NewsNight Minnesota; 6203; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 08/19/1999; SD-Base

NEWSNIGHT Minnesotan is a production of Katie C. you'll hear the stations of Minnesota Public Television the great shows this weekend a great show tonight there are stories all across Minnesota but of course the big story tonight right here premier of press release of the week. We're not going to miss it. It is arts and media night on tonight is night Ken and Lou here Judge attacked two times also here. Those approved our film is going to be public domain. Also tonight we're going to catch up with some of the walls done on his farm work and more hard to Jim Newman checks out the full tannic exhibit in the loop and we'll wrap it up with poetry and problem Starfox This is NEWSNIGHT. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blanton Foundation creating a stronger Minnesota by bridging rural and urban communities. And by the McKnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota

families arts reporting on NEWSNIGHT is supported by a grant from the Dayton Hudson foundation. Dayton Suburbans California and Target stores are going to start tonight with Senator Paul Stone's attempt to rewrite federal farm policy. Today was day four in a six day tour of the state. The senator says he wants to hear what suggestions farmers have about changing farm policy. But he doesn't hide the fact that he thinks the Republicans Freedom to Farm Act has failed. I don't know Fredricka. We caught up with Senator Wellstone a few miles outside of what time at the home of Todd and Laura wrestler. They have a 360 acre farm which is small nowadays. They've been able to resist the economic pressure to get bigger because they both have full time jobs off the farm. I don't think that people being bigger is a way to get profitable you just you have to have a price for what you produce. We get together was organized by the Minnesota farmers union a group with strong democratic ties. So the senator was very much preaching to the converted much of the

political question is whether we stay the course or whether we change the course. And I think we have to change the course. Well Stone has held 15 meetings all across the state this week. It's all supposed to culminate this Saturday and what Kone and what's being called Minnesota rural Unity Day. A number of farm bank and rural groups are taking part. Stone hopes it's the beginning of a coalition that will persuade Congress to throw out the Republican inspired Freedom to Farm Act which became law three years ago. I hated that piece of legislation. I think it was one of the worst things that we have done in the Congress. I think that it is freedom to fail. And I think we need to rewrite this bill. And I think without rewriting this bill change in the course of policy an awful lot of very hard working people are going to go under. I'm saying we have to write a new farm bill. I'm saying we have to write a new farm bill and the crisis is a price crisis. Most people in our state.

Almost every farmer I talk to now says what we're really interested in is how to get a decent price. I sympathize with what well Stone's aims at a lot of men is an economist who specializes in agriculture and he says he voted for well stone but he things well stones emphasis on the Freedom to Farm Act misses a larger point. You know let's get rid of the farm that's the problem seems to be assuming that what we had before that with everything was hunky dory before freedom to farm and that if we repealed freedom to farm we'd go back to everything being hunky dory and that's that's simply not the truth. Lot of men says whenever Congress has tried to push up crop prices in the past it was a temporary fix at best and often caused other long term problems. And it's usually big corporate farmers who benefited the most. I'm not a free market idiot log but the old programs were so skewed in that most of the benefits went to a very reduced number producers and the bulk of the smaller farmers got a pittance. That exact point was made this morning when Dodge County farmer Ronald behind told well Stone about an

out-of-state farmer who owned a thousand acres in his county. Any program you come up with to help save the farm goes to the farmer to him. He's fat in his pocket. It's not staying on a farm but in the past and the farm bill needed the political support of farmers large and small. Well Stone believes that has to change in Europe. I think having learned a lesson of what happened after World War 2 and not having a supply of food and people going hungry. The Europeans have decided that they think it's in the national interest to support a family farm structure of agriculture our country needs to make that decision because right now we're going to lose it. Economist Ed lot of men agrees that small farms are worth saving but instead of messing with prices and trade policies he believes that Congress should consider some kind of simple subsidy payments to small producers only Minnesota rural Unity Day will take place this Saturday in the colonia at the Carver County fairgrounds and make sure you tune in to Almanac tomorrow night.

