Earlier last month, the University’s Board of Regents approved a plan that would allocate $60 million to construct an expansion on the East Bank recreational center.  As claimed in the proposal, the project has been on the University’s mind for some time now, reminding us that the Rec Center “opened in March 1993 with a reduced capacity due to legislative cuts.”

The expansion will be a 140,000 square foot, four-story addition on the massive structure near the McNamara Alumni Center and the proposed Physics and Nanotechnology building, which is yet to receive sufficient funding to begin construction. The Board approved the project less than one year after the opening of the TCF stadium.

The major push for completion of the project seems to come from a sense that the center is not fulfilling its purpose of being social grounds for the community. Research conducted by the U found that people who use the facilities have a higher level of social integration than, presumably, those who do not. As such, the new facility will not only include space for exercise, but also a café, a social lounge, and public toilets.

According to the proposal presented by Vice President Kathleen O’Brien, the new facility will be a closer vision of what “U of M students, staff, and faculty desire and deserve”.

During the same Board of Regents meeting on Wednesday, September 8, O’Brien presented a proposal for the transformation of the Oak Street parking ramp into a campus Bike Center. The board is planning on transforming a current structure rather than building a new one because they are “prioritizing projects that decrease the amount of space and optimizing the use of existing space”.

Another hope for the project is that it will also play a key role in drawing more students to the U, claiming that the addition will be an investment that will “leverage unique regional assets”. One of these unique regional assets, you could say, is the constant construction that happens both on and around campus year round. The scheme dwells heavily on the promise that the facility will bring the University a higher head count that we would not have without it.

For those of you keeping a running total, this means that the University is hoping for approval or beginning construction on, at minimum: The Rec Center, Folwell Hall, the light rail on Washington Avenue, the Oak Street parking ramp, The Physics and Nanotechnology building, Northrop auditorium, the Weismann, and Coffman Union.

Funding for the project will be paid for by a capital enhancement fee assessed to the current students. You can expect to see construction trucks adjacent to the as early as spring 2011 lasting until the end of spring 2013

Opponents of the Rec Center project should be happy to hear that Board is not blind to protests. The edifice will use natural lighting and ventilation to reduce energy consumption and will use pre-existing voltage switchgear to receive its power.

Literary fiction, essays, and poetry are usually several hurdles away from the mainstream. A significant portion is produced and published through universities (although this does not necessarily mean that the writing has no mass appeal). Television has consumed much of the cultural space that once belonged to reading. But one important hurdle keeping literature from the masses, and perhaps the easiest cleared, is price.

Hardback books usually cost around $25, paperbacks around $15. But even $15 can be a lot for working class readers (or students) to risk on the recommendation of a friend or review—what if you hate the book? The Internet has offered some encouraging solutions. For example, pop-culture essayist Chuck Klosterman has begun offering his essays for download at 99 cents each, mirroring iTunes’ price structure for music. When someone wants to sample Klosterman’s work, he or she can spend 99 cents instead of $15.

Why not apply this price structure to short story and poetry collections? You, the reader, will be more inclined to sample an author’s work on a recommendation; if you like it, you could “complete the book” for the rest of the $9.99. An author might lose whole-book sales at first, but they will be from readers who didn’t actually like her work anyway. To compensate, the author would certainly get more readers to try her work—readers that will pay 99 cents (or more) instead of not buying anything at all and letting the recommendation pass—and as a result may get many “completed book” sales and greater word-of-mouth promotion.

These prices make sense for now: a $9.99 e-book has a similar profit margin to a $25 hardcover book and a much higher potential sales volume. 99 cent stories or essays (and poems around 49 cents, since the typical poetry collection has about twice as many “pieces” as a short story collection) would be much more accessible to casual and less wealthy readers.

