NewsNight Minnesota; 4111; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 03/12/1997; SD-Base

Yesterday. Yeah yeah. Right. Now yeah uh that looks nice. Thank you for this. Tonight on NEWSNIGHT legislators come to the rescue of Barry Bonds go for fans who put up as the men's basketball team heads for Kansas City and the fourth year I cried when papa brought home Joyce and Kevin going take the stage for a new solo show. It's all next on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. Tonight's broadcast of NEWSNIGHT Minnesota was presented in part by Norwest banks

contributing to the growth of the Twin Cities to support and community service. Good evening I'm get the words are and this is NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. Thanks for tuning in. Ken Stone's ready to kick things off of the day's top stories. Thanks cafe at the Capitol today House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on a disaster relief bill to cover some of the cost of this winter's heavy snows. The bill spends a total of 36 million dollars 11 millions goes to help cities and counties across the state pay for snow removal. Six million go to match federal relief money in 55 counties that were declared disaster area. Three million set aside to help local governments cope with the expected spring flooding. And the remaining 16 million goes to the state transportation department for extra us plowing costs and pothole repairs. The Senate sponsor of the bill says it's still not enough money to cover all the cost of the winter weather but it will go a long way. You can understand a flood you can understand a tornado where it's hard for people to understand the snow unless you live in it.

And we like it we live there. But when you get one like this it's beyond what we even dreamt about Vickerman says the House is likely to pass the final version of the bill tomorrow the Senate will then send it to the governor early next week. It is official the White Earth nation has a new government and election results announced late yesterday. Irma visiter won the race for secretary treasurer of the tribe. Irene are going to tourney won the district one representative. The vote was seen as a referendum on the government of Eugene Berger MacArthur who defeated ship with DNA to take over tribal chairmanship last year. Both visitor and organizers had been appointed to their positions pending this week's elections. Twin Cities alternative media scenes expected to get smaller with the announcement of the Twin Cities Raiders been sold to the same New York company that recently bought City Pages. Now the company hasn't commented but industry insiders speculate that the two alternative weeklies will be combined into one. That news on the heels of yesterday's

announcement that Twin Cities alternative rock station Rev 1 0 5 has also been sold and is switching to a hard rock format. Tomorrow on NEWSNIGHT I'm going to be talking about some of the changes in the local media industry and what those changes mean for consumers. Good news and bad news for Hopkins based defense contractor Alliance tech systems. First the good news a company awarded a new thirty one point six million dollar contract to produce a new kind of smart artillery round for the U.S. Army. The bad news is the feds are suing alliance over a different contract than this one signed back in 1990 just before Alliance was spun off by Honeywell in the suit. The feds claim that alliance overcharged the army for anti tank weapons several dozen state university you have them technical and community college students rallied at the Capitol today to call for more state spending on higher education. The students say a provision added to state law 15 years ago says the state should pay two thirds of the cost of higher education at state schools. But in recent years funding

has fallen well short of that mark. The students want more state spending to head off tuitions increases. Some lawmakers agree that the state should be spending more. It isn't too often that I say we need to compliment the governor. We do need to compliment the governor because he has money in his budget for higher education and that's a first for this administration. Very frankly he doesn't have enough. The governor wants to be the education governor he wants a legacy. I say let's help him build his way to see what money and those higher education by the number of bills have been introduced this year that would increase state spending on higher education. The AFL leaders in both the House and Senate will soon set overall spending targets that will determine how much money the legislature will eventually recommends the few students who didn't make the tuition rally instead went to Williams Arena to bid farewell and good

luck to the Gophers basketball team who was great you from what we've heard recently is weird Mobius go away. Big Ten champs left this morning for Kansas City where they're going to face Southwest Texas State in the first round of the Midwest regionals and that's it for the day's headlines Kathie's back in a moment with more talk about basketball. What advice would you have for the team getting better early freedom right. And really talk about because they're the best just to let them play or you know worry about your mail so they always underestimated me. I'm glad I'm not I mean I can do them. Just him don't shoot threes. Especially against Temple.

Stay Smart now on the always there with the right you get your men's basketball go over his head to the end see double 8 Tournament. Meanwhile women's coach Linda McDonald resigned on Friday. A high school basketball tournaments are getting underway and God forbid the Timberwolves are a game ahead of 500. We it is nice to have hoops on the brain so we have back Mike max of Midwest Sports Channel. Welcome back to NEWSNIGHT. Thank you very much how you do it yourself. All right. Southwest Texas State go first take them on first game of the NCW Midwest regions. It's like playing the Little Sisters of the poor. Yeah this is like their non-conference schedule they should win this by anywhere from 20 to 40 points. You know pinning a win they call the dogs off. These are the key was that they played and beat up on so badly before Christmas. Southwest Texas State can give that they just don't have near the manpower that the Gophers do should be a game. The secret to success for the government do you think I mean they're not a classically great team

