For the uninsured and economically vulnerable in Hennepin County, the number of healthcare options available may be dwindling. Last spring, Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed the General Assistance Medical Care program for the state, which provided $43 million in revenue to the Hennepin County Medical Center, the county’s safety net hospital that provides health care to vulnerable populations. The county has since proposed a 3 percent property tax to address this cut funding, but the 3 percent would provide only $18.7 million, leaving a $24.7 million funding cut to be absorbed by the center.

Dave Lawless, the Director of Budget and Finance for the county, says the 3 percent increase is likely to pass, though he added that it has yet to go through the reviewing process by the county commissioners.
Without regular access to health care, people allow their conditions to worsen until it becomes a catastrophic situation.

Lawless says the 3 percent increase was decided upon because it will cover roughly half of the vetoed $43 million. Though the county saw a need to address the funding cuts, there was a desire to have HCMC deal with the problem, according to Lawless. The county “is not willing to pay all of it,” he says.
Mike Harristhal, vice president of public policy and strategy at HCMC, underlined the ill effects of the funding cuts.

“The people who’ll be affected are people who are in very little position to help themselves,” he says. Many of those affected make less than $8,000 a year and are likely to be more concerned about paying for food than paying their medical bills.

Many people receiving General Assistance Medical Care through the state were able to use the insurance at private hospitals or clinics – the Hennepin County Medical Center is only used by about 30 percent of those who receive insurance through state general assistance funding. The choice to go to private facilities will no longer be available. As a result, more people will seek health care at public institutions like HCMC.

According to the Hennepin County Web site, the general medical care program provided care for around 26,400 low-income Hennepin County adults who didn’t qualify for other insurance programs in 2007.
Harristhal estimated that the number of uninsured in Hennepin County is around 100,000. In addition, Harrisal says he expects that more uninsured will end up in emergency rooms. Without regular access to health care, people allow their conditions to worsen until it becomes a catastrophic situation and they go to an emergency room, he explained.

State law requires emergency rooms to provide medical care regardless of whether the patient has insurance or money to foot the bill.

The cuts “could affect not only the uninsured but also the insured” that use the county facilities, Harristhal says, explaining that the trimming of various programs offered by the center could increase the time a patient has to wait to be seen. “We believe it doesn’t save money in the long run,” says Harristhal of the funding cuts, noting that the cutting of the general medical assistance may mean a tax increase for the public.

To address the funding cuts, HCMC is looking at the entire breadth of its programs for ways to reduce costs. The center’s CEO Arthur Gonzalez told the Twin Cities Business Journal they are considering shrinking or cutting programs such as medical education, behavioral health, medicine used to treat carbon monoxide poisoning, and its burn center. Additionally, Harristhal says it is likely that the health center will no longer accept uninsured people from other counties except for emergency room care. In 2002, the center served more than 25,722 unique patients from the other 86 Minnesota counties.

Lawless says that HCMC has done a fairly good job of cutting costs in past years.

General Assistance Medical Care will end on April 1, 2010. The program covers homeless people, who cannot receive state assistance via MinnesotaCare, a joint-funded state/federal health care program, because the program requires the patient to have a residence.

The Hennepin County Medical Center serves largely vulnerable populations – 64 percent of their outpatient registrations and 54 percent of inpatients are on Minnesota public programs.
The three percent property tax increase that would go to the county medical center is part of a slimmed down county budget. The 2010 $1.6 billion budget is down from $1.7 billion in 2009 and includes 163 job cuts, a hiring freeze, and the elimination of the Solid Waste Management Fee. Most county departments will have smaller budgets than in 2009. “These times have forced, but more importantly fostered, innovation within our organization,” says Hennepin County Administrator Richard Johnson on the budget.

As for the 3 percent property tax increase, Lawless says the county is being cautious with property tax revenues. He explained increasing numbers of building owners are trying to reduce the valuation of property. The owners file petitions that contest the county’s appraisal of the property. In 2007 there were 900 petitions, last year there were 1,200, and this year there are 1,800. The petitions take a few years to go through the court system, and while many won’t pass, they have the potential to decrease the county’s revenue from property tax.

The Seward neighborhood is bound on the north by I-94, on the east by the Mississippi River, on the south by 27th Street East, and on the west by Hiawatha Avenue. It’s an interesting place; a mixture of industrial grey and lush green. Matthews Park shares space with a factory row, the Hexagon butts up to empty lots full of broken driftwood and chipboard, murals dot the landscape and the dumpsters are plentiful fonts of bread and cookies. As many people are going home as are passing through and the old man in the window of the guitar shop never sleeps.

