MinnPost
A THOUGHTFUL APPROACH TO NEWS
in
Print
Read more at
www.minnpost.com
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008
Ethanol reduces need for imported oil, but energy savings are costly
The government pays 51 cents of the cost of every gallon of ethanol you buy. Is ethanol worth it?
Third of four articles
In Canada about 600,000 cars
By MARK NEUZIL
could run on E85 but there are
Ethanol is expensive for the taxpayer. The
federal government pays 51 cents of the cost of
every gallon of ethanol you buy. Then there’s a
54-cent-per-gallon protective tariff on imported ethanol. In Minnesota, there’s a state subsidy of about 13 cents per gallon of the biofuel.
And that’s only the beginning of the assistance
for an industry its critics say would not exist in
its present form without government help.
only two stations in the entire
country to buy it. Minnesota,
on the other hand, leads U.S.
By JACOB VALENTO
A POET employee monitors an incoming load
of corn that will be manufactured into ethanol.
Is ethanol worth it?
Any discussion of the economics of ethanol
has to include the cost of importing oil from the
Middle East. The costs – in human life, dollars,
national security – of maintaining the flow of
cheap fuel are staggering. Isn’t anything we
can do to reduce the use of that oil an economic
good?
The answer is not a simple as it may appear:
the policy choices that assist in energy independence are controversial, expensive and not
without winners and losers.
Using less oil – conservation – is the most
logical solution, and yet it has been among the
hardest to achieve. For example, the average
miles per gallon for the American car has remained flat since 1980, while the average commute to work is up 20 percent.
“What if, instead of 22 miles per gallon, all
our cars got 44 miles per gallon? Then we save
half the oil,” said Michael Noble, executive
director of Fresh Energy, a St. Paul-based nonprofit that focuses on energy and environmental
issues.
Other forms of conservation, including mass
transit and plug-in electric cars, should be job
one, he said. “Let’s do these other smart things
first, then have biofuels do the balance of the
problem.”
Ethanol, as a fuel additive to gasoline, has
been positioned as an alternative to foreign oil
and an economic benefit to rural America. Almost all of it is made from corn, which the United States is very good at growing. (In Minne-
states in E85 pumps with
more than 330.
sota, about 25 percent of the 2008 corn crop will
go into ethanol production. But the economics
of ethanol production and use are complicated.
Ethanol is not as efficient as gasoline. A gallon of E85, which is 85 percent ethanol and 15
percent gas, contains 24 percent less energy than
a gallon of gas. This means that your flex-fuel
(runs on gas or a blend) ’07 Chevy Tahoe gets
15 miles per gallon running on E85 and 20 mpg
on regular gas, according to the Environmental
Protection Agency. A counter claim is made in a
recent study, funded in part by the industry, that
reports E20 and E30 mixes get better mileage
than regular unleaded gasoline.
continues on page 4
INSIDE
Bound to be broke?
Author Louise Erdrich opened her store in
Minneapolis when other independents were
shutting down right and left. For years, a little note at the bookseller’s register indicated
the store was losing about $5,000 a month.
Yet Erdrich serenely carries on, hosting
readings and even launching a small press.
Now that manager Brian Baxter is retiring,
Erdrich’s daughter and another employee
will assume his duties and try to beat the
odds. page 5
MINNPOST.WORLD
Baseball star Roger Clemens
and his attorneys are employing a high-profile, high-risk
legal and public relations
strategy intended to salvage
the Cy Young Award winner’s
reputation and keep prosecutors at bay. But will it work? page 2
COMMUNITY VOICES
Northern light helps people
see clearly, even through
change. page 8
CHRISTINA CAPPECHI
Forget handwriting analysis.
What does your typeface say
about you? page 6
DOUG GROW
New Hampshire votes change
the mood in Minnesota.
page 3
STEVE BERG
Seeing juvenile violence
as a threat to public health.
page 7
MinnPost in Print, published weekdays at lunch hour, contains highlights of MinnPost.com
– high-quality reporting by top Minnesota journalists of news that matters.
Promote your business or honor someone special with a message in this space.
Contact swaterman@minnpost.com.
MinnPost in Print
A THOUGHTFUL APPROACH TO NEWS
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008 • www.MinnPost.com PAGE 2
MINNPOST.WORLD
Clemens makes his pitch, but skeptics aren’t convinced
By DOUG STONE
First the YouTube denial. Then the “60
Minutes” interview with Mike Wallace.
Then the lawsuit against his main accuser.
Then the rather strange tape-recorded conversation with his main accuser replayed for
the media.
Baseball star Roger Clemens and his attorneys are employing a high-profile, high-risk
legal and public relations strategy intended to
salvage his reputation and keep prosecutors at
bay. But will it work?
Will the public believe that the seven-time
Cy Young Award winner didn’t take steroids
and human growth hormones as his former
trainer Brian McNamee alleged in the Mitchell report? And will Clemens, who refused to
talk to former Senate Majority Leader George
Mitchell and his investigators who prepared
the report on steroid use among major leaguers, be able to keep his story straight in front
of Congress and lawyers taking his deposition in lawsuits?
So far, anyway, Clemens has not convinced
the skeptics.