Senator wall stone will join Cathy and Eric LIVE. Another twist in the ongoing saga of the Hill Police Department followed closely last February we brought you the story when the town's city council moved to reduce police coverage from 24 to 16 hours. Then last month the council moved to eliminate the three person police force all together saying they could just as easily rely on the St. Louis County Sheriff's Department for protection. A couple of weeks later the council was forced to back off that plan after being told firing that unionized police force might violate the public employees Labor Relations Act. Well the Duluth News Tribune is now reporting that after a closed door session this week the council is once again proposing to fire its police force despite a possible lawsuit from the police union. Stay tuned. Set up started today at the downtown St. Paul Radisson for stitches billed as America's largest knitting Expo. It's a four day event bringing knitting enthusiasts together for

workshops and demonstrations. Any of the R&B and gadgets are on hand now according to the craft yarn Council. One out of every three women in the U.S. is versed in the needle arts they didn't tell us about men moving on the Viking and broke their training camp in man Cato today they'll move the operation back to the home base at one park in Eden Prairie. But not before traveling to Cleveland for their second exhibition game this Saturday. Still a few weeks away from the regular season now it could be a strange and eventful day in Cleveland on Saturday. Klux Klan rally is scheduled just a half mile from the stadium where the Vikings and browns will play a few hours later. The Vikings with one African one of three rather African-American head coaches in the NFL are not aware if they are being targeted by this rally. They say they are strictly concentrating on the game now. Enough of that nonsense. Here are the sights and sounds of camp. How

much is a piece of history worth a print of the original Declaration of Independence sold for over two million dollars. Lincoln's house divided speech one and a half million. It's not easy to assign monetary worth to artifacts that have so much meaning to many Americans but that's what was done recently resolving a long dispute over the worth and the ownership of the Zapruder film. It's an eight millimeter home movie that captured a moment in time the assassination of a president. Here to talk about the film and the recent agreement Jacques to time is a federal court judge and former chair of the Assassination Records Review Board thanks for coming back. Sixteen million dollars is what the family uprooted got. You thought that was a bit high. Well clearly it's an excessive price for the film but that's a result of the arbitration process I guess that the government had come in saying it was worth a million.

But the family had come in and said it's worth 30. Well there was a dissenting arbitrator who indicated he thought it was worth between 3 and 5 billion dollars which I think is a very fair price. I think that the arbitrators who ruled in the majority really were overcome by the the Kennedy aura and the inflated price tags that his have been attached to Kennedy memorabilia and recently you could look at any collector. I mean Mark McGuire's 70th home run almost three million dollars of that's worth three million dollars I would argue that the film is worth more than that probably. Well the United States isn't buying the film in order to invest in it and sell it later to a higher bidder which the purchaser of. Mark McGuire is home run probably was. This is an effort to preserve a piece of film which is the most important piece of evidence in one of the most significant crimes of this century a film that by all rights should have been seized at the time of the assassination because it was evidence.

You know let's take a look at the film now and it's been restored I mean it does have a long history of changing hands and not even being well cared for. Talk about that a little bit. Well it it's been in the National Archives in cold storage since the early 1970s before that it was not handled well it was owned by Time Life magazine for a time and it was damaged in fact during Time-Life so ownership was restored recently in the last few years it's been digitalized which is important because that will preserve a perfect copy of it for ever. So no matter what happens to the film itself it's now all ones and zeros. The film itself is deteriorating. There's no question about that within 30 or 40 years it'll probably no longer exist. But we can keep it as long as possible and it is still the best evidence it is the original And that's important I think because there are so many copies that are out there that are fraudulent in future generations I think have a right to know what the original

shows really showed what did it show I mean what I mean it's not conclusive one way or the other that it isn't conclusive but it does tell us a lot. It is the timing of it which is established by the frames is really important to try to determine how many gunmen were actually shooting that day. I don't think it conclusively resolves anything but it is an important piece of evidence it's rare. What does it suggest in your view. Well I think it suggests in my view that the President was hit from behind. As is the Warren Commission and later the House Select Committee on Assassinations determined and I think it also determines that there's a very narrow window of time within which the shots could have been fired. The review board went back in and unlocked four and a half million pieces of paper for a half million documents is that right.