Believe it or not, some of the esteemed professors at the University of Minnesota spend a lot of time on Facebook. And Myspace. And Twitter. And Second Life. In spite of the obvious reasons why these professors are wasting their time on social networking sites, they aren’t griping about how silly their students are. In fact, they’re studying how their students and other people interact with each other online, and analyzing how we use various communication functions like forums, instant messaging, video and audio clips, posts, blogs and other common tools associated with today’s cutting edge technology. Yet social media studies is only one aspect of a broad range of interdisciplinary research going on in tandem with the Institute for New Media Studies, the U of M’s off-the-wall research tank that studies useful and beneficial components of society, like videogames, in order to understand how we communicate with one another.

The INMS, headed by Professor Nora Paul, is part of the New Media Initiative within the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Although funding for the institute was approved by the State Legislature in 1998, it was not until Paul was hired as INMS Director in 2000 that the institute began its work. Since its inception it has helped create and support a multitude of projects designed to examine new media and content, connecting researchers with vastly different backgrounds in the process. Nowhere was this more apparent than the recent New Media Research conference held at the U of M on Friday, September 18. About a dozen experts in fields ranging from graphic design to computer programming gave presentations on their compelling research.

“I got more and more intrigued about how technology was impacting the packaging and delivery end of the [media] process,” Paul says of how she ended up at the U of M. “So coming up here was a chance to really focus more on how technology is changing the ways that information and storytelling is being created.” Take Facebook for example. Dr. Christine Greenhow, a Learning Technologies researcher at the U of M, knows Facebook. She just finished one of several studies on how Facebook can be used as an educational tool for younger users. With funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Greenhow created the HotDish application with the creative team behind NewsCloud, a social media software provider and Grist, an online environmental magazine. HotDish is an environmentally-themed community app designed “to see if we could get young people coalescing around an issue…get them engaged in an issue,” Greenhow told the audience during her presentation. HotDish, which was built in about two months, allows users to post environmental stories, create application profiles, vote on stories posted, play games and organize environmental activities.

“It’s not just about content,” Greenhow says. “Social media is about the people.” Greenhow’s research focused specifically on how information flows through social networks, and whether a social network could engage younger users, increase users’ knowledge about an issue, build community and generate real world impact while promoting reading and writing practices.

Although about 2,000 people signed up for the application during the time the study was conducted (March 4-April 10), only 346 users fit the 16-to-24 year old qualification for the study. The site mined these users’ data, including how much time users spent on the application, how many stories they wrote, posted and read, the various environmental activities done and how often, and how many outside activities they planned or participated in. Despite the mass amounts of data, Greenhow found users had contributed about two-thirds of the content available on HotDish, and while a statistical increase of environmental knowledge couldn’t be measured among users, anecdotal evidence increased. To be fair, the users who joined HotDish already knew more about environmental studies than what could be measured nationally, according to Greenhow. Best of all, users claimed the site helped stir up activism, with less frequent users increasing interest in a variety of topics over a short period of time than more active users.

Of course, new media raises a variety of concerns over data privacy. How much information is too much? Jennie Lijewski, an information technology manager from University Relations shed light on the U of M’s continuing struggle to define the boundaries of data protection and privacy in social mediums. Comparing the impact of social networking to a dog yard, she challenged conference attendees to define the boundaries of how much presence the University could have online. Raising intriguing questions like whether a third-party social networking site can claim ownership over University-related logos and content, Lijewski did not elaborate on the U of M’s specific policies over social networking but rather focused on the decision-making process behind University policy, describing it as a series of never ending questions whose answers give way to more questions, from the definition of social networking on.

“It really becomes very, very clear this is not a cut and dried issue,” Lijewski says. Of course, the U of M isn’t the only public university struggling with this issue. According to Lijewski, Big Ten schools are still coming to terms with the same questions: Should university administration, staff and faculty have two separate accounts on social network sites, one for work and one for personal use? What constitutes appropriate behavior on these sites? What’s safe to disclose and what’s not? Should multiple units within a University department use multiple social sites, or should they all use one? What are the legal ramifications of using third-party sites? What protection do they offer? Who is held accountable? With all the questions, it appears the U of M must continuously play catch-up with making policy as new social networking opportunities surface, as the rules and boundaries of social networking constantly and consistently evolve.