A whiff on ‘60 Minutes’
“If McNamee is to be believed, you did what
a lot of us would have done,” writes Richard
Justice in the Houston Chronicle, explaining
that McNamee has said he injected Clemens
with steroids when his career appeared to faltering. “Now you’re fighting a battle you might
not be able to win. During games, you were at
your best when things looked hopeless. You
worked hitters, umpires, crowds. You almost always found a way. You haven’t shown the same
kind of doggedness this time. You want the benefit of the doubt, but you haven’t behaved like
someone who deserves it.”
Mark Starr writes in Newsweek.com that
“Clemens seems to think the public owes him
because he was the greatest pitcher of the modern era when how he became the greatest pitcher
of the modern era is exactly what is in question
now. And his whiff on ‘60 Minutes’ portends an
even bumpier time of it for Rocket Roger next
week when he is expected to appear – under
oath – before a Congressional committee.”
Walter Parker, a communications adviser
with PR firm Weber Shandwick, is aghast at
Clemens’ public appearances.
“I can’t for the life of me understand the apparent strategy behind talking to your primary
accuser, secretly taping that conversation, making it public when the tape adds nothing but a
measure of sympathy for the other guy, dismissing the Hall of Fame to the people [reporters]
who will vote on your admission and ‘losing it’
and walking out of your own press conference,”
Parker told MinnPost.
“Since communication is mostly nonverbal
anyway, this is a situation in which less is truly
more,” he added. “If it’s not true, say it’s not
and look people in the eye. Steadily, calmly,
resolutely. Don’t overtalk it, don’t characterize
the accuser, don’t add oxygen to the fire. But
that denial had better be true. Ask Bill Clinton.
If you did it, say nothing or say you’re sorry and
live with the consequences.”
The legal defense
And from a legal perspective, the Clemens
team, at least at this point, is faring no better,
according to Minneapolis libel attorney Paul
Hannah. He argued in an interview that he
would have advised Clemens to talk to Mitchell. Now that he passed on that option, Clemens probably has no choice but to fight it out in
public, a very risky endeavor, Hannah said.
“I listened to him say the trainer injected
him with vitamin B12 and lidocaine [a pain
killer] and I don’t think people believed him,”
Hannah said. “Sooner or later someone is going to catch him [in an inconsistency or misstatement] and then he’s got trouble, then he’s
got a Barry Bonds problem, perjury charges.”
One aspect that is bothersome to some
people is the belief that Bonds was somehow
being smeared in the Mitchell report, accused
of misdeeds by one man.
“The idea of due process has indeed been
totally flipped on its ear,” writes Michael Geffner in the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., “to where merely being accused
of something is taken to quickly, so easily,
so unquestioningly as cut-and-dried proof, to
By SHANNON STAPLETON, Reuters
New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens
says he’s innocent. But will people believe
him?
where you’re flat-out-guilty until proven innocent, to where by simply having your name
appear in an official report is enough to ruin
you forever.”
Clemens will be playing perhaps his toughest game in the weeks ahead as he and his lawyers try to convince a disbelieving public that
he is innocent while avoiding potentially serious legal problems concerning the statements
he makes in his own defense.
Doug Stone is director of College Relations at
Macalester College in St. Paul and a former
reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune and assistant news director at WCCO-TV. The views in
this article are not those of Macalester College.
“ Clemens seems to think the public owes him because he was the greatest pitcher of the
modern era when how he became the greatest pitcher of the modern era is exactly what is in
”
question now.
– Mark Starr, Newsweek
MinnPost in Print
A THOUGHTFUL APPROACH TO NEWS
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008 • www.MinnPost.com PAGE 3
Wins for Clinton and McCain dramatically change the moods of Minnesota activists
DOUG GROW
People voted in
New Hampshire
Tuesday and changed
moods throughout Minnesota.
Oh, what a difference a few
hours made.
Tuesday morning, for example,
Sandra Peterson, a DFL state
representative from New Hope
and a Hillary Rodham Clinton
supporter, was down.
“People are pretty discouraged,’’ Peterson said Tuesday
morning after polls showed
Barack Obama with a comfortable
lead. “She’s so smart, so strong
and capable. I get concerned that
she’s facing a gender issue and
Obama is so charismatic.’’
By Tuesday night, however,
with Clinton topping Obama 39
percent to 36 percent, Peterson’s
mood had changed completely.
“They both have wings now,’’
Peterson said of Clinton and
Obama. “It’s an even start again.
People (Clinton supporters) were
pretty discouraged. People would
ask me, ‘What can we do?’ Now
you can say, ‘We can get out and
work.’ If Germany and England
can have women as leaders, we
can, too.’’
There was less raw emotion
in Minnesota on the Republican
side, where Arizona Sen. John
McCain resurrected his campaign
with a solid victory over Mitt
Romney, as polls suggested.
Results showed MCain with 37
percent, Romney with 32 percent
and the others far behind. The
Mike Huckabee supporters had
no expectations for New Hamp-
shire. Romney’s supporters, well,
they’re sort of a quiet bunch.
While new life was breathed
into the Clinton campaign leading
up to the state’s Feb. 5 caucuses,
Obama supporters were on a different emotional ride.
Obama supporter goes from
giddy to worried
Tuesday afternoon, Ralph
Remington, a Minneapolis City
Council member who had gone to
Iowa to work for Obama, was in
an almost giddy mood. His candidate seemed to be on the verge of
almost locking up the Democratic
nomination.
