Audio: Home stretch Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, joins our correspondents for a final look at America's mid-terms Listen
Breaking News: Rising Brazil must explain what it wants Topic: brazil, biodun iginla, bbc news,
by Enrique Krause and Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s next president, inherits the diplomatic challenges of her predecessor but not his charisma. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva charmed the world in recent years. He has raised his country’s standing and will be a tough act to follow. But a sustainable foreign policy cannot be based on the strength of a single personality.
For Brazil remains a diplomatic enigma. Keeping others guessing may have short-term benefits, but it also risks a long-term trust deficit. Policymakers around the world struggle to understand Brazil’s foreign policy and the dynamics behind it.
by Nasra Ismail, BBC News Analyst, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla
Jabr al-Faifi has been identified as a former Guantanamo Bay detainee
The crucial tip-off that led to the discovery of parcel bombs on two cargo planes came from a repentant al-Qaeda member, UK officials say.
Jabr al-Faifi handed himself in to authorities in Saudi Arabia two weeks ago, the officials told the BBC.
The US says its main suspect in the failed bomb plot is the chief bombmaker for al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch.
Yemeni officials said 14 suspected al-Qaeda members had surrendered in the restive southern province of Abyan.
Abyan's governor said five senior figures were among those who had handed themselves in, and more fighters were expected to surrender in the coming days.
Yemen is facing mounting multi-national pressure to battle al-Qaeda, says the BBC's Lina Sinjab in Sanaa, but some doubt its ability to do so as it faces social, economic and political problems at home.
US intelligence officials have suggested the Saudi bombmaker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, said to be in his 20s, is the key suspect in last week's attempt to send the parcel bombs from Yemen to the US.
One bomb travelled on two passenger planes before being seized in Dubai. The other almost slipped through Britain.
The UK government's emergency planning committee, Cobra, has met to discuss increasing cargo security after UK authorities were criticised for the initial failure to find one of the bombs on a plane at East Midlands airport.
Al-Qaeda bombmaker?
Jabr al-Faifi is reportedly one of several former detainees at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who were returned to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation in December 2006.
After leaving Guantanamo he went through a rehabilitation programme in Saudi Arabia and then rejoined al-Qaeda in Yemen before turning himself in to Saudi authorities, AFP news agency reports.
He contacted Saudi government officials saying he wanted to return home and a handover was arranged through Yemen's government, interior ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Turki said.
White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan spoke to President Ali Saleh of Yemen and told him that Yemen would take the lead in the investigation.
This kind of language underscores the sensitive nature of the relationship between the two countries. Washington already gives more than £100m ($160m) to Yemen in security assistance.
The US also has a covert programme in Yemen that includes drone strikes. It is likely the US will step up that programme now.
But Yemen has not exactly been an enthusiastic ally in the battle against al-Qaeda.
US aid is a sensitive issue for a poor country where anti-US sentiments run high. But the White House will now step up the pressure and make it clear to Yemen that it needs to do more.
It will remind Yemen that not only could its own government be a target for al-Qaeda but that Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, also gets crucial development aid from Washington.
Both bombs used in the latest plot were hidden inside printer toner cartridges and contained the powerful plastic explosive PETN, which is difficult to detect.
John Brennan, counter-terrorism adviser to US President Barack Obama, said the devices were built by the same man who made the explosive device containing PETN that was used in a failed "underpants" plane bomb attack over Detroit on Christmas Day.
One of the detonators was reportedly almost exactly the same as the one used in the US attack attempt.
"[The bombmaker] is a very dangerous individual - clearly somebody who has a fair amount of training and experience," Mr Brennan told ABC News.
"We need to find him and bring him to justice as soon as we can."
Asiri is believed to have built the bomb that his brother, Abdullah, used in an assassination attempt on the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Mohammed Bin Nayif. The prince survived the suicide attack, in which PETN was also used.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says most of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's more dangerous operatives are Saudis, driven out of their own country by a highly effective counter-terrorism campaign that has not yet been matched in Yemen.
Mr Brennan said the US and its allies could not assume that there were no other packages containing bombs out there.
"What we are trying to do right now is to work with our partners overseas to identify all packages that left Yemen recently, and to see whether or not there are any other suspicious packages out there that may contain these [Improvised Explosive Devices]," he told ABC.
