Starting next week, I will begin to test drive various cars from Sears Automotive. I understand I can flog any car for as long as I wish and report back on it to you, our readers. As you are all like me, I am sure you read English, Japanese, Finnish, Russian, American car magazines every … Read more
I gotta tell ya I’m damned near out of gas on flogging the Star Tribune (and the Pioneer Press, and WCCO TV and just about everybody other than KSTP’s Bob McNaney and Strib columnist, Nick Coleman) to look up from its new strategic focus on the Fridley Squirts Hockey league long enough to put a … Read more
The Star Tribune Guild convened a 10:30 meeting this morning to look at a pattern of age discrimination in the reassignments cooked up editors for the paper’s owner, Avista Capital Partners. Speaking on background one Guild officer said that by their count “only three or four” of the [30-40] reporters told they are being reassigned, … Read more
BOOKS & AUTHORS Never End a Title in a Preposition If you’ve read our July issue already, then you already know that local poet Éireann Lorsung is helping Ben Weaver light “a fire to burn things back to pure.” In fact, he liked her poetry so much the first time he read it, that he … Read more
With the clock counting down to Friday’s deadline for accepting Star Tribune management’s buy-out offer, Strib reporters will get a look at the big, new, glossy, reorganized reassignment chart top editors have been fussing over. Word is it will debut sometime today or tomorrow. Actually, I don’t know about the “big” or “glossy” parts, but … Read more
Gaelic mythology tells of a hero known for his amazing perception. As a young lad, he was ordered by his master to cook a magical salmon which would impart all the world’s knowledge to its eater. During preparation, the young hero burned his finger on the fish. Quickly putting the sore finger in his mouth, … Read more
Speaking of inexpensive road trip wines: We stopped in Chamberlain, SD, last night and went to Casey’s — a quirky little hybrid diner/drugstore/wine shop on the banks of the Missouri River — where we picked up a bottle of Prosperity Red – Cabernet Sauvignon for $10.99. This is *not* a complex wine. But it’s big … Read more
In an open letter to friends and colleagues, Kevyn Burger, mid-morning host at FM 107 and, as I’ve said for two decades, one of the great gals/babes of the Twin Cities, announced she has breast cancer and will undergo aggressive treatment beginning this weekend. A reporter at KSTP-TV and then WCCO-TV before settling into her … Read more
FILM Fearless Filmmakers Premiere: Impaler No third party candidate for governor in this country has ever garnered as much media attention as Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey did in his race for Minnesota governor just a little over a year ago. It wasn’t his quest to help farmers or improve the public school system that earned … Read more
On April Fools Day, I convened two of the smartest diamond watchers I know, The Rake’s own Brad Zellar (of Warning Track Power) and veteran Twin Cities journalist David Brauer for a Twins diablog. You can go back and find it in the archives or take my word that it was absolutely the most prescient … Read more