INMS doesn’t focus entirely on social networking, however. Paul likes computer games, too. Not Street Fighter or Halo, per se, but the applicability of computer games and other virtual environments to education. In other words, how games can be used to teach people. Starting with the well-publicized “Harperville Gazette” simulation she helped create with SJMC Professor Kathleen Hansen, Paul’s work in simulation may reap great rewards for the U of M in the near future. The original idea for the so-called Journalism Game came from a technology and education conference where she heard Kurt Squire, a professor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, speak about a simulation of the American Revolution he had built using the engine that powers the popular PC role-playing game Neverwinter Nights. From there, Paul and Hansen wrote the scenario and script for a simulation tool using the same Neverwinter Nights engine designed to educate journalism students on basic information gathering techniques by having them cover a train derailment and chemical spill in Harperville, USA.

“We were really excited about the possibilities of it,” Paul says. “The reality of it, the logistics…it was clunky with some of the graphics…so we just couldn’t sustain it as a learning object. But we remained really interested in that kind of simulation space as a possible way to engage students, let them try it out and see what it feels like.” Paul also said the server space needed for the game would have presented problems in the Digital Media Lab as well. Paul may have found a solution in having the Neverwinter Nights model ported into online software called Thinking Worlds. Thinking Worlds is a flexible game engine, game build and tool kit that appears to be a higher graphic, better mapped version of Second Life. What’s more, it can be more easily controlled and scripted, allowing instructors to fine tune a student’s educational experience. Once the Thinking Worlds build is complete, the real research begins.

“There’ll be very rich opportunities for doing some comparative effects research,” says Paul. Of course, enjoyment and immersion will also be researched in order to see how effective a simulation can be in teaching students journalism skills.

Another component of Paul’s game research studies involves a Knight Foundation-funded project that allowed Paul and Hansen to explore the effects of making a general tool kit for an interactive web game that media outlets could post with current issues, hopefully engaging viewers of the web site.

“A lot of journalism-type games have been created, but they’re one-off,” Paul says. “The trouble with those was they were only good for that [particular subject].” Therefore, Paul and Hansen set out to make a “game template” that administrators could update with information on current issues. Out of five proposals submitted to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the proposal they found funding for involved making two separate games. One, which allowed players to assume the role of a staff assistant to a Senator in researching ethanol, was more of an interactive dialogue with different non-playable characters instead of a real game. The other game, “Explore a Topic” was more of a board and card game where players found the answers to different informational questions.

After designing a web site and online survey, Paul and Hansen found participants to view five ways information on ethanol could be obtained, including the two games, a traditional news story, a shortened news story, and a topic-organized page. Unfortunately, respondents found the topic-organized page the best of the information methods. According to Paul, although the board game was preferred over the interactive dialogue game, respondents basically said they didn’t want to work so hard to get the information they wanted. Despite the setback, Paul says she and Hansen are currently working with a company to make application software for mobile devices based on the board game which media administrators could update at their leisure. “You can do it about ethanol this week, you could do it about the state legislature next week, you could do it about fun places to go downtown the following week,” Paul says.

The next research project Paul wants to tackle may be the most ambitious yet. If nothing else, planning a virtual reality tour of the U of M would require much interdisciplinary cooperation from other University departments. Among the various topics of discussion, the Virtual Worlds and Video Games discussion panel bore discussion on mixed reality teaching tools. Greg Daigle, a teaching specialist from the College of Design, suggested an augmented reality tour for the U of M where prospective students could download a program onto their cell phones or other mobile devices and walk around campus finding markers that would send 3D models to a cell phone along with whatever other information University officials would want to appear. To demonstrate the technology, Paul had downloaded a similar program from Toyota that worked with pictures of Toyota-related images she had printed out. Once she held it up to a basic computer camera, the image then became a 3D model of a driving Toyota sedan. The model, textured and shiny, could also be broken down into parts which were also in shiny 3D bitmapping.

“That’s augmented reality,” Paul says. “If you could imagine, with a cell phone…if you were walking around and you see a symbol…it would take in the symbol” and create a 3D model of University maps, or perhaps an avatar of a University official. What happens next lies with innovative researchers like Paul and Daigle.

Although the New Media Research conference happened earlier this semester, another half-day conference will occur some time in February, in order to accommodate more University researchers and visiting scholars. That most likely won’t slow down progress on any of the research projects the INMS supports and creates. Innovation, like progress, won’t slow down so easily.