Yemeni flights banned
The two packages were shipped from Sanaa through UPS and another US cargo firm, FedEx. The parcels were addressed to synagogues in the US city of Chicago.
Airline security measures are being re-assessed in light of the findings
One device was carried on an Airbus A320 from Sanaa to Doha. It was then flown on another aircraft to Dubai, Qatar Airways said.
Meanwhile, Germany has announced it is banning all passenger and cargo flights from Yemen.
Yemen's Minister of Transport Khalid al-Wazir told BBC Arabic the country had tightened security on cargo shipments leaving its airports.
"We emphasise the need to continue sharing intelligence among the parties concerned in the countries concerned, on a continuing, rapid and urgent basis, so that we can ensure maximum security for our airports, our skies and our planes," he said.
A team of US investigators has already been sent to Yemen to help track down those involved in the plot.
Meanwhile, US investigators are re-examining wreckage of a UPS cargo plane that crashed in Dubai in September.
Two crew members died when the jet crashed shortly after take-off. On Sunday, UAE investigators said there was no evidence that the crash was caused by an explosion.
How the plot emerged:
Device 1 intercepted at East Midlands Airport in the UK. It was posted via UPS in Yemen and is believed to have been flown via Dubai and Cologne
Device 2 intercepted in Dubai after flying on two Qatar Airways passenger jets from Yemen. It was posted via freight firm FedEx
Both devices are addressed to synagogues in Chicago, and contain PETN explosives stuffed into printer cartridges
Other UPS cargoes are searched in Newark, Philadelphia and New York as the alert spreads
The UK government later says it believes Device 1 was designed to go off on board the plane
Breaking News: China PMI jumps as rest of Asia slows Topic: china, xian wan, bbc news, biodu
by Xian Wan, BBC News Analyst, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla
China’s manufacturers sharply increased output in October, powered largely by rising domestic demand and defying a widespread slowdown in the rest of Asia.
The Chinese purchasing managers' indices contrasted sharply with reports for South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, all of which showed a continuing slowdown in the wake of very rapid growth after the sharp contraction caused by theglobal financial crisis. http://link.ft.com/r/73UJGG/GKBG3R/V374F/6VRBEL/LQTM64/28/h?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=1
Police and investigators look at what remains of the flight deck of Pan Am 103 on a field in Lockerbie, ScotlandPhoto: AP
Both bombs found last week had been transported in the hold of passenger flights, suggesting that the terrorists were targeting tourists and other travellers, rather than simply trying to bring down cargo planes, as had previously been thought.
A device found at East Midlands airport on Friday had left Yemen on a passenger aircraft, The Daily Telegraph has learnt, before it was switched to a UPS cargo plane. The second device, found in Dubai, was carried on two Qatar Airways passenger flights before it was intercepted.
Sources close to the investigation in Yemen said because there were no scheduled cargo flights out of the country it was likely the terrorists knew the bombs would be loaded on to passenger planes for at least part of their journey.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, also admitted yesterday it was possible that the US-bound bomb found at East Midlands could have detonated over Britain if it had not been found, because of the unpredictability of freight routes.
In further developments:
* A woman was being hunted in Yemen after posting the bombs, using an identity stolen from a student.
* Investigators in Yemen said they were examining 26 other suspect packages.
* British police faced criticism from the US over their failure to find the East Midlands device during their initial search.
* Downing Street was forced to defend David Cameron’s decision to say nothing about the bomb plot for more than 24 hours.
* The airline pilots’ union said it had been warning for years of cargo being a weak link in air travel that could be exploited by terrorists.
The two bombs, concealed inside computer printers, were virtually impossible to detect by X-ray screening because they contained an odourless explosive and used timers that would have looked like part of the printers’ electronics.
They were designed to explode in mid-air and would have been as capable of bringing down an aircraft as the device that blew up PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, killing 270 people.
More than half of all freight to the US is carried on passenger flights and Lord Carlisle of Berriew, the former government adviser on terrorism, said there was every chance a parcel bomb could end up on a passenger plane.
“If you put a parcel into UPS, you have no way of knowing what flight it is going to go on,” he said. “It could end up on a passenger flight.”