One literary magazine, Electric Literature, is making a similar push for more accessible literature. A subscription to the physical magazine costs $32 per year, or $8 per issue—a typical price for a literary magazine, but a psychological barrier for someone who wants to “try” literary fiction or read it casually. However, Electric Literature offers an electronic subscription (as a downloadable PDF file or via e-reader) for half that price. $4 per issue is much more affordable to casual and working class readers.

The bottom line is that cheaper fiction will reach more readers. If, through wider distribution, literary fiction and poetry could take back some cultural space (and the increased sales that come with it), making a living off one’s writing could become realistic for many more writers. More people who want to write would be able to and more people who want to read and think would be able to. And maybe, just maybe, a kid somewhere in America, right in the middle of a Jersey Shore marathon, will turn off his TV, go to a computer or e-reader, find a George Saunders story that a friend recommended, and read that instead.

The English language has been historically forgiving of nouns becoming verbs, friending and unfriending being the latest additions, but an increasingly common verbification is dumpstering. People who prefer free to cheap can, with a little digging (literally), find everything from food to furniture to electronics to books. Dumpstering doesn’t necessarily mean trolling the student neighborhoods around move-out day or raccooning your way to week-old burritos and moth-eaten lampshades in the back alley trash cans. Most grocery stores and coops throw out food, usually just past the expiration date, and while many have been clamping down on scavengers looking for a free meal–either by constructing tall fences around their dumpsters or installing video cameras as a deterrent–it’s still possible to pick up some after-hours groceries for free. This makes sense–food goes bad, or bad enough that you can’t sell it. What doesn’t make sense are other things that get tossed in the dumpster, namely, books. I don’t mean people in a hurry to move tossing one or two paperbacks in their trashcan (or hopefully recycling them). I’m talking about dumpsters overflowing with books–smutty romance novels and ancient Greek philosophy alike. I’m talking about the parking lot behind Half Price Books.

I first noticed this phenomenon walking to my car with an armful of books I’d purchased at the bookstore. There was a dumpster with its lid off in which a few lone childrens books were visible. Having been blessed with a healthy sized curiosity i poked my head in and began flipping through titles. A Half Price Book employee noticed my interest and gruffly told me that I was intruding on private property. Excuse me? You want to throw away hundreds of books in perfectly good condition, and I’m not allowed to save a few from their fate? Let’s just have a public book burning; the sentiment may not be the same but the disregard for literature is equally abominable.

I returned at the witching hour to browse the discarded books at my leisure. But there was already someone there, rifling through the contents of the garbage can. It was dark, it was eerie, but I had a fire in my belly so I poked my head in. After awkward introductions with the soft-spoken man knee-deep in books who introduced himself as Tom Clancy, I was welcomed to join in the veritable free-for-all. He explained that he comes every once in awhile to browse this free version of a bookstore, to add to his growing collection, all the while naming out titles he thought might interest me. I walked away with an armful of abandoned literature, though Tom Clancy was still busy, seemingly determined to make it to the bottom of the dumpster before trash collection.

The problem with this scenario is not that there are books being discarded, but that they are going to waste and not to bookshelves in bedrooms or libraries. Not that there are free books for the taking, but that it is made illegal to scrounge for literature. What’s up Half Price? We just want to love your abandoned books.

As a lifetime city rat, I’ve never had much interest in the way my food was produced. As a “foodie” (although I do hate that word), however, I’m supposed to know my locally sourced free-range organic grass-fed cow’s milking cycle like clockwork, lest my hard-earned street cred be revoked. So I, as broke college student, must balance my lofty ideals with the cold reality of my checking account when going for weekly groceries. So when I heard that, during a certain allotted time on Wednesday afternoons, a small room would open in the Andrew Boss Lab of Meat Science (I know, I thought the name was cool too) and I would be able to purchase my sweet, life-sustaining Feta cheese at a fraction of the price of a Co-Op’s, I understandably jumped at the opportunity.

