul, nSouth Dakota State Rural Development Direct Elsie Meeks, and Minnesota State Rural Director Colleen Landkamer are featured speakers.

Plenary panels and participatory sessions will focus on topics such as rural health care and education, sustainable working landscapes, rural technology access and leadership development.  I'm especially pleased to see the inclusion of Day Two training sessions on social networking strategies as organizing tools.

Photo: a rural landscape in SE Minnesota. Photo by Chad Larimer.

From the Civic Summit: should Minnesota expanding voting by mail?

Last week, I attended a session conducted by the Vote by Mail Project and its sponsor, the League of Rural Voters, at the Civic Summit in Minneapolis. Since the National Association of Secretaries of State was also conducting its annual meeting in the Hilton, Oregon's SOS Kate Brown (who grew up in Minnesota) sat in on the session as an active audience participant.

Oregon was the poster child for VBM, since its elections are conducted entirely by mail. The VBM Project's
Adam Smith noted that the state started down the path toward VBM under the leadership of Norma Paulus, a Republican. (One of the ironies of VBM is that many of the pioneers in this movement were Republicans, while the likes of Grover Norquist have bemoaned the use of VBM as a Democratic initiative).

After reading the pros and cons of VBM I'm not convinced that Minnesota should adopt Oregon's VBM-only system, but shifting from our state's current "excuses only" system for absentee voting to a "no excuses" system would be a positive development.  Some pilot projects for testing the system in smaller elections--especially as a way to increase voter participation--would be worthwhile, especially in rural areas where sparse populations run up costs for both townships and voters traveling to polling places.

Such a change in state law would have to be accompanied by severe penalties for vote tampering (Oregon's law provides for a maximum five year per ballot penalty for tampering with the vote).

Unfortunately, Governor Pawlenty vetoed other absentee voting changes requested by local election officials, so VBM changes most likely will wait, behind with other proposed changes to the state's absentee voting system, changes prompted by the glitches made evident by the Senate recount process.

Photo: Former Orgeon Secretary of State Norma Paulus.

Open house meetings on proposed southern rail corridor

Questions about the proposed rail bypass around Rochester? From a friend in Southern Minnesota:

Southern Rail Corridor Informational Open House Schedules

WHAT:

Leaders from Olmsted and Dodge Counties will co-host public informational open house sessions to talk with community members about the Southern Rail Corridor proposal. The open house sessions will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a short presentation at 6:00 p.m. Following the presentation, participants are invited to visit various topic stations where they can view informational exhibits and pick up additional materials about the proposal. Key subject matter experts will be available at each station to answer questions and detailed maps of the proposed corridor will be available throughout the venue for people to view.

WHEN/WHERE:

Tuesday, July 21, 2009
5:30-8 p.m.
Stewartville High School
Performing Arts Center
500 4th St SW, Stewartville, MN

Wednesday, July 22, 2009
5:30-8 p.m.
Hayfield High School
West Gym
9 6th Ave SE, Hayfield, MN

Thursday, July 23, 2009
5:30-8 p.m.
John Marshall High School
Cafeteria
1510 14th St NW, Rochester, MN

The upgrade of the old DM & E lines (now owned by the Canadian Pacific) through Rochester was a signature issue in the 2006 CD1 election. 

Minnesota Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjam, who represents part of Rochester, has called the project the largest southeastern Minnesota infrastructure project since Interstate 90 was built, according to the Rochester Post Bulletin. The PB reports that Congressman Walz told Rochester area leaders that he supports the plan:

U.S. Rep. Tim Walz is "incredibly pleased to support" a Rochester railroad bypass proposal, he said to a group of business leaders Monday.

"We think this project ... borders on a project of national interest, of national priority," Walz said. "That's because you've elevated it to that."

Rochester has proposed a 48-mile bypass of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad mainline. The bypass would circle the city's south side, starting from the mainline near Dover and rejoining it near Dodge Center. It would connect to the Rochester International Airport.

The project is opposed by Citizens Against Rochester's Bypass, the paper notes, a group of rural and small town residents in Olmsted and Dodge Counties. The group held its own well-attended informational meeting in Stewartville in early June.

National Civic Summit: civic engagement and civic agriculture

Yesterday morning, I came upon one of my fellow community gardeners bundled up and forlornly trying to water her plot. Since only a trickle of water was flowing ot of the hose, she wasn't having much luck.

"Is there something wrong with the city's water today?" she asked in a soft southern Indiana accent. "I can't get any more than this. I'm freezing."