One of the bombs went to Dubai via Doha in Qatar on a passenger aircraft. The device that was found at East Midlands airport left the Yemeni capital of Sana’a on a passenger aircraft, which is also thought to have stopped at Doha, before it travelled to Cologne in Germany and Britain in cargo planes. Mrs May said: “What became clear overnight on Friday and into Saturday was that it was indeed a viable device and could have exploded.
“It could have exploded on the aircraft, and it could have exploded when the aircraft was in mid air. Had that happened it could have brought the aircraft down.”
Mrs May said it was “difficult” to say whether the explosion would have happened over Britain or America. “With these freight flights sometimes the routing can change at the last moment so it is difficult for those who are planning the detonation to know exactly where — if it is detonated to a time, for example — the aircraft will be,” she added
After investigators in Yemen confirmed that they were examining 26 other packages, John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s counter- terrorism adviser, said “it would be very imprudent … to presume that there are no other” [bombs].
Mr Brennan described the bombs as “sophisticated”, adding: “They were self-contained. They were able to be detonated at a time of the terrorists’ choosing.”
He said the plot “bears the hallmark” of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the terrorist organisation’s Yemeni-based operation, whose leaders include Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born preacher.
The most likely bomb maker is said to be Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who made the device used in the foiled Christmas airline attack over Detroit.
The bombs, which were addressed to two synagogues in Chicago, contained the contact details of a 22-year-old computing student, Hannan al-Samawi, who was arrested on Saturday night.
However, investigators released her yesterday and said they were now seeking another woman who it was thought had posted the devices using Miss al-Samawi’s personal details.
Intelligence that foiled the plot may have come from Jabir Jubran al-Fayfi, a former leading member of AQAP, who surrendered to the Saudi authorities last month.
In light of the plot, the US National Transportation Safety Board is re-examining the wreckage of a UPS cargo jet that crashed in Dubai in September, although sources in Dubai said there was no evidence of an explosion.
American officials expressed concern at the fact that the bomb at East Midlands was discovered only during a second police search.
David Cameron said the Government would “take whatever steps are necessary” to keep British people safe, but Downing Street was forced on to the defensive after the Prime Minister took until 6pm on Saturday – 26 hours after he was first briefed on the incident – to make a public statement.
It was left to Mr Obama, and later Mrs May, to break the news that viable devices had been found. Sources said Mr Cameron “wanted ministers to take the lead”.
Balpa, the pilots’ union, said it had warned for years of the threat from cargo, suggesting that the focus on checking passengers and their luggage “left the door open” for attacks by other means.
BREAKING NEWS ALERT: Signal Returns After Fox and Cablevision Reach Fee Deal Topic: fox, cable, new york, bbc
by Suzanne Gould, BBC News Analyst, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla
Sat, October 30, 2010 -- 7:09 PM ET -----
The Fox network flickered back to life in three million homes serviced by Cablevision on Saturday night, signaling an end to an unusually long and unusually bitter feud between the cable company and Fox's parent company, the News Corporation.
Fox had been blacked out in Cablevision homes since Oct. 16 because the two companies could not agree on new contract terms. Cablevision services the New York metropolitan area.
The signal was restored in time for the third game of the World Series, which is being televised by Fox.
In Yemen, police have arrested a woman suspected of posting the packages.
She was detained in the capital, Sanaa, after being traced through a telephone number she had left with a cargo company, officials said.
The unnamed young woman, described as a medical student and the daughter of a petroleum engineer, was arrested along with her mother on the outskirts of the city, a security official told AFP news agency.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh said the US and the United Arab Emirates had provided Yemen with information that helped identify the woman and pledged that his country would continue fighting al-Qaeda "in co-operation with its partners".
"But we do not want anyone to interfere in Yemeni affairs by hunting down al-Qaeda," he added, as heavily armed troops patrolled Sanaa.
The Yemeni authorities also closed down the local offices of the US cargo firms UPS and FedEx, who had already suspended all shipments out of the country and pledged full co-operation with investigators.
US President Barack Obama's national security adviser, John Brennan, has phoned Mr Saleh to offer US help in fighting al-Qaeda, the White House said.