About four point eight million pages at the latest count all relating to the Kennedy assassination. And they answered some questions that in answer all of them. Let's talk a little bit about the autopsy photos because a lot has been made about the autopsy photos the original autopsy reports they were doctored Yes know that. Well there are still a lot of mysteries concerning the autopsy in part because it wasn't handled very well. Like many of the events of the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination it was not handled well this country was not prepared to deal with that kind of a sophisticated investigation which was needed. The autopsy was done hurriedly by physicians pathologists who weren't very experienced. It was a Hurry up job in part because they wanted the President's body back in the White House quickly. We established that there were many more photographs taken during the autopsy than are currently available at the National Archives. There are probably about

70 photographs that are missing today. Maybe they'll turn up some day maybe not. You got quoted in The tell me if this is right that maybe there still is the magical smoking gun that piece of paper that conclusively proves exactly who pulled the trigger. Which bullet killed the President. Because there's just so many people having read them all. Well there's a lot of material that hasn't been gone through yet we basically wind swept up all the records that had any relationship to the assassination. And if an agency such as the CIA didn't disagree with our decision to take the record and make it public it didn't get studied carefully so the volume was just such that we just could not read that much material over the course of time that we were in operation. So it's there now for historians to to make use of to evaluate to examine using todays techniques I think will be very fascinating what they find. But I have a minute to go I've seen documentaries which convinced me that Lee Harvey Oswald was

the only gunman. And then I've read books that convinced me the other way and you've pored through a lot of the material as well. Well I think it's possible now to eliminate a lot of the wilder theories that you've heard and I personally don't pay place any credence on the idea that the Soviets or the Cubans had anything to do with this I was just too dangerous in an effort and there really isn't direct evidence there. There is evidence supporting us while doing it the most direct evidence there's also evidence which suggests that organized crime may have played a role but it's not very direct and so I think we'll have this debate for many years to come. Thank you very much. Thank you Ken for it. Need Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota Duluth as I launched an ambitious new traveling

exhibition titled Botanica contemporary art and the world of plants are great a Minnesota correspondent Jim Newman got the lowdown from the museum's curator Peter Stiller. You see plants everywhere in art in architecture in design and decoration. And so it's a natural sort of correspondence between what exists in nature and what exists in the imagination. When I was carrying the show I kind of had three three little theme will calm theme mats in mind and one was I was. And these are still pretty broad mind you. One was artists who were working with actual live plant material. And so there were a group of people who work with plant material or who have fashioned artwork from plant material. Another group of artists work environmentally are actually out there doing you know environmental actions using plants. And a much larger group of people in the exhibition are featuring images of plants either in and

schematic or abstract format or working with some level of realism. It seemed in the 1980s that there were a number of contemporary artists who were kind of going back to painting after a long spell of the art world being sort of overrun by minimalist art and pop art and those kinds of movements there were people who were genuinely interested in painting and a lot of sort of botanical images started to come out of that interesting painting as well. There are a number of works that sort of mimic the the appearance of science like Yves Andre Blair or Mays. It's called Left handed data glove and it's actually a series of copper wires that are hooked up through a palm leaf into a salt water battery. And there's a copper glove resting on a copper sheeted table. And she what she's trying to evoke there is the idea that there is actually electricity in every living thing or works in jars Keith you're Dan a young artist from Seattle

does pieces that are actually sutured together from gut and plant roots so they're almost these very weird hybrids of plant and animal like you would find in a cabinet of curiosities like a 19th century collection. Stan chef from southern Minnesota has a wonderful machine piece in the exhibition called self-immolation and it's based on the growth of corn plants which are mana costs. So they'll keep growing as much as you cut them. And his machine is sort of a cell phone operating device which as the plants grow they trigger the machine come on and it's cutter bark comes across them and neatly trims them every 23 hours he says. And then they just keep growing and turning the machine on over and over again so it's a wonderful piece using live plants. It's really kind of a feather in the cap of the Tweed Museum and the university as a whole. Really. And it bodes well

also I think for the region because it sends the message that there's a good artistic product and coming out of the region here that everything that some you know high quality in terms of exhibitions or programs does not have to come out of large metropolitan areas. We're starting a new segment tonight on NEWSNIGHT but calling it press release of the week. Each and every day we are