It’s difficult to blame the denizens of the world if they incur mental whiplash on the issue of climate change. The world has long been in uproar over the unsustainable nature of a system overburdened with contradictory demands in the name of ever-expanding productivity and the externalization of costs. Media rhetoric has an astonishing way of coming full-circle through discovery, investigation, popular spin and resolution precisely in sequence with the ebb and flow of sensational news cycles. Humans are, above all else, adaptive to their environment. We are the only species to shape the planet so deliberately and dramatically. Of course, the ultimate irony of this adaptability is our constant resurveying of the long-arbitrary line in the sand regarding the environment.

With a plethora of media increasingly available around the world, it has become comfortable and normal to supplement personal experience with the vicarious pleasure of staring at glowing rectangles. There are few locations globally that remain immune to rapidly-changing environment. The scale of this shift is hidden both willfully and subconsciously by the day-to-day rigmarole of life. One of the most potent symbols of human impact on Earth has been slowly uncovered over this decade: the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Invisible to satellites for years, this agglomeration has caught the attention of media all over the world. “Patch” in the singular is a misnomer, since the Pacific debris field is partitioned into two separate entities. “East”—closer to Japan and bounded by Midway Island, and “West”—roughly one thousand miles from California and directly northeast of Hawaii. This pattern is dictated by the North Pacific Gyre, one of five major current “basins” worldwide, falling at the immobile center latitudes of the great ocean currents that are vital to Earth’s thermodynamic distribution. Altogether, the North Pacific Gyre was estimated in 2008 to contain 100 million tons of trash, spread over a total area roughly the same size as the contiguous United States.

The composition of the patches varies somewhat based on the nature of the trash that is dumped there, but they maintain a baseline and increasingly-homogeneous composition. Primarily composed of ever-degrading plastics floating between thirty feet below and surface level, the Patch has been described as “garbage soup” by those who have witnessed it firsthand. Researchers have brought back samples of its composition, chronicled by year, and in fifteen years of sampling, the rate of sea degradation has accelerated at an astonishing rate. Samples of the Patch taken in 2008 were found to have a six-to-one ratio of plastic particulates to plankton. The world’s oceans have long been used as ultimate dumping zones with infinite volume and capacity, and the fundamental, widespread altering of open ocean so far from civilization has been eye-opening to world governments. 

The “trash vortex” in the Pacific—and similar agglomerations around the world—are not something which can be addressed overnight. Modern notions of instant gratification may come into conflict with progress on the issue.  “Cleanup” is regarded to be virtually impossible. The sheer volume of garbage, coupled with its extreme remoteness and legal ambiguity, makes cleanup unpalatable to all governments concerned. Given public indifference to other environmental issues, it seems safe to say that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will keep growing proportionate to excessive, open-loop consumption in the Northern Hemisphere.

There is no effective way to degrade or reuse this disparate plastic at this point in time. To wax poetic, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch represents the sum of every externalized cost that has been deferred to the world’s waterways. Activists assert that the very existence of the Patch challenges the old axiom that human activities are inconsequential to human environs. So far, the issue of waste in international waters has been like a game of hot potato. International commerce has not been particularly encumbered, and it’s very easy to ignore the fact that the composition of the oceans has been altered by particulates with no effective “yin” to their “yang.”

However, where there are massive problems, there are ambitious solutions. One of the most promising proposed solutions to the issue of non-biodegradable waste is the engineering of microbial life which would be instrumental in biodegradation. Summer 2009 saw new milestones in the effort to effectively compost polyethylene bags. In effect, bacterial cultures from landfills are isolated and contained in an isolated chamber.

In all, the composting process took as little as three months per bag, and required very little upkeep and no expensive or outlandish equipment. One widely-circulated experiment was carried out by a sixteen year old kid in Canada. The holy grail of these efforts is the creation of an organism that could survive the pressures of the open environment—without incurring unforeseen collateral damage in its “design.”

It would not be unprecedented for humans to rely on microbial life to do its dirty work. A huge range of processes utilize the unique characteristics of a wide range of bacteria. Alcohol fermentation, baking yeast, and pharmaceutical production are common examples. The introduction of human-engineered cultures into the wider environment may pose an enormous legal quandary, however. It is virtually impossible to determine the effect any organism will have within widely-varying circumstances, and liability concerns would likely be Line-Item One for any heretofore unproposed cleanup effort.

While history has shown that it is never wise to base predictions on the inception of unforeseen technologies, individual bacterium exist which are capable of performing the biodegradation process on synthetic plastics. These qualities are not widely prevalent or competitive in bacterial cultures worldwide, however, which underpins environmentalists’ long-standing concerns about the great length of the natural process. In all, it seems clear that no costly action will be taken until it has been judged to offset the prospect of further wildly uncontrolled collateral cost. As of yet, no longitudinal study has determined what the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has directly impacted.