right but they play defense every game and they play great defense and they play together as a team. In some respects clum Haskins likes it this way he doesn't want one go to guy. Bobby jets was the MVP of the conference and might not be a superstar in terms of scoring but he's a superstar in his own performance so their defense could carry him. The problem is they get into so many one position games with the final possession like Wisconsin determines the outcome that's where they might get beat by a temple in Mississippi in the second round. Well speaking of a superstar going to introduce her shortly. Yunior Fitzy I had them on their big man. Larry Fitzgerald by the way cover sports for the money up a spokesman Paul recorder. I'll let you catch your breath for just a second we're talking about gophers over here and I know all about this year over. Weak spot in terms of weak spots now for the Gophers in the NCAA tournaments where they low post scoring not consistent with John Thomas according to James the Cardinals played very well lately. Not a great free throw shooting team. Bobby Jackson Eric Erickson shot well there. Nobody

else has. And again they seem to be playing well enough to win in the tournament. You can't play around with that you gotta get a 6 or 8 point lead in the last couple minutes you can't flirt with disaster. Those are the three things that could cost them free throws their first year old Mr. Fitzgerald What do you think. I agree free throw shooting has been their Achilles heel this year and it's hurt them especially in close ball games but the super good ballclub believe me this team plays well together to deep to go about nine players and their strength is the back court and I think if they can stay out of foul trouble in their back court and get Sam Jacobson and Courtney James to play at the very zenith of their game this team could win a national championship with a break you think so. No question dummy Kansas is the favorite. They're the best team but anything can happen in the tournament somebody could catch them early on a bad night. And if the Gophers do what they have to do to get to the Final Four and something happens to somebody else you've got to get to the dance to have a chance to win.

Like you agree with Mr. Fitzgerald I mean everything would have to go right for the go over swim national championship there. Kansas would not struggle with the Tampa or Mississippi or Clemson. The Gophers could get beat by one of those two teams that's the difference between a Kansas and a Minnesota the Minnesota consistently plays well enough to win and they've proven they can beat anybody in this field. But can they string six games together. That's tough. All right well let's move on. Linda L. McDonald as you both know resigned on Friday as women's basketball coach at the U of that. Was she pushed or did she actually reside on her own steam What do you do here about that. Well I think she got pushed a little and deservedly so she had a couple of real tough years and it was right behind you know the gender equity push which you know is long in coming but she got the big raise and she just couldn't produce with her teams. She's allowed some great players in state to go elsewhere and I think that hurt her and it clearly showed on the floor. Yet though like Mack she took that couple years ago to the NC Double-A

tournament. She did pretty well so I know she put together a couple back to back bad seasons but when I keep her because there's no hope Larry alluded to it. Best senior class ever in the state of Minnesota. Maybe 20 Division 1 players. She got one. She could turn the whole program around by sending three or four of these when she didn't get them to sign in the fall. It was clear that not only were they coming off a bad season but there was no room for optimism in the future. All right let's go talk about high school hoops here. Girls High School Basketball chairman going on and I looked in the paper I said to myself four classes. What's going on here and I must obviously missed that change as a matter of fact what do you think of that. Well you know I was against it last year not only girls but on the boy side as well I thought that was sort of a slap at the north and what they've accomplished a poll that was led by a college element. And I really didn't think it was deserving of the you know high school league that make that move but they did it and we have to live with it so I so hope that there's competition it is competitiveness and that the teams

that do play are deserving of winning the titles that they're going to get. Well as you know some people think that if you if you broaden it out more kids get to play in the tournaments. It's a joke it's an absolute joke. This started it was the gross tournament yesterday and I was over there so what you got now is four classes the first round of the state tournaments played all over the state. It's a glorified region final. The reason they called a state tournament is because kids want to come down to the Twin Cities play in a big arena stay in a hotel have a banquet and plan television all those things are lost in the first round. The only thing that you get out of it is your name in the program. Other than that it's the same as a region final game. And then you bring them here. The final four teams from each class. It's a joke to small town coaches should be ashamed of themselves for coming up with this just because they want to get their name mentioned in the state tournament participant. But it's no different than it's ever been in the past. It's just that they call region final first tour of the state quarterfinals. Do you really think about it. DERMER Well we got about a minute left. Boy those they're doing real well this season.

They're just a little bit about 500 and gosh last season and seasons those of us who've had season tickets get exciting you know when you think I think that summer was a playoff team that's going to be clear and I think we saw something last night they were really horrible they played a terrible game against a even worse team but they were able to pull the game out because of the competitive nature and the ability of you know Stefan Marbury he is just going to be something great I think he is the best guard that was in the draft last year and I think he's going to prove that as he gets older. Yeah I thought he won the battle of Allen Iverson last night. Played him last night but I think he's got better character to for the long term and I Ever since got what he's got some you can teach this team. They've struggled on the home stand more than I thought they would they get Seattle tomorrow night. They seem to have hit a low here they've fortunately been able to win a couple games but if they can take a deep breath and get refocused year tough to do it. Young players in a long season get one more run before the playoffs. This would be a

sensational season and what they do in the last. Always a pleasure Mike Larry thanks for coming on and talking to you later glad to hear you have some very very difficult questions. And it's also funny and scary and sad and it goes places that would you know could never get government funding. He's a fixture on the Twin Cities performing arts scene probing the depths of such subjects says the 21 a bus route and ice fishing. But Kevin Kling is trying something a little different with his latest one man show currently playing at the Southern theatre Barber winner recently stopped by the Southern to talk with Kling about the education of Walter Kaufman. What's the name of the play. The education of Walter Kaufman.