The US authorities have been impressed by the speed and determination the Yemeni authorities have shown in their response, the BBC's Jon Leyne reports from Cairo.
The explosive devices, which triggered security alerts in the US, UK and Middle East, were apparently both inserted in printer cartridges and placed in packages addressed to synagogues in the Chicago area.
Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) - an explosive favoured by the Yemeni-based militant group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) - was discovered in the device intercepted in Dubai.
Mr Obama discussed the apparent terrorist plot with Mr Cameron by phone on Saturday, expressing his "appreciation for the professionalism of American and British services involved" in disrupting it, the White House said.
'Professional manner'
Later, Mr Cameron told reporters at his country residence, Chequers, that it was believed the explosive device intercepted at East Midlands Airport was "designed to go off on the aeroplane".
David Cameron: "We believe the device was designed to go off on the aeroplane"
"We cannot be sure about when that was supposed to take place," he added.
"There is no early evidence that it was meant to take place over British soil, but of course we cannot rule it out."
The prime minister said the authorities had immediately banned packages coming to or through the UK from Yemen, and would be "looking extremely carefully at any further steps we have to take".
UK Home Secretary Theresa May said the government did not believe the plotters would have known the location of the device when it was planned to explode.
While details of the device found in Britain were not released, photographs emerged on the US media of an ink toner cartridge covered in white powder and connected to a circuit board.
The British government's remarks suggest the authorities in both the UK and the US remain uncertain about the precise targets and, indeed, aim of this latest apparent plot, BBC defence and security correspondent Nick Childs reports.
Parcels could be seen stacked outside Sanaa airport on Saturday
According to Dubai police, the explosives they found were also inside the toner cartridge of a printer, placed in a cardboard box containing English-language books and souvenirs.
The cartridge contained PETN and plastic explosives mixed with lead azide, they said. Lead azide is an explosive commonly used in detonators.
"The device was prepared in a professional manner and equipped with an electrical circuit linked to a mobile telephone [Sim] card concealed in the printer," the police said.
For US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the plot bore "all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda and in particular [AQAP]".
Unnamed US officials quoted by the Associated Press said al-Qaeda's explosives expert in Yemen, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, was the likely suspect behind the bomb-making.
They said Mr Asiri had helped make the bomb used in the failed Detroit Christmas bomb attack and another PETN device used in a failed suicide attack against a top Saudi counter-terrorism official last year.
The White House has said Saudi Arabia provided information that helped identify the threat, while the UK's Daily Telegraph reported that an MI6 officer responsible for Yemen had received a tip-off.
How the alerts were raised (all times GMT):
• Early hours of Friday morning: alert raised at East Midlands airport after suspect package found on UPS plane. Security cordon put in place, then lifted.
• 0900: suspect package found on FedEx plane in Dubai.
• 1300: security cordon reinstated at East Midlands airport, apparently after a second suspect device is found.
• 1700: FBI says two suspect packages were addressed to religious buildings in Chicago.
• 1835: Emirates Flight 201 from Yemen via Dubai lands at JFK airport, New York, escorted by US fighter jets. The plane is carrying a package from Yemen.
• 1845: FedEx in Dubai confirms it has confiscated a suspect package sent from Yemen and is suspending all shipments from Dubai.
• 1900: two other FedEx flights investigated after landing at Newark, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. Both receive the all-clear.
• 2330: BA flight from London to New York (JFK) met by US officials as a "precautionary measure".
WASHINGTON -- Tens of thousands of people are expected to flood the National Mall on Saturday for the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear -- which raises the question, so what?Is this event mere entertainment,... Read more
Seward Deli--Haven for writers like me... Topic: seward deli, biodun iginla
Seward Deli at East Franklin Avenue is now this reporter's office until February 2011 when yours truly file for Social Security payments when am 62..wouldn't wait till when am 65..coz SS might not be around then...
....then i'm off to London peramently...
love to all at Seward Deli..especially Leo, Sean (whio loaned me a buck for the bus one night)...and all else...