The bus ride to St. Paul really isn’t all that bad, and while mildly confusing, the campus itself is fairly compact and winningly verdant, so what seemed like a potential odyssey on the outset became a rather pleasant jaunt. In the basement of this lab of Meat Science there is a veritable maze of hallways, walk-in-refrigerators and laboratories where actual mad science is being practiced, beakers and all. Once you’ve navigated the labyrinth you might meet Jodi Nelson, the Senior Lab Services Coordinator for the Dairy Salesroom. A genial woman with an office oddly stuffed full of gourmet rootbeer, test tubes, and various other snack foods, Nelson occasionally raises her voice to get confirmation from a coworker across the room on the historical accuracy of the facts she’s giving me.

By consensus, it was divined that the Dairy Salesroom was opened some time between 1958 and 1960 and serves as a way to sell off the projects of students in the dubiously named “Ice Cream Class” and “Cheesemaking Class.” For a CLA student, it’s rather difficult for me to imagine my final grade for a term hinging on my professor’s taste in vanilla, but I suspended a bit of disbelief and soldiered on.

Apparently, the department is awash with student-produced dairy product, and thus can afford to sell high-quality goods for discount prices, with the aforementioned kicker of only being open for two hours on a Wednesday every week. This, of course, leads to a line.

All sorts of people begin to queue up at roughly 2:45 outside the salesroom: older professionals, neighborhood residents, students and staff. Those in the line chat amongst themselves about favorite flavors and stories of how they discovered this little gem and when the doors finally open at 3 p.m. the line gently but firmly presses inward. The Salesoom itself is about the size of triple-dorm room, with a small table of free samples. The Housemade Chili Cheese M’s were delectably salty, something akin to what Fritos would be like if mom made ‘em. The “Brick” cheese was pleasantly sour and creamy, with a perfect soft, pop-able texture. The New World Bleu spread (one of the top sellers, according to Nelson) was a classic of the genre, tangy without being overwhelming while deliciously pungent.

I selected a few small chunks of cheese from behind the counter (assisted by Nelson herself) from a large variety of types and sizes, eventually settling on Feta, Colby Jack and Gruyere. The Dairy Salesroom will often sell small chunks of cheese, the size that can be finished in one sitting, for $1-2 with the knowledge than many students just drop by for a snack. Against a far wall lie two long refrigerator cases full of a multitude of ice cream flavors. My bewildered companion and I finally settled on “Black Raspberry Xplosion” and “Cookies and Coffee” and approached a couple of student-staffed cashiers to pay surprisingly little.

On our way out we stopped to talk to Kathryn Macziewski, a Retail Merchandise major and Kelly Rinehart, a Food Sciences major, about their ice cream selections. Rinehart’s “White House” (vanilla with Bordeaux Cherries) merited an “8.3 on a scale of 1 to 10,” whilst Macziewski’s Chocolate Peanut-Butter Truffle earned a more succinct “awesome, very good.”

My Cookies and Coffee ice cream promised Oreo chunks that were never realized but was otherwise delightfully rich. What it lacked in coffee flavor was made up for a pleasantly mellow cookie-chocolate mixture. My friend’s Black Raspberry Xplosion fared slightly poorer, earning a 6 out of 10 from her despite its charmingly authentic fruit flavor. The cheeses were all excellent, with the Colby Jack being the standout. The feta, while not made with the traditional goat’s milk, was still musty and delicious. The Gruyere was a study in subtlety, with a dry, nutty flavor that stood nicely next to the powerful tangy Jack.

So perhaps campus foodies who frequently find they’re eating themselves out of rent money have found a new savior in the Dairy Salesroom, a tucked away little secret in the sleepy eastern campus. If they’re smart, they’ll keep the word to themselves, because an opportunity this good will have campus lining up down the block.

New bike trails, more public gardens, higher emission standards, cleaner air, lakes and drinking water. These are just a few of the aspects Minneapolis Greenprint looks at, evaluates and fixes. Minneapolis Greenprint is a project run by the city of Minneapolis to improve and evaluate environmental conditions in the city and to continue to promote green energy. On April 5, Greenprint released its 2010 environmental report at city hall, which outlines through stats and graphs how the city has improved and tried to improve the city in a green fashion over 2009 and the last five years.