“I never thought I’d see this is
my lifetime,’’ said Remington, a
black man.
Laughing, he even cracked
a joke. “Leave it to you white
folks,’’ he said. “You’re going to
give it to us when it’s broken.’’
After the New Hampshire
votes were counted, Remington’s
tone changed. There was so much
work ahead.
“It’s going to be difficult,’’
he said. “The Clinton machine
is very strong. Women broke for
Clinton. He’s alive and kicking,
but I can’t help but wonder if race
is an issue.’’
Victory boosts McCain
supporters
Meanwhile, for Minnesotans
supporting McCain, there was a
deep sigh of relief.
Dave Kleis, mayor of St.
Cloud and a McCain man, said he
simply toasted his candidate with
a glass of wine when the networks
declared him the victor in New
Hampshire shortly after the polls
closed.
The win will pump new staying power into the McCain campaign in Minnesota, Kleis said.
“There were some people who
didn’t jump ship, but they were
getting close,’’ Kleis said. “I think
this puts us in great position.’’
Kleis had gathered with some
friends, not all of whom were McCain supporters, to watch the New
Hampshire results.
“We had some pizza, some
brownies, some wine,’’ Kleis said.
“It was like getting together to
watch the Super Bowls. No, not
the Super Bowl, but the playoffs.
There are still more games to play
before we get to the Super Bowl.’’
It’s risky business to compare
politics and football. After all,
we’re supposed to take one of
those seriously. (That’s politics,
Vikings fans.)
State’s political landscape
looks like football field
Yet, the temptation is hard to
resist. Minnesota during this presidential selection process looks
like a massive football field.
You had Obama breaking into
the open, fans delirious, then,
suddenly, oops. Down he goes.
There’s Bulldog Clinton, after
being stunned and woozy, back on
her feet and looking tough again.
There’s Rudy Giuliani on the
sidelines, his supporters wanting desperately to see him in the
game. McCain,the gutty fullback,
plunging onward. Huckabee, the
phenom out of nowhere, attracting great excitement. Romney
and Edwards, who look like
All-Americans, but so far appear
to be nonfactors when the whistle
blows.
So, if we’re going to go with
this analogy, who better to talk to
than John Gagliardi, the legendary coach at St. John’s University
who in 59 years of coaching has
won more games than any college
coach ever?
“You don’t get as much
gratification from the wins as you
do pain from the losses,’’ said
Gagliardi.
Read the complete story at
www.minnpost.com.
Your ad here!
MinnPost inPrint
MinnPost in Print includes highlights of MinnPost.com, a new daily
providing high-quality journalism for people everywhere who care about
Minnesota. MinnPost in Print is distributed at selected locations in the
Twin Cities, but anyone can print a copy from a PDF available at www.
minnpost.com. Visit the website for audio, videos and more stories.
We believe that high-quality journalism is not just a consumer good; it’s a
community asset that contributes to the health of our democracy and the
quality of our lives. Please consider making a donation to MinnPost,
a nonprofit enterprise.
Joel Kramer, CEO and editor
Contact us: info@minnpost.com • Advertising: swaterman@minnpost.com
Your message can appear
in MinnPost in Print or online
at www.MinnPost.com
or both
Contact Sally Waterman, director of advertising,
at 612-455-6953 or swaterman@minnpost.com.
MinnPost in Print
A THOUGHTFUL APPROACH TO NEWS
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008 • www.MinnPost.com
PAGE 4
Ethanol reduces need for imported oil, but energy savings are costly
continued from page 1
Including all the subsidies, E85
is cheaper at the pump than gas.
According to AAA, the national
average price for E85 in December
was $2.42 per gallon, compared to
$2.99 for regular unleaded.
Does the lower price make up
for the reduction in gas mileage?
It can, but you have to search for
E85 pumps and stop to fill up
more often.
“In my state, we’ve got 16,000
or 17,000 flex-fuel vehicles,” said
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. But
“we’ve got only 23 places where
you can pull up and say, fill it up
with corn.” In Canada, according
to CanWest News Service, about
600,000 cars could run on E85 but
there are only two stations in the
entire country to buy it. Minnesota, on the other hand, leads U.S.
states in E85 pumps with more
than 330.
“One of the best ways to encourage lower E85 prices is to
work to install more E85 outlets
across the country,” said Mark
Hamerlinck of the Minnesota
Corn Growers Association. “In
general, areas where there is more
competition for E85 business tend
to have better E85 prices.”
Biofuel users can feel better
about their carbon footprint – that
E85 Tahoe will emit 2.2 fewer tons
of carbon dioxide per year than
the gasoline version. And there’s
less foreign oil in your tank.
Minnesota has required that
all pumps in the state offer a 10
percent ethanol blend (E10) since
1997. That requirement jumps to
a 20 percent blend by 2013. Gov.
Tim Pawlenty is a big ethanol supporter; he has challenged his fellow governors to adopt the Minnesota standard (“E10 by 2010”).
That biofuels, and E85 in particular, are important in Minne-
sota was illustrated in the 2006
gubernatorial election. Answering
a question from a reporter a week
before the election, Democratic
Lt. Gov. candidate Jodi Dutcher
did not recognize the term E85.
