NewsNight Minnesota; 6183; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 07/15/1999; SD-Base

NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is a production of Katie see old little station Minnesota Public Television This is NEWSNIGHT I'm always accuse of reading fast while slow down. I'm new carb and it's hot. Riad period but it is hot outside the keeper of the amazing cool so that we can perform our important public service that is just can't remember what that is. Must be the heat the hottest day in 40 years I'm told. However despite that we feel great. We are ready to bring you all the news from around the state including an interview with the number two person in charge at some live bluegrass music. All right talk about hot fling a ling a ling a ling. Stay tuned. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Landon Foundation creating a stronger Minnesota by bridging rural and urban community. And by the McKnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota Family arts reporting on NEWSNIGHT is supported by a grant from the Dayton Hudson foundation on behalf of Dayton Mervyn's California and Target stores for the

first time in a long time were finally able to say that everything's relatively quiet at the state capitol a couple of reasons for that. One it's Jesse Ventura's birthday yesterday he started his vacation so I guess it's fair to say that for the time being the lieutenant governor Mae Schunk is in charge and what a perfect time to have her on the show. Thanks for stopping by. Six months since you came into office almost seven now. What's the biggest surprise over the last six months for you. Well probably the biggest surprise right now today is that Jessie is going in the ring. What was your initial reaction when you found that out. Well I think I said Oh no. And then and then I did have a little talk with him because I was concerned about him going in the ring and I didn't know exactly how he was going to go in if he's going in as a wrestler. He's going in as a referee or how he's going in there. So I did talk to him and he said oh no mate don't worry about me and I thought well this man is

intelligent enough he knows enough not to go in there as a wrestler he's not ready for that I mean you know age does catch up with you. Republicans in particular have been carping for the last 24 48 hours saying this does not it's not up to the dignity of the office and what do you say when you hear that. Oh what what is dignity I mean. You know we listen to classical music and to the person who enjoys classical music. That's dignity. For them a person who enjoys a bluegrass music and maybe somebody else doesn't enjoy it. To them it may not be dignity but to the people who are playing it and to the people who enjoy it. That's dignity. So I don't think that just going into the ring again as a referee is going to deplete the dignity of the governor's office. Well let's look at it all. Let's talk a little bit about you in the work that you've been doing for the last six seven months you made no secret that you're going to tour a lot of classrooms talk a lot of teachers

talk to kids today you were at the Dunwoody INSTITUTE I think we have a little bit of video from that. What do you get out of visits like that. Well you know. Actually it is going out to the schools and visiting with the educators visiting with kids. I learn what more about what they are doing and what they are doing and what their needs are they were launching rockets today. Thank you. Yes they were. And then I was out there to support to support the students. You know I mean they're doing a project a hands on project. It's real. Active learning the students are they have learn the skills that are out there now applying the skills that they have learned and then they're going to go back to the classroom and analyze what has taken place and put their mathematical skills to work. You know you get to visit a lot of classrooms What do you miss being in the classroom being the teacher there day after day.

Well I do and I think I would miss that. That's why I was afraid of retiring because I knew I would miss the classroom. And as people probably have heard me say I would have gone into college and working. Worked with young teachers. But I do miss the classroom. I miss the kids. And part of that pleasure is restored to me as I go into the classrooms but you know I am also listening to teachers. I'm listening to what are their concerns what are their needs. I bring that back to the capital and hopefully. Something will be done about their needs and I think it has been done. I mean the big concern that teachers have are the overcrowded classrooms the large classes that they have. We cannot teach the children as the public expects us to teach them. If we have these large classes talk a little bit about the dynamic between you and Education Commissioner Christine Jax. I mean she is the chief

education policy maker in the state yes. Do you talk to the governor first you talk to her first. How does that relationship. Well the governor and I have established our platform of what we would like to see happen in education. So she listens to us and now she has to see how she's going to make this work. So that's part of her work. And of course she and I are in conversation we are in meetings and it will continue to be more as the years go on you know is this for your time and hopefully together she will help to make our ideas happen in the classrooms through policy. We're going about a minutes ago what part of the job don't you like. There's got to be something. You know I really love every part of it. I love meeting new people. The hardest part for me is big that I meet so many people and talk to so many. And I don't always remember the name with the face.