“Our environmental efforts go beyond the borders of this city,” says Greenprint project coordinator June Mathiowetz. Mathiowetz says the project started five years ago when the mayor and city council wanted to develop a community environment project to measure certain aspects of the quality of outdoors in Minneapolis.

The effort, funded by taxpayers, has required a large staff to track dozens of environmental standards in the city.

From where the city was five years ago to now, Greenprint has made big changes and advancements in certain aspects of the city. Minneapolis is the only city in the country to now accept electronics free of charge for curbside pickup, which promotes cleaner ways to dispose of some hazardous materials. According to the report, 800 tons of electronics were picked up in 2009.

The city dealt with heavy rainfall complaints where if flooding occurred, causing septic systems to possibly back up, water could become polluted. Through the project the city has done extensive work to make sure when there are heavy rainfalls the impact is minimal. They have also rapidly expanded the number of rain gardens in the city.

To promote cleaner air and reduce carbon emissions the city began the Northstar commuter rail, which was actually a direct impact of findings by Greenprint. The city increased its number of hybrid vehicles by 9 percent. The big improvement the city has seen is through their promotion of bicycling. According to the report since 2000 the total miles of bikeways in the city has increased by 34 percent. Now Minneapolis has been rated the number one city for the percentage of people who ride their bikes to work.

The number of bicyclists in Minneapolis is 20 times higher than the national average. University of Minnesota student and cyclist Nicole Muenchow says she is not surprised by the findings because the city does a great job in adding bike lanes and promoting less driving. “I’ve noticed that more and more people are biking to school, work or wherever. Now all types of residents seem to be out on their bikes and not just in fair weather.”

Greenprint has also been working with the U of M for its research. They don’t have the funding or staff to do most of the background research for many areas, so the researchers at the university provide the city with much of that information. They also work with them on the development of local food and compost projects.

Council Member Diane Hofstede was impressed by the findings. “This is a remarkable report. We have made incredible strides,” Hofstede says. “Now people can see how dedicated we are to alternative methods of transportation and energy.”

The report did find some failures. The Emerald Ash Borer is causing a losing battle against the city’s tree population and around the state. The city has to cut down trees faster than they can plant them, and it is hard to replace the canopy of one mature tree when multiple little ones need to be planted to replace its impact. There have also been issues with getting residents motivated and able to purchase solar energy for their homes. There was also a dip in regional transit ridership, possibly due to new higher costs.

Greenprint has bold visions for their future. They plan on increasing bikeways from 123 miles to 178 by 2015. They are working hard to retain the 148 green businesses in Minneapolis and vastly increase that number. They want to continue to promote local farmers while protecting the land they are using. They plan on encouraging homeowners to plant their own gardens, trees, and reduce carbon emissions inside their homes.

“We have to give the people the information they need to make an impact,” Mathiowetz says.
The environmental report is now available to pick up in city hall, and much of the information is placed online as well.

Whenever a natural, or not so natural, disaster happens within the city limits, there is usually an outpouring of support for whomever has been affected. But this large amount of support does not always guarantee that the affected people will remain in the same place. As the recent fire in South Minneapolis shows, no area of Minneapolis is safe from “white flight” and the degradation of the neighborhood that follows.

While currently one of the restaurants affected by the fire, Heidi’s, plans to reopen in the near future, no one knows whether it will be in the same location, or some far flung suburb where their insurance settlement will afford them a snazzier location and clientele.

The situation is reminiscent of the time when a tornado ripped down Park Avenue in the early 80s, destroying mansion after mansion and forcing hundreds of white people to flee to the suburbs. At this time, the suburbs included the furthest reaches of what is now South Minneapolis, and so the white people only had to go so far to settle in what is now Linden Hills and the surrounding area. And so Heidi’s was set up for success, surrounded by gourmet-food-hungry white people whose old gigantic homes had recently been destroyed and were now replaced with even bigger homes paid for by insurance money.