Walter Kaufman is a young man who was raised on a farm probably Minnesota for sure in the upper Midwest and ends up going to college and learning more than he bargained for. Dr. Kopans world is pretty twisted. He's a little obsessive you know. And I like that it kind of goes into a darker realm that I've gone in before. I mean most of my stuff is either comically based or autobiographical anecdotes or something like that. And this play does tend to go to a dark area. You know I opened up the box and a bat flew out basically. I didn't know I was going to happen but it did. So far I still don't get it no more. Then again. I don't have that stage before a play like that's. That's torture. And I always wonder why I'm doing it and then one second after I'm on the

stage I know exactly why I'm doing it. Behind our house was shit. And I was never allowed in that shed. But every spring papa brought a piglet. And it was my summer job to feed the baby pig. And given a name. The second part was my idea. I would. Hold the pig like a baby. And start scratching its belly. I love this. Then I would start whispering names until a look of vague knowledge moment came over the little porkers face and that would be his knee. Finding a name was like looking for a key on a key ring in the middle of the night. You keep trying keys until one fits.

And then that key would work from then on. And then I would tell him mine. Well to record. It. So we were on an even start and my people come from Deutschland which is how Pop says Germany Varia the good part. But now we live here and you are a Bircher also of good stock and you live here too. And how bout a carrot. And that's how it works. And that pig never forgot its name. Because it got to choose. Then one day in the spring his diet would change to white bread in vinegar. White bread and vinegar for three days and on the third day I was sent into town for a movie triple feature always. A triple feature. And on the third day knuckles or pickles or freckles would be

gone. And Pops would be in the shed. The first year I cried when I found out what he was doing in there. The second year I cried when I was sent to the movies. The third year I cried when I fed the pig white bread and been eager and the fourth year I cried when pot brought on Joyce. My one consolation was no pig from the Kaufman farm ever left this world without a name and a little information of it here. But I'm ashamed to say that Joyce is the only pig whose name I remember. The education of Walter Kaufmann runs at the Southern theatre in the West Bank Theater District of Minneapolis through March 23rd. Well this week state senator Tom novel called for a committee hearing on his Minnesota version of the Defense of Marriage Act the act which has the support of the Minnesota Family Council is an attempt to get a step ahead of an anticipated court ruling in Hawaii on same sex marriages.

Novel and other bills sponsors want to give Minnesota the right to deny recognition of same sex marriages even if the Hawaii court rules that they are legal. SENATOR JEANNE Ranum has refused to grant a hearing for the bill in her committee. Tonight's commentator wonders what all the fuss is about. I think I'm really quite ordinary. I'm an ordinary middle class Midwestern almost middle aged woman. So why am I so feared by others. You may think I'm being paranoid but I think not. You see I'm a lesbian. I'm in a committed relationship married by any other name. And after more than 10 years now we're more than a couple we're mothers. We are parents of three wonderful daughters. Parents by choice not by chance parents because we like the way our parents raised us and we think we can do a similarly thoughtful job or better. We had a marriage ceremony seven years ago. It wasn't a political statement. We want to celebrate our commitment to one another with our loved ones present just like anyone else

does. It was a gathering officiated by our ministers and attended by a hundred fifty friends and our entire families. I believe the reason that people react so passionately to gay marriage is they don't want to admit that gay men and lesbians are not really so different from heterosexuals after all. Gay marriage like heterosexual marriage is about companionship family shared values and combining economic forces. What in our life in our love in my little family's happiness intrudes on anyone else denying legal status to gay and lesbian couples doesn't make us go away. I'm still the ordinary Midwestern almost middle aged mother of three. If you knew me if you spent a day with me in my sweet loving family you'd know that you need not be afraid of me. You would also know that our family and our togetherness deserves respect. And yes legal recognition.

Deborah Talon and her family live in Minneapolis now we'd like to know what you think of this topic and any other that we've covered tonight. Give our comment lines a call at 6 1 2 2 2 9 14:30 end you'll find a very friendly voicemail box waiting on the other end. That number again 6 1 2 2 2 9. 14:30. Well we ran out of time in our abbreviated program but we'd never let you go without the weather forecast tomorrow. One word ish. That's an official weather word the National Weather Service predicts continuing snow with the central region could see four to 10 inches of snow. Down south it could change to sleet or rain highs should reach the mid 30s down there and dropped to about 10 above in the northland winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories are posted for much of the state of Minnesota. So Please drive carefully. We'll leave you tonight with the sounds from the Shubert club's court room concert series. It's a great deal. Just head to St. Paul's Landmark Center at noon on Thursdays an hour's worth of chamber music buildings historic rooms absolutely

free. You can even bring your own lunch. Thanks for watching. In. Minnesota it was made possible by the contributors to the poem. You can program with major grants from the London Foundation and the McKnight foundation.

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