At a small table between stacks of paperbacks and beneath an enormous map of the world in Minneapolis' Franklin Library, fifth grader Bintou Dibba concentrates on her homework for the next day. Homework Hub volunteer tutor Peg Hoff, newly semi-retired from 34 years as an educator with the Burnsville School District, leans in to help Dibba with questions about story problems and long division.MORE »
Received an email that October 13 the Twin Cities' favorite Rasta bard, David Daniels, on his way up from Denver to perform in Duluth (partnering with folk-blues icon Charlie Parr) would stop off in Minneapolis to put in an appearance at, of all place, BarFly. I wasn't quite sure I was reading what was right in front of my eyes. David Daniels at BarFly is like Bob Marley, for instance, playing at Studio 54. You just don't see this firebrand, counterculture maverick holding forth at a disco-type venue. But, there it is. Daniels on the bill with a slew of other notables (including host MJ Kroll), working gratis, to a benefit for fellow area luminary and equally self-defining spirit Jazzy J, founder of the Internet station Twin Cities Radio. Both, it happens, are contending with cancer.MORE »
Election Integrity Watch, a coalition of groups including Minnesota Majority and the North Star Tea Party Patriots, filed suit in district court on Thursday afternoon against the state of Minnesota to allow their members to wear “Please ID Me” buttons and tea party t-shirts at polling places throughout the state.MORE »
A cluster of church-goers carefully climb the University Avenue steps to Holy Cross, as most of the group are both wobbly and deliberate on their feet.MORE »
For a music fan, writing about Pink Floyd's The Wall (1979) is a bit like a theater fan writing about Shakespeare. What more could you possibly say that hasn't already been written thousands of times before? I'll admit right off the bat thatThe Wall has never been one of my favorite Pink Floyd albums. Like almost every double album, it's a bit bloated and overdone in spots, but that's exactly what makes it so successful and engaging in the live setting.MORE »
As frontman Torquil Campbell acknowledged on Wednesday night, it's intimidating to be a band called Starsarriving at First Avenue, a club decorated in stars "with the names of bands a lot better than us." That's far from being entirely true, but unfortunately Stars failed to muster much of a challenge, playing a glossy set in which bright lights and bubbles distracted from the heartbreaking songs that have rightly earned the Canadian indie rockers a raft of critical acclaim.MORE »
Strong signs from the past couple of weeks suggest the economic recovery is gaining force and, at long last, American companies are again creating jobs at home, not just overseas.MORE »
The posters for Edgar Wright's wonderful comic book adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World came with the tagline, "An epic of epic of epicness." It was all too appropriate, given that film's attitude towards its clichéd, hipster doofus of a main character. Take that same line, but drop the irony, totally literalize it, and you have a perfect fit for Olivier Assayas's latest film, Carlos, screening this weekend at the Walker Art Center as the closing film in the director's month-long retrospective.MORE »
Ramsey County Sheriff: Bob Fletcher vs. Matt Bostrom by Lawrence Schumacher, TC Daily Planet The controversial head of law enforcement in Ramsey County for the last 16 years is facing another significant election challenge from a high-ranking officer in the St. Paul Police Department this year.
Minnesota Latino voters organize, Latino restaurant says no to Emmer by Jessie Lieb, TC Daily Planet Last week, a Latino restaurant owner told Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer that he didn't want Emmer's business. Oscar Reyes, owner of Las Mojarras restaurant on Lake Street, received a call scheduling an event for Saturday October 23 at his restaurant. Reyes was unaware that this event was a campaign rally for Emmer until he began receiving angry phone calls from Latino community members. They asked why he was hosting an event for Emmer, and cited Emmer's previous anti-immigration stances. After learning what the event was, Reyes cancelled it.
Beyond Independence: The fourth, fifth, or sixth parties in Minnesota's 2010 election by Mary Turck, TC Daily Planet While Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner is making a strong third-party showing in opinion polls and enjoying substantial media attention, several fourth, fifth or sixth parties are struggling for any media time or recognition in Minnesota's 2010 elections.
MUSIC | Bruce in the USA prove it all Tuesday night at Bunker's by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet Bruce in the USA are "as close as you can get to seeing the real thing in concert," says the band's website. True enough, and in some ways—not all ways, but in some ways—it may be even better.
New districts, new candidates for Minneapolis school board by Lawrence Schumacher, TC Daily Planet No matter what the result, Minneapolis' Public Schools Board of Education will look quite different after next month's election than it does now.