Together we solved the problem, and we soon gravitated toward my plot when her watering was finished. Our talk turned to the many birds that frequent the garden, and I pointed out a female goldfinch that was inspecting each of my sunflowers to see if any had produced seeds.

The finch was out of luck, and the neighbor was having a hard time making the connection herself.

"Do birds eat the seeds just like that?"

Sure, I remarked, just think about how bird seed contains unshelled sunflower seeds. I could see her try to wrap her mind around that common sense piece of information. 

Sunday night vigil in Stillwater for three fallen Minnesota National Guard members

There aren't many degrees of separation in these parts of rural Minnesota. Unlike some Americans, most of us in greater Minnesota count friends and family among those most intimately mourning the 63 military deaths of Minnesotans in the Iraq War.

I didn't know Spc. Carlos Wilcox, Spc. Daniel Drevnick, or Spc. James Wertish, the three Minnesota National Guard members who died in Iraq, but the mourning isn't far removed.

A friend and former student served with Drevnick. She said he was great guy.

A dear friend in the Minnesota Farmers Union is first cousin to James' father and lives on the adjoining place in Renville County; the Wertish clan are respected family farmers. My friends Gary and Jeanne are gentle people, though passionate in their work for farm families across Minnesota.  The cousin's son seems cut from the same cloth. One paper notes:

Wertish enjoyed working on the family farm, the National Guard reported.

He was born in Redwood Falls and graduated from the Olivia high school. He enlisted in the National Guard in 2006.

The Guard said his fellow soldiers reported that Wertish "would literally give you the shirt off his back."

Read more about the fallen soldiers here, here and here. The Pioneer Press reports that there will be a vigil for the three men at 6:00 p.m. at Veterans Memorial, Third and Pine Streets in downtown Stillwater.

I thank the three men and their families for their service to our country and sacrifice.

Photo: Spc. James Wertish, 20, of Olivia, Minnesota. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota National Guard.

Note: Comments that politicize this time of sorrow for family and friends will not be approved.

Outposts from the Small of America: 21 of 60 Reasons

 by Tom Driscoll

49. of like a tiny little metal car, a tiny-tiny motor, like a stainless roller bearing rolling, rolling, rolling on a circular track, the heartbeat strong after a decade of war.

51. of an old brittle photo of a boy perched like a brown quail or a blue tattoo-star on the strong Irish arm of a black & white man in a brittle old photo.

58. fire does, and catechism and monstrance, and smoke so thick the little dog barks.

60. méa cúlpa, méa cúlpa, méa máxima cúlpa.

64. the cemetery where she sits and waits is full of heretics, bullies and flunkers.

66. sun spills like words from melting crayons.

70. fat chalk white letters on the backs of their wooden fatigue shirts, 1 boy checks the other boy to read which way 2 run.

72. for one second, lives pass each other going opposite directions.

75. for every old sweater, a smoke, and for every smoke, another burnt Chicago angel.

78. in that lovely eye a flower petal forever’s blew.

79. cutting torch sparks pecker every syllable of wirerim’s glasses with imagined white bandages between black keys.

81. a million blackbirds gathered over deer standing on the uneven temple roof, then vanished like heat in wind.

84. to stand on the rim of the rainforest far above the glass lake is to forget Apollo ever.

87. the 2 hour trek up the mountain to Bugarama on the old Peugeot track bike with the bent frame and hard leather racing seat only takes 15-minutes going down, half-naked boys in front of mud houses along the road cheering and cheering.

91. the Ink Spots sing on New Year’s Day for free in the Quarter while old women dance around tables spinning little red parasols.

93. knifed and left for bled on Ocean Road in Dar, wrassled to the wound a Ugandan Samaritan, Sebastian the Good.

99. of a persistent runny nose and broken wires, carefully hidden sweet biscuits and hard sucking-candy can no longer sustain life of wife and mother.

01. even when razed to rubble, taking the advice of horse thieves and liars is never wise.

06. the little dog can’t live forever : words suddenly become words.

08. though the police battle with themselves to maintain shudder, the tawny police dog guarding the tall black man is peaceful.

09. of life, and the wife and the children and all the grandkids and brothers and sisters and dogs, and everyone else scribbled in fat crayon on the mirror that is the unfinished book, is why.

To read all 60 reasons, go The Small of America.

Minnesota writer Tom Driscoll reports on politics, economic development and life in rural America at The Small of America.

Note: The cheerful staff of Bluestem Prairie wish Tom a happy 60th birthday.