Her running mate, Mike Hatch,
said the gaffe was one of the reasons why they lost to Pawlenty
and Carol Molnau.
Ethanol production
Another question in the economic equation centers on the cost
efficiency of ethanol production.
Scientists examine the “energy
balance” in fuel – how much goes
in and how much comes out. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture
concluded “the net energy balance of biofuels is positive (energy output is greater than energy
input), but estimates vary widely.
Net balances are small for corn
ethanol and more significant for
biodiesel from soybeans and ethanol from sugarcane and from cellulose.”
A study by University of Minnesota scientist David Tilman
suggests that 20 percent of each
gallon of ethanol is “new” energy.
“That is because it takes a lot of
‘old’ fossil energy to make it:
diesel to run tractors, natural gas
to make fertilizer and, of course,
fuel to run the refineries that convert corn to ethanol,” he wrote in a
Washington Post op-ed piece.
There are scientists who disagree. Chief among them is David
Pimentel at Cornell University,
who published a study in 2005
with Tad Patzek of the University of California-Berkeley that
showed a net energy loss of 29
percent in ethanol production. His
critics say he is using old data.
Subsidies
The total amount of subsidies
for ethanol is hard to determine.
Pimentel argues that the sum of all
government subsides on a gallon of
ethanol is $3. A 2006 study for the
International Institute for Sustainable Development puts the range of
subsidies at $1.05 to $1.38 per gallon, depending on the state. “Such
high rates of subsidization might be
considered reasonable if the industry was new, and ethanol and biodiesel were being made on a smallscale, experimental basis using
advanced technologies,” the report
said. “But that is not the case: they
are being produced using mature
technologies that, notwithstanding
progressive improvements, have
been around for decades.”
Grants, tax breaks, lending
and credit programs, funding for
research and development, and
usage mandates vary from state
to state. Minnesota is among the
most generous states in aiding the
industry. For example, as part of
a $15.1 million annual program,
Minnesota paid many refiners 13
cents per gallon (payments are
capped per producer) for ethanol
in 2007. In 1993 the state created
a $3.5 million loan program (at 6
percent interest over seven to 10
years) to assist in the construction
of seven ethanol plants. Another
program, totaling $1.2 million,
offered farmers low-interest loans
for purchasing shares in ethanol
plants.
Pawlenty and others argue that
subsidies are a good investment
and note that the petroleum industry is also heavily subsidized.
One thing is clear: The free market is not at work in the biofuel
business. Subsidies, the tariff, and
other state and federal incentives
have contributed to a sharp rise in
production capacity; the distribution and usage systems have not
kept pace, however, and the result
by the end of 2007 was a glut –
supply was far outstripping demand.
As a result, several planned
ethanol plants around the country have been put on hold and the
price of publicly held stocks in
ethanol companies has fallen. Per
gallon profits plunged from more
than $2 to around 25 cents. According to Bloomberg, shareholders lost 25 percent of their money
in 2007 in ethanol investments.
Meanwhile, the price of corn
continues in the mid-$3 range.
That’s good for growers but of
concern for livestock farmers who
feed their animals corn; it is also a
worry for packaged-food companies who depend on cheap grain
(often made into high fructose
sweetener) to produce soda pop
and ketchup for the nation. Higher
food prices for beef, pork, poultry
and eggs are ahead, according to a
study by Iowa State University that
concluded that the jump in food
costs will be about $47 per person.
President Bush, in his final
news conference of 2007, acknowledged the price increase
has hit livestock producers. “And
that’s one of the trade-offs you
have to make,” he said. “But
what I want to assure people out
there is that we’re spending a lot
of taxpayers’ money in a way to
figure out how to use wood chips
or switchgrass in order to make
ethanol. But this is a real national
plan.”
One result of the higher corn
prices in 2007 was that some
USDA farm payments were dramatically reduced. Other farm
support programs have disappeared since the introduction
ethanol.
Mark Neuzil, a former reporter
and editor for the Associated
Press, the Star Tribune and several other newspapers, covers the
environment and agriculture.
Thursday: Alternatives to
corn ethanol.
“Great journalists. Great journalism. MinnPost.com”
Order a MinnPost.com T-shirt. 100% cotton black shirts with yellow, red, white design.
Call Gin at 612-455-6950 to order.
MinnPost in Print
A THOUGHTFUL APPROACH TO NEWS
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008 • www.MinnPost.com PAGE 5
Bound to be broke?
Independent BirchBark Books carries on in an age of crippling competition
By AMY GOETZMAN
Most writers believe in independent bookstores. But is a
belief in past worlds enough to
bring them back to life? The answer is yes, if author and store
owner Louise Erdrich has anything to say about it.
The renowned author of
“Love Medicine” and “Beet
Queen” opened BirchBark Books
in 2001, while independent booksellers everywhere were closing.
The 800-square-foot shop, on a
quiet street in Minneapolis’ Kenwood neighborhood, is a proper
book lover’s hideaway, with
reading spaces, a knowledgeable
staff and a lovingly handpicked
inventory.
Naturally, it has been losing
money since the day it opened.
“Are we losing that much?
I suppose we are, more or less.
But sometimes much less,” said
departing manager Brian Baxter.
For years, a little note at the register indicated the amount was
about $5,000 a month, but no one
seems to know what happened to
that sign.
