The Wake

The State of the State was two days ago, but thanks to The Uptake, I can still blog about as if it were happenning right now. What follows are jumbled notes and incomplete thoughts about the unnecessary speech.

DFL Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson Kelliher (Minneapolis), introduces T Paw as “the Honorable Tim Pawlenty” and joins with the rest of the room — its left and right …

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This morning I read perhaps the worst Christmas news anyone could ask for: AM 1500 KSTP fired TD Mischke, the radio renegade who’s served up a cutting-edge local radio show since the mid-’90s. It doesn’t help that this comes only a few days after former City Pages editor Steve Perry resigned from the Minnesota Independent.

Mischke blogged a final goodbye on AM 1500’s Web site …

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Nader:Postmortem from The Wake Student Magazine on Vimeo.

Barack Obama’s victory last week spread lots of optimism throughout the world, including the socialist countries of South and Latin America. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leader widely hated by the U.S. government, released a statement after the victory:

“We are convinced that the time has come to establish new relations between our two countries and in our region, based on the principles of respect …

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Independence Party candidate Roger Smithrud, who ran for Minnesota State House in district 58B, is best at summarizing his political party’s current trouble.

“I’m sad — I only got seven percent of the vote. I thought I’d get at least 20.”

His short frame, long grey hair and lit American Spirit give off a look of a working class American conspiracy theorist. He was standing outside …

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Crowds were battling for the latest papers…. On every corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered; arguing soldiers and students…The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of storm, delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to take part in the debate, Trotsky, Kamenev, Volodarsky speaking six, …

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“Obama, McCain are dead even [in Minnesota],” reads today’s top Star Tribune story. Perhaps this is because the Republicans have a natural poll advantage by setting their convention one week after the Democrats, as many pollsters have argued. They attribute the recent McCain/Palin surge to something akin to the natural guide of the poll’s invisible hand. Judging from my personal account of events of last week at the RNC, an explanation of John McCain’s …

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“I joined the army after 9/11 – to kill people,” said Hart Viges of Austin, Texas. Hart’s a 32-year old member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He served in Kuwait in February of 2003, only to be deployed to Iraq 13 months later. It actually wasn’t until April 2004 — three months after returning home — that Viges started to morally reject the U.S.-led occupation. He was at a …

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Yesterday I attended the Minnesota State Fair, the famous annual festival full of deep-fried Twinkies, chocolate-covered bacon, and alligator on a stick, among many other strange foods. It had been ten years since my last visit, and I nearly forgot how Minnesota politicians of all kinds use the Fair to their advantage during election seasons. The first stands …

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The Wake’s blogosphere has recently gained a new cyberspace prophet. Jack Spencer, aka H.A.R.V.E., will be the mack daddy of the new Sounds and Vision blog, which can be found right here. His blog is currently separated from the rest of the web site, but hopefully one of the Wake’s staffers will be able to transfer the posts to this site soon and give Jack his own account. I am …

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As you may recall, the Minneapolis City Council just passed an ordinance concerning protesters’ rights at the upcoming Republican National Convention. The new ordinance replaced already existing laws that banned police use of rubber bullets, barred confiscation of cameras and recording devices and prohibited police targeting of activist groups.

When the new law left all these clauses out, Green Party council member Cam Gordon tried to add them back in amendments, and finally succeeded …

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Right before an important vote concerning protest protection at the upcoming Republican National Convention, an early morning attempt to speak out at a Minneapolis City Council meeting against the resolution led to the forced removal of an activist from the council room Friday.

Jude Ortiz, a member of Coldsnap Legal Collective, stood in front of City …

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A handful of activists and future Republican National Convention protesters attended a Minneapolis City Council committee meeting Wednesday to support Green Party council member Cam Gordon’s June 20 proposal banning police use of rubber bullets at upcoming RNC …

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Since George Carlin recently died, I figured it’d be best to post some clips of him discussing issues relevant to this blog. In the first clip he talks about the absurdity of the American Dream. In the second, he chimes about why he doesn’t vote. (”If you vote, you have no right to complain!”)…

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