And that's probably the hardest space which is what every good politician is supposed to learn how to do. Well I guess I'm not a real politician. I'm just out there in service to the people and that's what I believe this office is all about. All right Lieutenant Governor Maisha thanks for stopping by. Thank you it was a pleasure. Thank. You. Take a look at some headlines campers take note this fall 20 state parks

will be closed for camping between Labor Day and Memorial Day. Budget shortfalls within the Department of Natural Resources are to blame. The parks affected are all around the state. Most will be open during the day for other uses. We had a state park today one of those affected. No the officials were available to talk about the imminent closing the DNR says there just aren't enough staff to work the areas. Chainsaws are in but some campers will be left out. That is according to two recent decisions affecting the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness U.S. Forest Service officials have approved the use of chainsaws to help clear trails for ages and campsites damaged by the July Fourth windstorm. Normally motors are banned in the BW CA. It is estimated that almost 500000 acres in the U.S.A. were heavily damaged by the storm. Meanwhile officials have announced that no new entry permits will be issued for campers until August 23rd for parts of the meat of U.S.A. hit by the storm. Campers who already

have permits will be allowed in and they use permits will also be given out for service officials say the restrictions on campers will make it easier for crews to clean up some of the 25 million trees leveled by the Independence Day storm. The last batch of chip was expected to seek a federal court order forcing the state of Minnesota to pay the band more than four million dollars in legal fees. That is what it cost to banter fight and eventually win a decade long court battle with the state over hunting and fishing rights. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of the ban back in March. A federal law passed in 1903 allows for the winning side to recover legal fees in cases just like this one. About 250 Ailie residents who have been without telephone service for a quarter of a century will soon be able to phone home. That is thanks to a recent decision by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission the Commission has ordered Minnesota the nearest phone company to strain the lines. GTA officials may ask the PUC to reconsider

bring down the house says the St. Paul city council in a 6 to 1 vote. They decided to demolish the historic MANHEIMER good kind house on West 7th. The house could be described as French Second Empire and has been vacant and roofless for years. Meanwhile the fate of the Armstrong Quinlan house located across from the hockey arena is still up in the air. Finally commerce Commissioner David Jennings has resigned to become president of the greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce this week PBS aired the documentary rabbit in the moon that is a powerful and personal account of Japanese Americans experiences in internment camps during World War Two. The program is part of PBS is race initiative a series of programs use to continue dialogue on issues of race as part of this initiative the filmmaker was in the Twin Cities yesterday. She was interviewed by Katie CA's don't believe the hype crew. She also took part in a community dialogue that dealt with the little known history of concentration camps here in America.

You know beyond the fact that the Holocaust happened in Europe and this happened here is it. It happened in the country of the rescuers. So there was no one to rescue us. First about I'd like to congratulate you on your documentary you did a great job. I was a huge accomplishment. This was a very personal piece for you I understand that you mentioned how you connected your mother with the camps. And after she died you guys remained quiet about it for a while bringing it back up again. Did that bring any closure. Slowly the thought of our my sister and myself and our family being part of the movie began to evolve. Then at one point my sister finally agreed to be interviewed and she was really only going to these little transitional pieces. But then she started talking about the family. And I didn't even know a lot of those things. So going through this process of this documentary I

I not only learned a lot about our family and I it really introduced me to my mother whom we had not spoken of or for ever since almost since she died. And it allowed me to know more about my sister and about her relationship. And. It has not been a closure in a way it's been opening up. It has been an opening up of our relationship to one another and really back to our community. On the other hand there may be a closure aspect to it in that in the movie we I say that you know we went to look for my mother's ashes which had been and we couldn't find them. Well a cousin of mine saw the movie in Los Angeles and she

went on the hunt for my our mother's ashes and she found out about that. So we haven't quite figured out what to do about that yet but that will be something that I find really more as an opening up to remember our mother not to forget her and to honor her. And I do feel that this is a film that honors her and all the people who went through the experience. We can tell how personal it really is and must be really special for you as well as the audience. Well here's the danger as a filmmaker when you start putting your family's business in the street it can go both ways. So we were fortunate that it went a good way for us. It's just a cautionary tale for young filmmakers or any filmmaker. What has been some of the responses you've received. The response has been just overwhelmingly positive. Thankful to have learned

about it. A real empathy that begins about what the plight that we went through. So. It's I just you know I like to call it just the rabbit and I just feel like the rabbits out there are doing its thing. Our thanks to the hive crew for that report. Ok on to our next story what building in Minneapolis has twenty six gas stations nine swimming pools and 34 parking lots. No not Lou Harvey's house. The Walker Art Center at least for now. Curator Siri Engberg takes us on a tour of Edward Edward Shays rather books and soak screen prints. And there happens to be a chocolate room one room full of chocolate. Let's take a taste. Oh. What we're seeing here is a retrospective of ever say print and books as a