With a mind to improving profits, Erdrich hired Baxter in 2002.
But the bookseller, who brought
more than 40 years of experience
to BirchBark and a wise-old-owl
personality that customers find
amusing, is retiring.
His efforts improved sales at
the store by 86 percent, and he will
spend the rest of January mentoring employees Susan White and
Persia Erdrich (Louise’s daughter) to take over his role. The store
will carry on without him, and
even slightly change; White says
the women’s and spirituality sections will expand.
Best wishes for BirchBark
aside, however, Baxter is not
optimistic about the future for
independent bookstores. “We are
a nation of mourners. We love to
mourn the corner hardware store,
the small grocer, the independent
bookseller, the lost wilderness,”
he says. “We recognize that these
places have great meaning and
offer a unique experience. And
yet, people aren’t making the
conscious choices that will keep
these places alive. They are too
focused on convenience. They
buy their books at Target and
Costco.”
Crush of competition
Baxter’s own store, Baxter’s
Books in downtown Minneapolis, was part of the first wave of
independents to be crushed by
Barnes and Noble, along with
Odegaard’s and Gringolet Books.
Holdouts like Ruminator Books
(formerly the Hungry Mind),
Bound to Be Read and Orr Books
have been shuttered since BirchBark opened.
Yet Erdrich serenely carries
on at 2115 W. 21st St., hosting
author readings and even launching a small press, as if the horse
carrying the news that such
things just aren’t done anymore
is still on its way. The writer is
notoriously unmoved by modern
times, and eschews computers –
and even that new-fangled typewriter contraption – preferring
to write her novels by hand, in
notebooks. She also handwrites
blog entries for the store’s website, which are later typed in by
an employee. The author declined to be interviewed for this
story, though she acquiesced to
having her photo taken Saturday
during Brian Baxter Day at the
store.
An expert in bygone worlds,
Erdrich’s stories are populated
by spirits, directed by curses and
guided by burning love. Practical
concerns are less than literary.
But $5,000 a month?
“Maybe she can afford to lose
it,” says David Unowsky, who
closed Ruminator Books in 2004,
bankrupt after 34 years in business. “But most people, no matter how rich they are – and she’s
not even hugely rich – don’t like
to lose money.”
Two other local independent
bookstores are propped up by
wealthier owners: Prairie Home
Companion host Garrison Keillor’s Common Good Books in St.
Paul and real estate mogul Peggy
Burnett’s Bookcase of Wayzata.
“I’m all for more bookstores,
and if the store serves the community, more power to them,”
says Unowsky. “But the bottom
line is, if people value independent bookstores, they’re going
to have to go there and buy from
them. If there are going to be
good independent bookstores,
they’ll need to be financially stable to last.”
Keillor’s Common Good
Books is defying the fates and
breaking even, possibly even approaching a modest profit.
“We’re doing well above
what we were expected to,”
says assistant manager Martin Schmutterer, who has also
spent time behind the counter at
Ruminator, Bound to Be Read,
and Barnes and Noble. “Part
of it is that we have really low
rent. I think Louise is paying
too much for her space. We pay
maybe one-tenth for this place
what Bound to Be Read paid
for theirs, and maybe one-third
what Ruminator’s space cost.
That makes a big difference.”
Another difference may be
that Keillor courts publicity for
his store and can often be spotted
there or upstairs at Nina’s Coffee Café. Erdrich, on the other
hand, maintains extreme privacy
and shuns attention, although her
handwritten book recommendations paper the store.
A native niche
“Louise is committed to her
store,” Baxter says firmly. “She
wants a place where good books
are sold, where native books are
sold, that serves the native community, and the really good fiction community. Her vision is to
have a place she likes to be. She
made a place [a loft and hobbit
hole filled with toys] where kids
can play. Someone else would
have made that a place where you
could sell music or diet books.
No. Kids play, kids play.”
Although the store carries a
wide range of current fiction and
nonfiction, its salvation may actually be its focus on all things
native. BirchBark sells native
artwork, traditionally harvested
wild rice and other native foods
and gifts, and maintains one of
the country’s choicest selections
By DANIEL CORRIGAN
Brian Baxter is retiring as manager
of author Louise Erdich’s bookstore, BirchBark Books.
of books by or about Native
Americans.
That expertise draws visitors
from around the country – even
around the world. Latvian-Minnesotan Amanda Jatniece says
that when she brought her Latvian boyfriend to Minnesota this
fall for his first U.S. visit, two
destinations were on his list: the
Mall of America and BirchBark
Books. Europeans maintain a
fascination with native history
and culture, and he wanted to
find some books on the topic.
“The book he bought was
about [American] Indian spirituality, and he got one for both
his mother and brother, who are
ministers. His mother has already
used a few stories from it in her
sermons. Talk about meaningful
souvenirs,” Jatniece says. The
couple’s visit to the mall was a
less memorable experience.
BirchBark has also become
the jewel destination in Native
American writers’ book tours.
Sherman Alexie brought his oneman reading show to a packed
house at the BirchBark event,
although the popular author, who
attracted hundreds of fans, actually read at the nearby Lake of
the Isles Lutheran Church. His
raucous crowd wouldn’t have fit
in the actual store.
Amy Goetzman writes about
books, libraries and the literary
scene for MinnPost. She can be
reached at agoetzman@minnpost.
com.