MUSIC | Sleigh Bells come as they are at the Triple Rock by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet While one stream of popular music has been maturing over the past couple millennia, another has been immaturing. The first reached puberty with-what? Monteverdi?-and the second may have finally attained its spurting climax of primal devolution with Sleigh Bells, the New York duo who brought their shuddering eruption of pop to the Triple Rock on Monday night.
MUSIC | "A high five goes off inside of me": The Dandy Warhols' Courtney Taylor-Taylor on his favorite things by Natalie Gallagher, TC Daily Planet I caught up with lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor over the phone on Thursday afternoon, fully prepared to ask him a slew of questions about music, and found him surprisingly chatty about everything from the new album to fine wines and classic literature. For the record, Taylor-Taylor's speaking voice is just as enigmatic as you would want it to be, and music legend or not, it wasn't hard to hold down a conversation—albeit a very tangential one.
THEATER | BLM/Seifert/Flink CREATE a beautiful but hollow Woyzeck Project by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet The Woyzeck Project is the Avatar of experimental theater. The site-specific work for which Luverne Seifert, Carl Flink, and Michael Sommers (under the ad hoc name of BLM/Seifert/Flink CREATE) have taken over the entirety of the Southern Theater and much of the surrounding area is a tremendous technical achievement in scope and vision-a technical achievement that's reason enough the see the show, which from a purely dramatic standpoint is disappointing.
VISUAL ARTS | With the Void, Full Powers: At the Walker Art Center, Yves Klein is forever blue by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet It would be going a little too far to call Yves Klein's death at the age of 34, in 1962, a "career move," but as the exhibitWith the Void, Full Powers—at the Walker Art Center through February 13-and its elegant catalog make clear, Klein had moved so swiftly and effectively toward immateriality in art during his seven-year career that for the artist to take the next step and become immaterial himself seems perfectly consistent. With Klein himself gone, we are left with only the idea of Klein and the relatively few, but transcendent, objects he left behind.
THEATER | U of M Theatre Arts Department ventures intoUndiscovered Country at Rarig by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet Any play about deceptive games of the heart, about sexual charades, is bound to bring to mind Les Liaisons Dangerouses—and for good reason. Pierre Choderos de Laclos's whip-tight plot, admirably adapted for the stage and screen (Dangerous Liaisons) by Christopher Hampton, is the definitive statement on the intersection of love, lust, and honor. Arthur Schnitzler's Das Weite Land is no Les Liaisons, but as adapted by Tom Stoppard, it's a dark and potentially thrilling venture into the same territory. Stoppard's version, Undiscovered Country, is well-served by the production currently playing at the Rarig Center under the aegis of the University of Minnesota's Department of Theatre Arts and Dance.
THEATER | The House of Spirits gets an unmissable bilingual production at Mixed Blood by Bev Wolfe, TC Daily Planet Mixed Blood's latest production, The House of Spirits, is an engrossing tale of torture and human rights as well as a compelling family saga. The play is written by Caridad Svich and is based upon the novel by Isabel Allende, the niece of President Salvador Allende, a freely elected Maxist president who was killed during a military overthrow of his government in Chile in the 1970s.
BOOKS | David Sedaris shows his animal side at the State Theatre by Natalie Gallagher, TC Daily Planet "I am experimenting with the sweater vest," announced David Sedaris after he thanked the audience at the State Theatre for coming on Thursday night. Indeed, he was wearing one, and he quickly set the mood for the evening as the audience rippled with laughter. (For the record, he looked very much like an interesting and dynamic author, not like Mr. Rogers.)
THEATER | MMT's Evil Dead musical: Less blood, but still filling by Becca Mitchell, TC Daily Planet I challenge you not to be intrigued by the thought of Evil Dead: The Musical. Sure, there are plenty of Halloween-related events that pop up each year around this time, but there's something about singing demons, campy puns, fake blood—did I mention singing demons?—that my cheesy self just can't resist. And for the most part, the Minneapolis Musical Theatre's area premiere of the musical, now playing at Illusion Theater, delivers on all expectations except, surprisingly, the gore. Which begs the question, should this musical be renamed Evil Dead: Lite?