piece from 1966 called Standard station. I was really interested in the gas station as a theme because of a book that he had made in 1963 called Twenty six gasoline stations and it was a project where he drove across Route 66 from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City where he was raised and documented along that route 26 filling stations using very commonplace black and white photography. My clothes. Are not really images that are about photography about taking very involved images they're really about the documentation. She once said that he felt there was so much wasteland between Oklahoma City and Los Angeles

that someone had to bring the news that. A book here called 30 for parking lots which documents as it says 34 empty parking lots in the city of Los Angeles. This particular series was interesting to him. More for the oil droppings left on the ground of the parking lot actually than other cars that might be there or people that might be there. There's an image here where you actually see the footprints of someone that was there a minute ago but then Russia has asked him to please get out of the picture. Each of them really is about the pool. The title of his book being nine swimming pool. This is a book called every building on the Sunset Strip. It was produced in 1966 and has taken every building on the famous two mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard Los Angeles and documented each building showing the various addresses the street numbers photograph this very early on a Sunday morning. Driving down Los Angeles at Sunset Boulevard a pickup truck using

a motorized camera. He wanted to make sure he was there at a time when many people wore winter around it's of course one of the busiest most active in L.A.. He's kind of a chronicler of that city. Very interesting time capsule in the sun. Has always been very subtle in his use of humor and in the way that he chooses to incorporate visual association with something. Someone may think about it as looking It is a nice example it's a print called caviar Hollywood and the artists made a screen print here using materials other than ink to create his imagery. So what you see here is visible and there's caviar at the bottom. I began to experiment with this idea and a lot of different images with drawings of prints using things like caviar like spinach pie filling axle grease all kinds of things that normally wouldn't find their way into the realm of fine art. I

think that was something he was trying to get at in this particular print. You know showing us that you could bring in elements from everyday life and use them in a very interesting way. What we're looking at here is a room called the chocolate room filled with 360 sheets of paper that have been screen printed with chocolate. It's really meant to be an installation environment that one walks into and you're surrounded by color and by scents and all kinds of associations with that material with that substance come to the fore when you when you're in here in the actual Venice of the an alley where this was first shown the chocolate room caused quite a sensation. He was doing this at a time when America was at the height of the Vietnam War. A number of artists actually chose to boycott the movement including Robert Rauschenberg and Jim Francis and Rache almost chose not to come but ended up making the trip on a number of visitors to the room actually wet their fingers and began writing anti-American graffiti

and peace signs and things like that in the chocolate. It also became kind of a conservation problem. Insects began to start living in the chocolate and creating these sort of patterns ants would crawl across the surface and eat away at the chocolate. So with without realizing it Rache had created this kind of forum for politically charged dialogue if you like. Before we get started I want to thank Stephanie Moser for producing that word Chez exit a great

piece to now tonight the spotlight we welcome a musical force straight from one of the centers of the musical universe Nashville of course card as Jones on a lonesome temblor they're in town for a gig Friday at the Brady Center on the campus of St. Thomas University of St. Paul. We have now had she was at the Minnesota bluegrass and old time music association I love that title Thanks for coming down. Tell me about the show tomorrow night. Oh we got a big show coming up tomorrow night with Curtis Jones and lonesome timber and opening act will be Curtis playing with two other hot guitarists in that area. And I know she got it while somebody was barefoot earlier I guess they put the shoes on but you have to wear shoes to show up to that. I think you can come either barefooted or with me. That's all right how about issues in the Bluegrass ingoing of Minnesota overall. Real well. When the seasons were kind in the high season right now and you've got a big festival coming up at the beginning of August and we're doing this as part of our concert series and we've had one good festival already.

So what are we going to hear right now I'm going to hear a lonely lonely path of cold lonely battle call sounds good and called Take it away. Born with. Her dream home a yellow head. Home. I'm stuck at home. The stuff. Matters.

The now is flashing. And it. Broke down in a. Bag. On the Lonely Planet of gone. Mad. Say. It Again. He has.

More. Right than I can say they only way you're excused from watching Almanack tomorrow night is if you check them out at the campus site tomorrow and I can marry everybody I'm going to say see you all next week. And this last song I really heard it is a good one. Take it away. Tonight Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blendon Foundation

creating a stronger Minnesota vibe bridging rural and urban communities. And by the McKnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota Family arts reporting on NEWSNIGHT it's supported by a grant from the Dayton Hudson foundation on behalf of the big urban California and Target store.