MinnPost in Print
A THOUGHTFUL APPROACH TO NEWS
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008 • www.MinnPost.com PAGE 6
Typography psychology: What does your typeface say about you?
Forget handwriting analysis (that’s so last century): What does your typeface say about you?
I believe a person’s font of choice can reflect on her personality in telling ways. I bounced
this theory off Carol Waldron, a typography professor at the University of Minnesota, who
sounded marginally convinced.
“In some sense, any time we make a decision from a selection of options, yes, it reflects on personality,” she
said. I reworded the question a couple of times, hoping to win her over. “Wouldn’t a Times New Roman personality
differ from a Comic Sans personality?”
Still, Carol responded with cautious clauses like “I suppose so” and “to some extent.”
So here’s my case: The evolution of my personality, as reflected by the evolution of my favorite fonts.
CHRISTINA
CAPECCHI
All Microsoft Word documents lead
to Times New Roman, and that’s where I
began. It is an obedient font, and when I
used it, so was I: taking vitamins, earning
A’s, getting things done. As starter fonts go,
Times served me well.
I started using Helvetica around the
time I started missing my high-school
curfew. The switch felt rebellious: Helvetica was my ticket into an un-chaperoned, sans-serif party. It’s a gateway
font. In little time, I was ready to take it
to the next level. And once you depart,
you never return.
In college, I encountered Comic
Sans MS. It is sunny and spirited, a
good-times font that fit. I was bored
by that wallflower Helvetica and too
cavalier for pretentious serifs. My
heart was wide open; you could read
me from a distance.
Then I graduated and discovered
delicate Palatino Linotype. In doing so,
I made an enormous leap in sophistication. It’s a first-job, bill-paying, RealWorld font. There is grace and agility
to Palatino, and I was sure it would
inspire my smartest writing.
Book Antiqua, of course, is Palatino’s
fraternal twin. They are often mistaken
as identical, but if you look closely,
you’ll notice the a’s and s’s are more
pinched in Book, creating a sleeker
look. Its name confers a certain literary
venerability, and in that spirit, I began
grad school, ready to be refined.
I was still quite content with Book
when Arial entered my life. You only
have to open the door a crack for a new
love affair to slide in. I was almost done
with grad school, and the alternative
universe of academia. I was prepar-
ing to move, purging my apartment of
anything frivolous. I had abandoned
makeup. So I appreciated how clean
and minimalist Arial is. It’s an Applestore font.
Which brings us to my current love,
Georgia, the typeface of The New York
Times online. That holy application is
reason alone to embrace the font. If the
best writing I read appears in Georgia,
it stands to reason that the best writing
I could produce will appear in Georgia.
A closer look reveals endearing details.
The descenders are playful, yet the serifs
make it stately. Georgia is who I want to
be today: lively and dignified. I’m back in
the work force, ready to apply my newly
gained knowledge. At the same time, I
want to preserve my youthful energy.
So tell me: What does your favorite font
say about you?
Become a MinnPost Partner in Print
If you own or manage a location that has a lot of
traffic over the lunch hour or in the afternoon,
please sign up to be a MinnPost Partner in Print.
All you need to do is commit to printing 10 or
more copies each weekday on your own printer
and make them available at no charge to your
employees and/or customers. All Partners in
Print will be recognized on the MinnPost.com
website and in MinnPost in Print as space allows.
If you print 250 copies a day, we can put your
own message on the bottom of the front page
on your copies. For more information or to sign
up, email Beth Thibodeau
at bthibodeau@minnpost.com
MinnPost Partners in Print
• Minnesota Humanities Center
• Eastside Food Cooperative
• Tunheim Partners
• Jewish Family & Children’s Service
of Minneapolis
• Padilla Speer Beardsley
• Open Book,
• Minneapolis Central Library
• PostNet-Richfield
• Campus Club, University of Minnesota
• Institute for Local Self-Reliance
• Minneapolis Club
• Postal Dispatch Business
Center
MinnPost in Print
A THOUGHTFUL APPROACH TO NEWS
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008 • www.MinnPost.com PAGE 7
Seeing juvenile violence as a threat to public health
STEVE BERG
Most often in this
space we discuss transit lines, streets, parks,
housing, retail trends and other
elements of urban design. But
good design means nothing in a
city consumed by violence.
To suggest that that crime and
other violent behavior consumes
Minneapolis or St. Paul would
be an exaggeration. But there
are worrisome pockets, most
notably a six-square-mile section
of North Minneapolis, where,
over the last two generations,
a culture of youthful violence
has become a way of life. If left
unchecked – and if accepted as
a permanent feature of the Twin
Cities – this troubled district
runs the risk of damaging the
competitive success of the entire
metropolitan region for years to
come.
It is the main reason that
Minneapolis has a violent crime
rate twice that of the cities it
wants to emulate, cities like
Denver, Seattle and Portland.
“We can’t have an economically
competitive region if there’s a
permanent underclass right in
the middle,” Mayor R.T. Rybak
said Monday after delivering to
the City Council an ambitious
new initiative called “Blueprint
for Action: Preventing Youth
Violence in Minneapolis.”