But then came the fire; we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it. The destruction was massive; four separate businesses were brought to their knees by this fiery force. While currently none of the affected businesses have publicly announced their plans to abandon this neighborhood for the promise of the good life in the suburbs, slowly but surely these once-local businesses will move their way out of their once-posh, toeing the line between urban and suburban neighborhood.

Already, the future is clear. Heidi’s and Blackbird will make their way further south, into the nearest reaches of Edina, and settle back into their swanky new digs and continue to flourish. Patina and its local goods store will cut its losses and move on with their three other metro locations, and possibly open a fourth in the Galleria near Southdale. This location would be perfect to reach its bourgeois clientele that live near the city, but not too close.

But what will take over this now-vacant space? My best guess is two mini-marts, both supplied with Halal meats, a botanica, and a Super America. Half of the residents of the neighborhood will be scared off by the very idea of Halal meats, with another quarter of the residents annoyed by all the “illegals” frequenting the botanica. The Super America will be put in only to add insult to injury; it will be easier for the youth of the neighborhood to buy their American Spirits and fill up their mom’s Volvos.

Soon there will be for-sale signs on every house in the neighborhood, and they will quickly fall into disrepair, seeing as the families who once lived in those homes will choose to cut their losses and move right in to their new suburban digs before their old homes have even sold. Houses will be broken into for their copper pipes, and accidental home explosions from accidentally cutting the gas lines while scrapping will become rampant. But the residents who used to run this neighborhood will have forgotten about this place by now, this place that was once their home has now become unrecognizable to them. They will vaguely recall their first homes in such a grandiose neighborhood while sipping their wine at Heidi’s new location on 50th Street and France Avenue.

by Zach McCormic

So, like most of you, I was shocked, appalled, angry, scared, disgusted, aroused and hungry when I heard the news via Twitter update that the block that contained the Malt Shop, Patina, Blackbird and Heidi’s had effectively burned to the ground on Feb. 18th. As a longtime Southwest Minneapolis resident (I grew up less than 6 blocks away), the news hit me pretty hard. Bryant and 50th, the stricken intersection, was quickly becoming the tastiest spot in all of Southwest, with the twin upstart cafés Blackbird and Heidi’s cranking out award winning cuisine, and neighborhood favorite The Malt Shop serving as an excellent cheap greasy-spoon alternative with serious ice-cream slinging skills to back up the salt. I remember countless times taking bike rides with my friends around the neighborhood and finishing it all up with what could very well be god’s own recipe for Hot Fudge Banana shake.

Stewart Woodman, owner of Heidi’s, was quickly becoming a jewel of the Minneapolis foodie scene. With a nomination for the James Beard Award under his belt for his work at the celebrated Levain, Woodman’s homey little café named after his wife was a racking up awards like nobody’s business. The Blackbird Café next door had the distinction of being one of Mayor R.T. Rybak’s favorite places in town to eat, and even Patina next door had an amusing array of nick-knacks and gifts for the garden party set.

Neighborhood residents can take some solace in the fact that The Malt Shop, in an adjoining building, was only lightly damaged by the fire and therefore will probably keep on serving shakes as the city crumbles around it. For the rest of the block, through the wonderful machinations of property insurance, the losses will likely be at least partially reinstated. Patina, a chain, still stands strong, with several other locations for you to purchase your ornate bird-feeders at. For Heidi’s and Blackbird things aren’t so rosy though. As a restaurant, they don’t really have Internet sales to fall back on or really any other way of making money while they wait for their space to be reopened. They live or die on the money they make in the kitchen. But fear not, southwest residents and friends: there is good news coming for prized cafes.