The dietary uptake of “plastic soup” by local fish and bird populations has been documented, and has proven fatal to many local species. The Patch in the North Pacific Gyre is not solely responsible for the introduction of synthetic chemicals into the wider food supply. In strictly economic terms, the areas affected were not the most productive for human activity, and so critics have asserted that there is a certain tolerance built into the system. Regardless of the politics involved, any future efforts by humans to curb this problem will be widely followed and unprecedented.

If you’ve ever biked home only to see someone held at gunpoint in the middle of the street, you are very aware of the outlandish crimes committed in and around the Downtown area. The Minneapolis Police Force makes arrests and responds to calls every day. The general public does not generally hear about most of these stories, though they are readily available as police blotter. These are some of the most recent and preposterous stories that occurred in recent weeks.

Man Charged with Attempted Murder

Timothy John Murray is charged with, among other things, alleged attempted murder by the Hennepin County District Attorney’s office over an incident that happened on April 8, 2009.

Minneapolis police responded to an assault-related call from a home on the 1500 block of LaSalle Ave. Once there, they found the victim bleeding from a head wound. After receiving emergency treatment, she was able to tell police where Murray was.

According to the criminal complaint filed by the Hennepin County Attorney’s office, Murray allegedly beat the victim on the head with the end of a hammer after he became drunk during a visit at his house and the victim refused to have sex with him when asked. The victim told police Murray refused to let her leave and became enraged when she threatened to call 911 and started hitting her during the call.
Police found part of the handle of the hammer had broken off, allegedly during the attack. The victim sustained lacerations on her chest, head and hands.

When questioned, Murray told police he did not remember beating the victim but did remember wanting to have sex. He also admitted he was the only one who could have beaten her. Murray allegedly told the victim he was going to kill her during the attack as well.

Murray faces two counts of first degree attempted murder, one count of first degree attempted criminal sexual conduct and one count of kidnapping. If convicted, he could face up to one-half of a life term for each count of attempted murder, up to 15 years in jail, $20,000 in fines and conditional release for attempted criminal sexual conduct and up to 40 years in prison and $50,000 in fines for kidnapping.

Humphrey Center Bomb Threat Solved?

When someone called in a bomb threat at the Hubert H. Humphrey Center on March 25 last semester, they may not have been a college kid trying to get out of classes. Instead, the Hennepin County District Attorney’s office has filed terrorist threat charges against Denis John Opsal, 63, of Minneapolis.

Police believe Opsal had made similar calls several days prior to calling 911 on March 25. According to a criminal compliant filed by the Hennepin County District Attorney’s office, Opsal allegedly made two calls to emergency services on March 21 from a pay phone in the 800 block of Nicollet Mall claiming a bomb was placed at the State Capitol building.

Opsal called 911 again on March 25 from the same pay phone around 4 p.m., according to police, where he told police he had placed a nuclear bomb inside the Humphrey Center and it would blow up.

Police responded to a call Opsal made on March 27 from another pay phone, finding him at a transit garage. He told police over the phone about an encounter he had with a bus driver he believed was drunk and admitted to calling the police that day when asked.

After Opsal was taken into custody, Police reviewed several papers in Opsal’s possession, which contained words and phrases from the threatening 911 calls. Since Opsal’s voice and speech pattern is similar to the voice on the 911 calls, police believe Opsal made the calls.

Opsal faces one count of making terrostic threats, a felony. If convicted, he could face up to three years in jail and $3,000 in fines.

If you haven’t already noticed, there’s a new sport rapidly becoming more and more popular. It involves two men, some padding, an eight-sided cage and years of practice. It’s called Mixed Martial Arts, and it’s much more complex than two men simply punching each other’s privates for 15 minutes. That’s why The Wake is covering MMA in Minnesota this semester: MMA is a rising mainstream trend, and if you don’t already know about it, you will soon.

MMA is a sanctioned, regulated fight between two competitors skilled in a variety of disciplines. To win, a fighter must knock his opponent out, inflict enough punishment to make his opponent not intelligently able to continue fighting, submit his opponent using a hold, or last through all the rounds scheduled in a fight and be declared winner by judges’ decision. Although it sounds simple, it’s much more difficult to perform, evident since Royce Gracie, a 175 lb fighter, proved to the world that a variety of martial arts skills could master any one fighting style at the first Ultimate Fighting Competition in 1993.