Rybak recognizes that the 15
percent decline in juvenile crime
in 2007, while impressive, was
due mainly to focused and diligent law enforcement. That’s a
good and necessary thing. But it
doesn’t get to the root causes of
youthful violent behavior. And
it’s the culture of that behavior –
centered largely around impoverished African-American boys
– that has now risen to the top of
the mayor’s agenda.
About 800 people are expected for today’s Minnesota Meeting at the Minneapolis Convention Center to discuss Rybak’s
initiative and to hear noted
Harvard professor Deborah
Prothrow-Stith talk about attacking youth violence as a menace
to public health. Prothrow-Stith
has been at the forefront on the
issue since her book (written with Micheale Weissman),
“Deadly Consequences,” hit the
stands in 1991.
I feel a personal link to
Prothrow-Stith because, in 1994,
while a reporter in the Star Tribune, I asked her for an inside
look at her work, and she led
me to a series of extraordinary
therapy sessions with violent
teens in inner-city Boston. The
sessions were among the most
riveting and heartbreaking moments of my 35-year reporting
career. What strikes me in looking back at my writings is how
little has changed in 14 years –
except, perhaps, that by now the
kids I met are fathers and mothers many times over, and that it’s
likely that their children have
now put on the baggy clothes,
assumed the gangster pose, and
now are the ones with guns in
their pockets.
Puffed-up macho kids
Prothrow-Stith had told me
to expect to meet teenagers who
were convinced that race and
class had placed them so far
outside the mainstream that they
could never find a place inside;
kids who, at ages 14-18, were already convinced that their lives
were utterly hopeless. “They
are,” she had said, “perpetually irritable, like a person who
wakes up on the wrong side of
the bed day after day.”
She had told me that, to compensate for failures of home and
school, these kids constructed
puffed-up macho versions of
themselves. A thin layer of
respect became a commodity
to be preserved at almost any
cost because, as many of them
believed, it is all they possessed.
Defending this veneer against a
constant stream of threats and
insults from other fragile egos
became a way of life especially
for boys, but for some girls, too.
“The thing is, if you touchin’
me or if you in my face, I’m
gonna take you down right now
and you ain’t never gonna get
up,” a girl named Paula had said
in a group session.
“Yeah,” LeRon, a 15-yearold boy barely visible inside
an enormous hooded sweatshirt, had chimed in. “What’s
good about fighting is shooting
somebody. It feels good …
Some people don’t wanna solve
things. They just wanna fight
they wanna shoot. That’s the
way it is.”
Some kids had said they were
taught violence at home and
saw violence as necessary as
oxygen to make it through daily
life. “How many fights have you
had?” the counselor, Richard
Puckerin, asked the kids.
“I’m 20 and 0,” one boy
had said. “Every day,” added
another.
“Why do you fight?” the
counselor had asked.
“Exercise,” said one boy.
“You gotta hone your skills, you
know what I’m sayin’?” said
another, although others said
they had wanted popularity and
respect or had wanted to impress
girls.
“You gotta let people know
you ain’t no joke, you ain’t no
sucker,” a boy named Jason had
offered. “If you be lettin’ people
mess with you, you ain’t never
gonna get no peace. What my
mama told me is they hit you,
you hit back, else you gonna
have 40, 50 niggers jumpin’ on
you.”
“Yeah,” a girl interrupted.
“If somebody be in my face
talkin’ shit, she gonna get her ass
kicked right now.”
That was the kind of tough
talk deemed necessary in a
group. When encountered oneon-one the kids cried. I recount
these old interviews to illustrate
the difficulty – and importance
– of Rybak’s new initiative.
My 1994 story was reported on
the eve of “Murderapolis,” the
greatest outbreak of gun violence in the city’s history. Better
police methods will probably
prevent a repeat of those bad
old days. But hopelessness and
violence still rules an influential
segment of the city’s youth.
Despite a major decline in state
and federal funds, Minneapolis
City Hall and its private sector
partners have made extraordinary strides in offering a glimpse
at a brighter future – summer
jobs and two years of free college for impoverished public
school graduates, to name just
two impressive programs. But
now, as Rybak says, it’s time to
reach out to the harder core and
to treat youth violence as an epidemic best seen through a public
health lens.
‘We can do this’
Shane Price, a member of the
mayor’s steering committee on
violence prevention, reminded
City Council members Monday
that the city’s new anti-violence
initiative needs to be “competitive” with the street life embedded in problematic teens. Rybak
agreed, and said later that kids
must be made to see clearly
the advantage of turning their
mindset on its head, of seeing
the acts of carrying a gun and
getting a girl pregnant as signs
of weakness, not strength. They
also must recognize, he said,
that self-destructive behavior is
not an authentic part of AfricanAmerican culture.
“It’s the opposite of what I
grew up in,” said Karen KelleyAriwoola of the Minneapolis
Foundation, a co-chair of the
steering committee, who sees
herself as part of the generation
that wanted to emulate the nonviolence taught by Martin Luther
King. Even with strong family
and church support, she feels
that her two pre-teen boys now
growing up in North Minneapolis
are in a “fragile” situation. “We
can do this,” she said of the new
initiative. “This is possible.”
The initiative will focus on
four major tasks: Connecting
every at-risk youth with a trusted
adult; intervening at the very
first sign that a kid is involved
in violence; restoring youngsters
headed toward a life of crime
and violence, and unlearning
violence as a way of life. That’s
a tall order, but the city has no
choice given the stakes. Its viability depends on turning the
current generation of teenagers
into productive citizens.