As often happens when tragedy strikes a beloved business, the charity and goodwill of the entire neighborhood is shining down on our stricken chefs. Donations have poured in from concerned citizens along with gifts of flowers and very thoughtful cards bought from another Patina location. A mysterious benefactor donated a hefty sum, cryptically signing the sizeable check with the words “your favorite crowd-surfer,”just days after the crisis, a fleet of Toyota Priuses converged on the intersection of 50th and Bryant, and a silent vigil was held. A neighborhood task force is being mobilized to take decisive action to aid the area’s businesses, as soon as they finish voting on a committee leader. So fear not Southwest foodie and let it echo from Washburn High, from the bottom of Minnehaha creek to the top of the Watertower, loud enough to hear in Edina: 50th and Bryant will live again!

By this point in the year most U of M students are probably so full of information from their various classes and the deluge of prior “Awareness Weeks” that the thought of attending any of the events in the Al-Madinah Cultural Center’s Islam Awareness Week probably seems like a chore, which is an utter shame considering that if there’s one culture the average American is woefully ignorant about, it would probably be Islam.

“The idea is to bring about awareness and give students a public face of Islam, rather than the negative portrayal they often see in the media,” Mohammed Hanif, the vice president of Al-Madinah says. Blame can reside with the mainstream media for a distinct lack of nuance in its coverage of Muslims or a variety of other parties, but the fact of the matter is that most Americans just don’t see much of the human face of Islam, which is something that Hanif and the Al-Madinah Cultural Center are actively working to change. According to Hanif, the event was a smashing success.

Islam Awareness Week featured a variety of events, mostly lectures and panel discussions based around key facets of Islam as well as current events in the Islamic world. Monday featured a lecture on the influential teachings of the Prophet Muhammed as well as a documentary film on the rise of Islam. Lectures on Islam’s contribution to the scientific community and medical ethics in Islam took place on Tuesday. Wednesday saw what Hanif claims to be the one most successful event of the week: an activity on the lawns of Coffman that allowed non-muslim women the chance to wear a hijab (traditional headscarf) for a day. “The hijab and niqab [facial veil] are the most obvious sign that a person is a Muslim,” says Hanif, “Muslim men are able to blend in easier in America since they don’t have to wear it, this activity let non-Muslim women experience the immediate identification that comes with wearing the hijab.”

Hanif cites Thursday’s lecture and discussion on Women in Islam as another popular event. “Our women in Islam event had our best turnout, it’s always a big topic for students,” he says. The often misunderstood and complex issue of women’s role in what, to an outsider, might appear to be an oppressive religion is exactly the kind of gray area Islam Cultural Awareness week seeks to shed light on. Thursday’s other event, a lecture titled “Does Islam Guarantee Human Rights?” also took a loaded topic head on. The week wrapped up with entertainment from local artists and members of Al-Madinah.

Hanif hopes that if U of M students took only one thing away from the week, it would be a better understanding of what Islam actually is, rather than the image American media has created for it. He encourages curious people to “go to the texts” and read the Qur’an for themselves rather than have a third party interpret it for them. Without bandying about clichés like “global citizen,” campaigns like Islam Cultural Awareness Week enrich the U of M, shedding insight and allowing students to have a personal connection with a culture most of us don’t fully understand.

Budget cuts have taken their toll on most government initiatives, but few have been hit as hard as those that aid the destitute. In the current fervor of health care reform, Pawlenty aimed to give the General Assistance Medical Care program—a state medical aid initiative serving the most impoverished and needy single adults—a “reform” that was to mesh with his trend of cutting healthcare provisions in favor of lowering taxes.

As of March 23, the GAMC was slated for the ax, due to repeated Pawlenty vetoes on bipartisan- supported Democratic renegotiations of the reform bill. Minnesota Health Care Programs include GAMC, MinnesotaCare, and Medical Assistance that provide aid to those who do not qualify for federal assistance. Minnesota Department of Human Services announced the same day that those who were on the GAMC program would still have health care coverage—they would be shifted to another MHCP. Before that date, a mandatory switchover to Transitional MinnesotaCare was in the works for most of those on GAMC. However, MinnesotaCare would have had to expand such that this mandate would only raise costs for patients and providers, and eventually deplete the standing Health Care Access Fund on which it is sustained.