Most Mixed Martial Artists learn a variety of different styles and techniques in order to compete in the ring, some specializing in sports in which they previously competed such as amateur wrestling, kickboxing or Muay Thai. Grappling, wrestling and striking abilities are a must for the mixed martial artist looking to compete at any level. The rules of MMA allow for all types of fighting styles to be used in the ring, although basic skills in martial arts like Brazilian jiujutsu, boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, taekwondo and wrestling are generally agreed upon as being most effective.

There are rules to MMA depending on which promotion a fighter is participating in, contrary to the popular mythology only encourages violence. Common rules, such as no biting, striking the neck, or striking the genitals (told you so) are generally followed throughout every promotion.

In Minnesota, MMA is regulated by the state Combative Sports Commission, which took over state MMA regulations in 2007. State regulations include stipulations like promoters’ licenses and testing for communicable diseases before MMA events and ophthalmology exams as well.

Although there are a multitude of gyms that teach MMA, there are only a few promotions in Minnesota that put on fights. Myth Nightclub still puts on MMA events despite its current legal troubles. Savage Entertainment, out of Savage, Minn., has put on MMA bouts about once every couple of months since 2006.

Interested yet? The closest MMA gym to the University of Minnesota is Cellar Kickboxing and Martial Arts on 2715 Fourth Street SE, owned and run by Chris Cichon, current IFK Light Middleweight World Champion and his brother Jon, a specialist in Muay Thai and Third Degree Black Belt in American Karate. Having recently come back to Minneapolis, Cellar offers classes in kickboxing, jiujutsu and MMA, along with promoting a large stable of kick boxers and Mixed Martial Artists. Their grand opening event on Oct. 13 will included free classes and seminars in cross-training as well as specific martial arts.
For more information on Cellar Kickboxing and Martial Arts, go to www.cellarkickboxing.com.

Coffee shops, it seems, were the first against the wall when the recession-panic hit. In the past few years, coffee shops and other small-scale eateries have been closing left and right. It’s particularly tragic because of the nature of these establishments; locally owned and operated businesses not only provide a homegrown alternative to obnoxious/rapacious chains and provide the sort of character that makes a city a city, they also serve as neighborhood community centers. Their closure marks not just the loss of another coffee joint but, rather, the changing of a community’s landscape.

Supporting local businesses, then, becomes more important than it ever was. As community members, the simplest contribution we can make is to support local businesses and ensure that our communities aren’t overrun by chains who have no interest in investing in our communities. If you’re a freshman or new to dinkytown, you might want to pay a visit to Bordertown at 16th and University, Espresso Royale at 14th and 4th, or Muddsuckers at Como and 15th. Over in Seward, there’s Hard Times Cafe at 19th and Riverside, Seward Community Cafe at 21st and Franklin and 2nd moon Cafe at 22nd and Franklin. Just, please, whatever you do, don’t just go to Starbucks or McDonalds. To paraphrase Tupac, they don’t give a fuck about us.

With that in mind, we present a visual salute to the disappearing institution of the neighborhood coffee shop.

While the 2010 election may still be well over a year away, Sixth District House of Representatives DFL runner Maureen Reed has hit the ground running while raising a little over $200,000 this last summer campaigning for Minnesota’s sixth congressional district. Reed, a native Minnesotan and graduate of University of Minnesota’s medical school, is an unknown in the political world but has been notably active in the Health Care field. Reed was inspired to run for office when President Obama opted to put Health Care reform at the front of the national agenda. Currently, very few members of Congress have experience in the field and Reed believes in order to provide real reform for Americans, experts like herself need to draft legislation. After being defeated in the 2006 lieutenant governor race she participated in Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s Health Care Transformation Task Force. She is also a member of the Medical Reserve Corps and lent a hand in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the 2007 35W bridge collapse. The Reed campaign has directed much of its attention towards health reform and believes the issues within our healthcare system are causing myriad problems for our society. The campaign states, “Health care affects education as it begins to swallow up more of the budget for schools and universities. It affects jobs because so many people’s insurance is tied to their employment.” The skyrocketing costs of health care has made it difficult for small businesses to expand and buried average citizens in unprecedented debt. Reed believes once we succeed in reducing costs by resorting a more prevention-based approach, money can be redirected back to areas that need it the most.

