Bob Collins1) An American tale. An 88-year old man didn’t talk about his war experiences much, until he had an emotional reunion with an airplane.
More plane talk: MPR’s Dan Gunderson has profiled the expansion of the unmanned vehicle industry. Thief River Falls, in particular, wants to be at the heart of the program. Said the head of a aviation maintenance program at Northland Community and Technical College:
“When the FAA opens up the airspace they’re not going to open the entire national airspace,” he said. “They’re going to open up a piece here and a piece there. We’d like to be one of the first pieces opened up so you can fly out of Grand Forks to here and do whatever you need to do. That itself will bring a huge economic boom.”
A good example of perspective. Here’s the other side of the story: The government doesn’t “open up” airspace for things like this, it closes it down, the aviation Web site AvWeb says in a story headlined “North Dakota Pilots Protest UAV Airspace Grab.”
2) An East Metro controversy. “We’re not trying to make any political statements or give a forum for political views, whether on the liberal side or the conservative side,” Woodbury Mayor Bill Hargis says of the annual “Woodbury Prayer Breakfast,” formerly known as the “Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast.” Hargis is trying to get organizers to reconsider this year’s speaker: A woman who has said President Obama has Nazi tendencies.
“I don’t think we are posing it as a political event at all,” says Becky Harasyn, an Xcel Energy account manager who is chairing the organizing committee told Finance & Commerce. “We definitely made it clear to Hansi (Maria Hirschmann) that we want her to share her statement of faith.”
She’s got a heck of a story, though. As a kid, she was chosen by Nazis to be a youth leader:
3) You don’t call. You don’t write. Here’s a new article “10 tips for spotting a news story” which might help you think about interesting people you know who need a little News Cut exposure in their life. Number 9 — Will anything change as a result of your story? — is a little lame and it’s where most people stumble when it comes to considering themselves — or someone they know — newsworthy. A story that other people find interesting does not depend on whether it’s about something should change. Quite often, it’s about things that shouldn’t.
4) Just another day on Planet Parenthood: One in four parents won’t discipline their children – for fear of upsetting them, a UK study claims. “Researchers found the nation’s mums and dads shy away from telling off their kids because they don’t want to be seen as unfair or too strict.,” the Web site News:Lite reports. The “study” was commissioned by an outfit that provides military-style training for kids.
In other parenting news today, a Washington state Army sergeant has admitted he waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she refused to recite the alphabet.
5) Has there ever been a miracle drug quite like aspirin. From the Boston Globe: Aspirin may help prevent recurrence of cancer:
Scientists from several Harvard-affiliated institutions, including Brigham and Women’s Hospital, reported today that women who took aspirin at least once a week after finishing breast cancer treatment were half as likely to die from the disease as women who didn’t regularly use aspirin. Taking the centuries-old remedy also appeared to significantly reduce prospects that breast cancer would return, according to the study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
More health and science: Is there a link between autism and diet?
TODAY’S QUESTION
President Obama signed the Recovery Act one year ago today. Have you or your community benefited from the stimulus bill?
WHAT WE’RE DOING
Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) – First hour: Speaking of Faith’s Krista Tippett explores the intersection of faith and science, how they co-exist and where there’s tension. A new book collects some of her conversations with scientists and others.
Second hour: Motivating workers who already feel overwhelmed and overworked is one of the jobs of management. But according to author Daniel Pink, most captains of industry have no idea how to make the crew row faster.
Midday (11 a.m. – 1 p.m.) – Both hours: U of M climatologist and meteorologist Mark Seeley.
Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) – First hour: Political editor Ken Rudin considers the Senate after Evan Bayh.
Second hour: Henry Louis Gates Jr, talks about genealogy and the PBS series, Faces of America .