MUSIC | The Script stick to it at the State Theatre by Kate Gallagher, TC Daily Planet Friday night's lineup at the State Theatre featured Irish trio The Script and opening act Hugo, who played to a full house of nearly 2,200 people. I arrived excited to see The Script in concert and curious about Hugo, who is touring the U.S. for the first time. This was The Script's second visit to Minneapolis. In August 2009 they played the Triple Rock, which Mark Sheehan (lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and backing vocals) described as "somebody's living room."
Frogtown residents discuss Promise Neighborhood future by Andrea Richards, TC Daily Planet More than forty people nearly filled the cafeteria of Jackson Elementary School October 14 for a discussion of community development initiatives. The meeting was one of many similar neighborhood meetings, this one being the first regarding the Promise Neighborhood Project since Saint Paul received the grant on September 21.
Spero's social conscience shapes business plans by A.J. MacDonald, TC Daily Planet "Social responsibility in entrepreneurship. That's what we're all about," said Rebecca Brandt-Fontaine, General Contractor of Spero Properties, LLC, a home remodeling company working to revitalize housing in the Twin Cities.
Remodeling St. Paul: The Foundry on Raymond by Jeannette Fordyce, TC Daily Planet The Foundry on Raymond Avenue in St. Paul was under furious construction on September 28 as finishing carpenters and painters worked to make their September 30 deadline
Twin Cities group plans for urban agriculture future by Jeanette Fordyce, TC Daily Planet Gardening Matters, an independent organization dedicated to community gardeners, convened a meeting of 65 people on October 10 at the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis to plan for the future of urban agriculture in the Twin Cities.
NEW IN BLOGS
FRONT ROW SEAT | My grandmother, New Ulm, and the life of a community by Jay Gabler • NEW ULM, MINNESOTA—As I write, I'm sitting on a balcony under a white drop-panel sky, overlooking the ersatz Bavarian street that is the hallway of the New Ulm Holiday Inn, with a German flag hanging over the Rhine and Danube conference rooms. In just over an hour, the alarm will ring and we'll get dressed to lay my grandmother Rosalie Grossmann to rest.
THINK FORWARD | Health disparities and neighborhoods by Ben Lilliston • The Twin Cities are lot like other parts of the U.S. when it comes to health. "Health is strongly connected to race, income and the specific parts of the metro area in which people live in," according to a report released earlier this month by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation of Minnesota.
POKING AROUND | The Uptake journalists banned in Edina by Mary Treacy • The intrepid crew from The Uptake hit its first bump in the transparency world this week when the Edina Chamber of Commerce banned all video and audio recording from Wednesday's debate between candidates Erik Paulsen and Jim Meffert.
A PARALLEL UNIVERSE | My U of M football coach application (and response) by Chuck Turchick • I would bring my unblemished record as a football coach—I have never coached football—to the University. I did, however, coach the all-star basketball team of the Minneapolis Jewish Community Center. I remember Lou Holtz once said, "We may be small, but we're slow."
CRAZY BOY FARM | One almost-large family's dance of coats by Amy Doeun • Overnight we have been plunged into winter. Yesterday was my first prenatal since becoming overdue and rumor has it that the large winter storm that came through last night and is still lingering today will effect the barometric pressure so much that all the babies due within a couple weeks will be born before Halloween. I can only hope.
OUTSIDE THE WALLS | What's at stake next Tuesday by Dick Bernard • I vote absentee as I'm an election judge next Tuesday. This morning I was looking at my absentee ballot for November 2. There are 109 candidates for 42 positions. It is a daunting, impossible task to know everything about everyone. A group of us are collaborating to find out who might know something about some of the more obscure races in our area, like for city council. One can't research everything. But being as well-informed as possible IS everything. Few take the time to be informed, and it is a danger to our democracy.
HINDSIGHT 2020 | For some cities, it's easier being green by Mina Bakhtiar • National Geographic recently came out with its America's "greenest" cities list; St. Paul ranked near the top at #4. Before capital city residents pat ourselves on the back, we should analyze St. Paul's unique factors that helped us make the list.
The Twin Cities Daily Planet is a project of the Twin Cities Media Alliance 2600 East Franklin Avenue Minneapolis, MN, 55406
Telecommunications