Reed’s Republican opponent, House incumbent Michelle Bachmann, has shocked and stunned audiences over the years and came under the national spotlight last October when she accused then-senator Barack Obama and other, unnamed government officials of holding anti-American views in an interview on MSNBC’s Hardball. While Bachmann has repeatedly been labeled outlandish for her behavior by both sides of the political spectrum, she’s proven to be a formidable opponent in the realm of state politics. The 6th District includes Anoka and Benton county, covering the St. Cloud area and ending at the Wisconsin border with Washington County. Considering the overwhelmingly conservative mentality of the district, Reed’s stance on abortion may also be a barrier to success. In a recent interview with MinnPost, Reed stated although she does not seek to overturn Roe v. Wade she does not label herself as pro-choice but rather “pro-health and pro-prevention.” Michelle Bachmann has outwardly spoken against abortion rights and repeatedly voted against expanding embryonic stem cell research.

The Reed campaign will have to take a unique approach to ensure success where other Democratic leaders have fallen short. In 2006, after claiming she was summoned by God to run for office, Bachmann defeated DFL Patty Wetterling for the house seat. The 2008 election, however, she proved to be more vulnerable but still triumphed, defeating Elwyn Tinklenberg by a 3 percent difference. Campaign Manager Jason Isaacson says, “We cannot run another DFL campaign that relies on calling Michelle Bachmann crazy” and that “Reed is the right candidate at the right time in the district.” In addition to her aforementioned experience in the medical field, Reed has experience in running businesses, was the chair of the Board of Regents here at the U of M and a practicing physician working with under or uninsured patients for over a decade.

Circling a dimly-lit bar crowded with trendy twentysomethings, listening to talk of spring lines and independent boutiques, I feel a bit lost. Watching Zoolander is about as close as I’ve come to high fashion before this and it’s hard not to think of the vapid, self-congratulating models and designers of that movie as I weave among the denizens of the Twin Cities’ fashion world. The DJ spinning “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood—was that a deliberate reference?—doesn’t help.

But as I keep talking to the attendees of this Preview Party for MNfashion Week, held at AZIA’s Caterpillar Lounge on April 9, I realize they have nothing in common with Zoolander’s fashion stereotypes. For one thing, not one of them looks a day over 30, and they pass words like “organic” and “localization” back and forth with their business cards. One young model tells me of his plans to go to India to shoot a documentary promoting organic farming there. Another pauses in her catwalk stride across the room to talk about her job as a producer for public television. Clearly, the Twin Cities’ growing fashion scene isn’t just about looking pretty. It’s about celebrating young, up-and-coming designers, being socially and environmentally conscious and giving back to the community.

MNfashion Week’s main event is Voltage: Fashion Amplified, called by model Joy “the funnest event of the year.” The show, now in its fifth year, highlights local music as well as fashion. Part of its stated mission is “providing a national forum for local talent.” This year’s show, on April 24 at First Avenue, features 12 designers and 5 bands.

Tickets for the show are $25 in advance and $30 at the door, but it’s for a good cause. The nonprofit organization plans to set aside this year’s proceeds toward the development of a sewing co-op. The goal of Voltage in general is to provide young local designers with education, resources and opportunities.

“The whole point of Voltage is to pick up a designer and get them up and out,” says designer Laura Fulk. That’s Fulk’s own success story: her designs were the finale of last year’s Voltage show. This year, she hosted her own solo show.

“It’s hard. I don’t know a single designer who sleeps at night,” Fulk says. For her and other designers, though, fashion design has been in their blood for years.

“My mom always sewed, and when I was a kid, I hated it,” Fulk says. “In high school, I got really into the illustration end. I loved the idea of taking a drawing and making it into something physical, something pretty.”

Designer Arwyn Birch speaks similarly about growing up sewing with her mom. For her, she says, getting into fashion “wasn’t an option.”

“I always knew I wanted my clothes a certain way,” Birch, who has been designing “seriously” for about a year and a half, says. “Someone commissioned me to make a pair of pants and I thought, if I can do that, I can do anything.”

Fashion wasn’t every designer’s first choice. Kaja Foat, who designs with her twin sister Zoë, says that the two of them “fell into the business” when they were working as yoga teachers and started making their own yoga clothing. “It wasn’t until two or three years ago that we decided to actually do this as a career,” Foat says.

The sisters’ company now includes bridal and couture lines in addition to active wear. They’re also part of a trend toward green and organic design, using donated and recycled fabrics. “We make them into something completely different,” Foat says.

Foat is one of the designers who speaks excitedly about the growing local presence of Voltage and MNfashion Week. “I’ve lived in so many different cities, and I do feel that Minneapolis has such a look and such a scene that we’re just going to go crazy once we’re on the map,” she says.

That’s the inspiration behind Voltage itself. Anna Lee, described as a “goddess” by one of the models, started MNfashion six years ago. She serves as its executive director and produces the Voltage show. “I got involved because I am a designer and I wanted to see things happen differently for designers in the Twin Cities,” she says. “It’s a community effort that is really starting to take off.”