MinnesotaCare carries a monthly premium, mandatory copays and a host of services available under most insurance plans, most notably alcohol and drug treatment, doctor and clinic visits, dental care, immunizations, surgery and prescription drugs. GAMC offers most of the same critical services without mandatory copays or monthly premiums—and so picks up those chronically poor and mentally ill Minnesotans who can’t afford copays and premiums but may need health care even more than MinnesotaCare members. Proponents of GAMC argue it is critical for these downtrodden that GAMC persists in some form.

Erin Murphy, a registered nurse-turned-State Representative and the champion for the continuation of GAMC, was tearful and outspoken on the floor of the Minnesota House. On March 25, Brian Lambert of MinnPost quoted Murphy, who said, “the people who live in the shadows of our society deserve care…and we have made that promise to them…[w]e have said that you still matter to us, and even though we don’t have a lot of money, we are going to make sure that you get the care that you need.” Due to the successful lobbying and bill tweaking of Murphy and her cohorts, Pawlenty was browbeaten into signing a modified GAMC continuation plan on March 26.

Maureen, who didn’t give her last name, is covered by GAMC. She caught wind of the impending closure of the program and raced to get a host of medical tests performed before the understood termination date of April 1, cognizant of the fact that she would be unable to afford the copays and premium of MinnesotaCare. The communications trickling out of the bureaucracy are apparently insufficient; she was unaware that GAMC had been extended.

Budget cuts being what they are, the GAMC is still due for extermination on June 1. It appears, however, that the Transitional MinnesotaCare got the ax that was originally intended for GAMC; a MDHS bulletin on April 1 instructed care providers not to approve Transitional MinnesotaCare beyond that date. GAMC benefits and eligibility criteria remain essentially the same except that a GAMC qualifier is no longer needed for eligibility. Said qualifiers include receipt of General Assistance, payment under Group Residential Housing, obtainment of disability income, homelessness and other institutionalized proofs of poverty. The MDHS states as of this issue’s press that GAMC benefits and acceptance will continue through May 31, at which point an as-yet unrevealed care coordination system will take effect.
If the destitute are to receive medical care, it must be provided with a reasonable understanding of their poverty level. Paul Farmer, a medical anthropologist—and a vocal advocate for an end to the structural violence that continually crushes the poor—writes in Pathologies of Power that “[i]n the name of ‘cost-effectiveness,’ we cut back health benefits to the poor, who are more likely to be sick than the nonpoor.” Erin Murphy witnessed enough structural injustice in her days as an RN that she asserted the necessary humanity on the House floor throughout March and shifted the tides of reform toward more compassionate shores. Murphy, her cohorts, and the rest of us Minnesotans now have the opportunity to affect how humane the outcome of the new care coordination system will be. Given this chance, we can determine whether this system will be adequate for those who may need medical care more than us, and whether it will help to mediate that structural violence that creates and sustains poverty.

The Music Education Building at the University was constructed in 1888 and is recognized today as part of the Old Campus Historical District.

Being the second building ever constructed on campus, the building comes with many forms of what the city now determines to be code deficiencies.

The building was first used as a center for the Student Christian Association before hosting a YMCA chapter, Child Welfare and Music Education departments.

After being vacated, the building was placed into a lay-away state in 1997. The building was closed for multiple State Building Code deficiecies, a failing roof system, physical inassecibility, lack of elevator, proximity to the roadway and lead and asbestos-containing materials throughout the building.

The University explored several reuses of the building during its lay-away status, including offers for use outside of the University.

Among these potential uses for the building were: a new Center for Disability Services, renovated classroom or seminar space, a University departmental or student organization office space, rental housing, scholars housing, a unique food service center (restaurant, coffee or snack shop), utility infrastructure or a storage building.