inundated with mail hundreds of letters from organizations asking us to cover their events so we thought would be nice to show you some of the press releases. The Good The Bad and the ugly soul let's start with something good stiches America's largest knitting Expo coming to St. Paul. Very nice. And guess what we did cover this today. Here is one fast meter fast I think and I think in September you got a proofreader are we toss it away. Are there any virgins left. Here is a press release out to get your attention didn't get us to cover the story well not necessarily my favorite press release though of the week free stuff no freebies no free stuff. Takes some auto glass company asking us to cover glass stories or something. And they call this breaking news. Tell me how where did

that go all the way down from the mailroom there in the studio. Anyway we are told that our next guest forgery will leave us feeling as if we are standing naked and we will explain. I don't know if I can add much more than that but someone here will. We just hope there aren't any naughty word tonight and I was told there are none. Sarah Fox is on stage at Patrick's cabaret in Minneapolis starting Saturday she's taking some time out to join us here on NEWSNIGHT tonight. Sara thanks so much for coming down. Thank you. Why poetry. Well I can't really tell you the answer to that I mean it just sort of happened to me just chose me. I didn't really choose it and what do you do you sit down and just come up with you start with the topic first you just start putting words together and then you go on. Well I just sort of wait for a poem to arrive. I mean you know you can sit down and try to write one but usually it's just you have to wait and you start out making it funny or you try to make it serious or this is going to make them think really deep. You start with it first or you just put things together and it just falls wherever. Well I think you start out without really any kind of intention you just let the poem

let the poem sort of guide you. And whatever turns out is. How it is. All right tell me about the families coming up. You're not the only one for the army which you know I'm going to be performing with a musician named Larry have a look and will be performing the next three weekends of Patrick's cabaret. 8:00 o'clock Friday and Saturday. All right what are we going to hear right now. I'm going to read two poems. And there are no dirty words in either one of them. You wrote them both. Yeah I wanted both. But if you want to call anniversary our take it away saying anniversary the ferns clutter the forest floor urged through Carter use of dead roots vines the pomposity of shade swamps the deer's quiet stampede even the unruly hike after a morning of argument touches stilled in the wake of surprise E-Trade fusing to be the first to take the other's hand.

She follows him foot over foot balancing along a felled trunk Moss in green shoots finding in the parched bark food enough to crawl across its diameter. All around them the ferns unfurl up vascular ladders then part breezy as curtains slender hands the wind throws into tranquil claps moist skeletal wings the mirage of birds emerging like gods from the original waters and then tales of persistence and Neolithic rainstorms spinning back from the underworld Dark Age after dark age. Staunch survivors of radium nicotine silicone locusts asteroids television horoscopes soccer pogo sticks truck stop diners insomnia spray paint landscaping funeral trains is tenderness what we lose in the

Rummage of debt and years. The Ferns don't remember how Grace escapes first frail foliage fossils travelling on millennial spheres stellar pilgrims dropping spores like a path of crumbs to the vision of the inaugural spark wings billowing their lean ribbons joined at the root bringing back from that dark abyss. Their sermon of tenderness wild merciful the one lasting thing. This poem is called The Long Dark. We go to the party after a rain. It's late and everyone talks as though the night won't and or will and sadly in too soon. But then we are home. You put on the kettle for tea and we sit in the kitchen. Our table a frail light shadowing the way we like to talk to each other. Smoke cigarettes

in the dim corners of the morning. Tomorrow we will drive to another state and so we leave the tea and lay our bodies down together in a bed that only remembers now the weight of our combined shade. The all we make in our sleep steep heat and dream morning I get up growing the coffee. The train whistle ghosts out from the still dark trees beyond the window. Thanks for some something you are going to support your readings. Also men or women. I'm not really sure. Actually I think it's a pretty good mix. There are a lot of people go to poetry readings that actually sort of are exposures cabaret in Minneapolis. We are out of time and I want to go over to borrow my biography of NEWSNIGHT. Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blanton foundation for creating a

stronger Minnesota by bridging rural and urban communities. And by the McKnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota families arts reporting on NEWSNIGHT is supported by a grant from the Dayton Hudson foundation on behalf of Dayton Bourbons California and Target stores.