Read the complete story
at www.minnpost.com/
steveberg.
MinnPost in Print
A THOUGHTFUL APPROACH TO NEWS
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008 • www.MinnPost.com PAGE 8
COMMUNITY VOICES
Northern light helps people see clearly, even through change
By LEE EGERSTROM
There are two architectural
gems in the Northern Hemisphere that have helped people
see clearly and kept markets honest for most of the past century,
and now they shed light on how
people can adjust to change.
One of these gems is in downtown Minneapolis, although it is
better known to rural Minnesota
residents than to people who
drive by it nearly every day. It
is the Fourth Floor, or Trading
Floor, of the Minneapolis Grain
Exchange.
The other can be found in
Antwerp, Belgium, with variations in four major diamond exchanges. But the key architectural wonder is the trading floor of
the Diamantclub van Antwerpen,
the oldest of the four exchanges,
or bourses, in Antwerp’s famed
Diamond Center.
What they have in common
are large, multi-story windows
on the north side of the floor.
To this day, the unbent northern line helps diamond traders
in Antwerp examine the precious stones to see if there are
any imperfections in the rocks.
Reflected light coming through
glass windows that face south,
east or west can distort the careful examinations conducted by
the diamond experts.
Giving a visiting journalist a
tour of the Antwerp exchanges
two decades ago, Diamond High
Council spokeswoman Marleen
Beerens proudly explained the
uniqueness of those windows.
“There is only one other place in
the world that has a trading floor
like this,” she said. “It’s where
they trade barley in Minneapolis.”
Technology changes Grain
Exchange trading floor
Alas. It no longer happens on
the trading floor of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, said exchange marketing director Nancy
Krull. Technology can now link
loads of barley at country elevators or from boxcars in rail yards
to the malting properties sought
by different beer brewers.
But for most of the past century, grain samples were brought
to the cash grain trading area
of the grain exchange, where
traders, often called “the barley boys” by others in the grain
business, would chew on kernels
for taste and hold the sample to
the north windows to check pigmentation.
The color of the barley kernels usually signaled malting
properties that were important
to brewers wanting to serve up
consistent products to their loyal
customers.
“Technology overran the barley trading,” said Krull. “You
could say the north windows
now provide great natural lighting for everyone else working
here.”
Indeed it does. And it helps
make the Minneapolis Grain
Exchange’s trading floor one of
the most exquisite architectural
locations in Minneapolis even if
it does remain a rural Minnesota
secret to most.
The importance of these
charming trading places is that
both Antwerp and Minneapolis
markets are going through great
change and less dependent on
old technologies, such as northfacing windows.
Exchange retools
for changing times
Minneapolis has moved on
from being the marketing hub
for cash grains in the Upper
Midwest and Northwest. It is
surviving by becoming a more
important futures and index contract trading center for North-
“ There is only one other place in the world
that has a trading floor like this. It’s where
they trade barley in Minneapolis.
”
– Maureen Beerens, Belgium’s Diamond High Council spokeswoman on Antwerp’s Diamond Center
ern Tier and Prairie Province
farmers and their grain trading
customers who want to better
manage supplies and the supply
chain of raw materials.
Coming through the 1980s,
there were widespread fears that
the Minneapolis exchange would
not survive and that all grain
commodity futures and options
trading would be consolidated in
Chicago.
The exchange changed, and
celebrated its 125th anniversary
of trading last year. Future and
index contracts traded broke
all records in 2007. The popularity of the marketplace was
noted late in December when a
seat on the exchange traded for
$275,000.
Antwerp, meanwhile, is going through similar change right
now. Technology allows traders to examine diamonds more
closely in the field. Diamond exchanges in various Asian countries, Israel and Dubai are taking
more of the international trading
action. And lower-cost labor is
diverting more diamond-polishing business to India and South
America.
But just as the market practice of “open outcry,” or the
buying and selling in public, has
helped exchanges regulate and
maintain integrity in markets
going back to swapping horses
in town squares centuries ago,
the need for integrity may well
prove the diamond in the rough
for Antwerp.
The diamond industry in
Antwerp is especially sensitive to the trading of “conflict
diamonds” – the name given to
black-market precious stones
that support wars and terrorism
and abuse workers.
Antwerp and its 1,500 diamond traders and firms give the
international diamond trade a
modicum of confidence that the
diamonds are legitimate.
It should be noted that Belgians know a thing or two about
barley as well. The Stella Artois
brewery at Leuven dates back to
the year 1366.
More information on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange and
its role in developing the grain
trade and agricultural economy
of the Upper Midwest can be
found in “The Grain Merchants:
An Illustrated History of the
Minneapolis Grain Exchange,”
written by Dave Kenney and
published last year by Afton
Press. The $40 book can be purchased at the grain exchange, at
area Barnes & Nobles books or
by contacting Afton Press. www.
aftonpress.com
Lee Egerstrom is a fellow for
Minnesota 2020, a new think tank
based in St. Paul.
MinnPost.com owns the copyright in the MinnPost publication. MinnPost.com grants its readers a limited license to print and distribute copies of the
MinnPost publication for personal use and for free distribution in full to others.