Neccessary restoration work is estimated to cost around $2.9 million. Because of the high expense of rebuilding for accessibility it is more financially feasible for the University to demolish the building.
President Bruininks recommended for the approval of the deconstruction and demolition of the Music Education Building last July 2009.

An Environmental Assessment Worksheet is required to be completed before deconstruction of the building. The worksheet notes certain materials will attempted to be preserved during deconstruction.
Salvageable materials identified in the Environmental Assessment Worksheet, such as the building’s exterior stone carvings, will be protected and stored either for reuse in a future University facility or used in an education or interpreteive setting. The latter of these potential uses will be completed with oversight by the Minnesota Historic Preservation Office.

Outside of indentified salvageable materials (of presumed historical value), all other materials will be salvaged or disposed at the legal responsibiltiy of the selected General Contractor, PCL Construction.
The deconstruction project remains in the environmental assessment stage so no scheduled date or time frame for demolition has been authorized.

Once the building is demolished, however, the University plans to extend East River Parkway vehicular, pedestrian and bike roads and trails to connect with Main Street SE just West of where Music Education now stands. It is hoped that better landscape features will be compatible with these new connections and increase pedestrian and bike traffic through the area.

When considering “hip hop”, what is the first idea or image that comes to mind? Perhaps 50 Cent appears, or maybe graffiti along trains, pimp cups, beat-boxers, break dancers, or those sunglasses that Kanye West insists on wearing. But if it is not too bold, perhaps imagine how Minneapolis and St. Paul connect with hip hop culture. Is that a stretch? Perhaps, but From April 9-11, the Weisman Art Museum will serve as a venue of creativity, connection, and empowerment for the Twin Cities’ hip hop community.

“From Vices to Verses: A New Era of Hip Hop and Action” is a three-day conference organized by the University of Minnesota student group Voices Merging, along with the Cypher Coalition, Substance, and numerous supporters from the Twin Cities, that is bringing some of the most influential and innovative voices in hip hop culture, including hip hop activist Rosa Clemente, journalist Bakari Kitwana, and spoken-verse poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph. The conference’s completely free weekend is filled with workshops, panels and performances. On April 10, a concert will be given at the Cabooze Club featuring Twin Cities artists like Toki Wright, Maria Isa, PosNoSys, Ill Chemistry, the Tru Ruts Crew with hip-hop legends Dead Prez headlining.

The goal of “From Vices to Verses” is demonstrating how hip hop pedagogy can be used to educate, empower and transform communities. This year’s conference will focus on three major issues in hip hop culture today: feminism and women’s roles in hip hop, hip hop as an agency of unity that is capable of crossing generational, national and cultural boundaries, and hip hop’s transformative and healing powers amongst individuals and communities. Anna Pirsch, co-chair of the Voices Merging student group, is very excited about the conference, saying “it is important because it is the first of its kind in the Twin Cities. It is a true collaboration of over 25 different partnering organizations.”

In Bakari Kitwana’s book The Hip Hop Generation, he says that he wants “the discussion of hip-hop [to go] beyond the music and cultural movement to consider the sociopolitical forces that birthed the generation itself. It [is his] hope that within that more enlightened climate we could find ways to empower our generation and effect positive social change.” This is the goal of the conference, to thoughtfully engage members in the local and global hip hop communities to work toward a stronger future and rejecting stereotypes, while inspiring new modes of social change.

For Pirsch, “the conference will remind us of the change we are capable of making, and it gives us a tangible way to do so.” This event will not only affect the Twin Cities, the Twin Cities’ hip hop community, or the global hip hop community, but it has the potential to transcend all communities—no matter the age, location, academic level, race, or sex—and establish a framework for social activism and sense of community. “From Vices to Verses” will bring an important dialogue to the local community; it is not just calling for change, it is starting the change, going from vices to verses.

Register at http://vicestoverses.com.