Since then, what was initially “Fashion Weekend” has expanded to a week, and Voltage has become the largest regional fashion event, self-described on its Web site as “the Midwest’s premier rock and fashion show.” And from what the participants say, Twin Cities fashion is just taking off.

“I wouldn’t really call myself a fashionista,” Anna Lee says. “What’s exciting about what’s going on in Minneapolis is there are so many kinds of fashionistas. You don’t have to be—for lack of a better term—highfalutin.”

As for what local fashion has to offer this season, answers vary. Laura Fulk, whose solo show is called “Suffocate,” collaborated with a painter and a tattoo artist to create designs that were digitally printed onto her fabrics. Arwyn Birch describes this season’s look as “very Mad Men, early ’60s,” saying, “My mind is really focused on bright bold solids, geometric black and whites.” Kaja Foat sees a “punkish vibe all over the board.”

Voltage is about the music as well as the fashion, and this year’s show offers a top-notch slate of local bands: First Communion Afterparty, Mercurial Rage, Gospel Gossip, Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles, and Maria Isa.

Charles Gehr has worked for two years as the music director for Voltage. It’s his job to choose the bands for the show, and he does so by “spending most of the year going to concerts, listening to music and listening to who people are talking about.”

“We like for the musical styles to be very diverse,” he says of the criteria for choosing bands. “It’s about being fashionable, but ultimately just making sure it’s really good music.”

The bands get to be part of the fashion, too. Birk Gruden, who does screen printing, was hired by Voltage to design pieces for Mercurial Rage, and Voltage stylists help with hair and makeup.

For bands like Maria Isa, the 13-piece group headlining Voltage this year, being part of the show is an honor. “Maria’s been working for the past 20 years,” says Jose Rico, the band’s manager. “This is a culmination of all that work, day in and day out.” Rico says the band jumped at this “opportunity to celebrate fashion.”

The same opportunity appealed to Nick Nguyen, the sponsorship coordinator for Voltage. Nguyen’s family owns the Tea Garden, and he became involved in Voltage through his sister, who owns clothing store Design Collective. “This is promoting the local arts and culture scene, and I want to be part of that,” he says.

That might be the most significant trend of all this Fashion Week: the expansion to include more and more local businesses and news sources as well as designers. “So many more people are participating this year, and there’s lots of networking,” says model Joy. MNfashion works to bring together designers, bloggers, boutique owners and students, and it’s largely their efforts that have brought the Twin Cities fashion scene to the brink of exploding nationally.

Our most recent food field trip was to El Meson, a tiny Spanish-Caribbean place at 35th and Lyndale. The restaurant has been around since the 1980s, but changed ownership in June of 2003. While we arrived hopeful, our nostrils filling with the perfume of well-seasoned grilled meats, our experience turned out to be a rapid descent into a whirlwind of disappointment.

Our server (we’ll call him Lurch) assured us he’d be back in a few minutes to take our drink order. However, a few minutes of admiring the crimson and avocado color palette in the cozy cave-like space turned into 20 parched minutes of waiting. And waiting.

For Lurch’s convenience, we placed our entire dinner order all at once. After we sat for over 30 minutes, our sangria and tamarind juice finally turned up. Soon after—miraculously—came the pastelillos (small, cheese-filled empanadas) to start. For entrees, we ordered Arroz con Gandules (rice with pigeon peas) for Maggie and the Asado (pork tenderloin with roasted sweet potatoes, in a fennel-asparagus cream sauce) for Emily.

The first bite of the Arroz was pretty damn salty. Like, a salt lick in the middle of the ocean, salty. It turns out that this was the only seasoning in the dish, despite a few specks of cilantro trying desperately (and failing) to add another layer of flavor. The Asado was prettily piled with soft, sweet fennel, but even the delicate, buttery sauce surrounding it couldn’t make up for the fact that the dish was on the chilly side.

After our meal at El Meson, we would be hard-pressed to see the charm in much beyond the candle in charge of lighting our table, no matter how many years of business the restaurant might boast.

Lighting Round: Quick, opinions! Lightning is dangerous!

Refreshing: the house-made sangria, floral and citrusy– perfect after an obscenely long wait at the table.

Thoughtful: our ice-less water. We’re happier without cold teeth and crowded cups.
Like Totino’s® Pizza Rolls: the pastelillos. Enough said.

Frustrating: the server that got away—the man attending a nearby table seemed much more attentive than Lurch.