Nate MinorBruce Kramer on expressing love; get yourself to a fish fry tonight; how one interprets duty to one’s country; St. Jose Canseco; and, of course, the sequester.
1) GETTING LOVE OUT IN THE OPEN
If you missed Cathy Wurzer’s latest installment in her very good series with Bruce Kramer, a former University of St. Thomas professor coping with ALS, it’s worth revisiting.
Wurzer: …It sounds to me as if some of your spiritual beliefs have been made stronger by what you’re going through. Is that an accurate read?”
Kramer: No. I mean, it’s a good story line though. … What really strikes me is the great power here is love. It’s love. The tears and the laughter and the time that I share, that I get to share now because I can see this freight train coming right at me and so do my friends and so does my family. So it causes us to be far more expressive of the love that we have, of the love that we feel. It’s not like that love is any greater than it was two years ago before I was diagnosed, it’s just it’s all out in the open now.
2) FISH FRY SEASON
Don’t have dinner plans yet tonight? Head to your local church or VFW. The Catholic Spirit, the local archdiocese’s newspaper, went behind the scenes of St. Albert’s fish fry a few years ago:
WCCO has a list of fish fries in the metro area, but I recommend a place like Charlie’s Cafe in Stearns County. Which, by the way, is the inspiration for Lake Wobegon’s Chatterbox Cafe.
3) DUTY TO ONE’S COUNTRY
The information coming out of Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing is fascinating. He’s the soldier accused of the biggest unauthorized disclosure of state secrets in US history, the Guardian reports.
Manning said he leaked the info to Wikileaks because he believed the American people had a right to know the “true costs of war.”
“We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions. I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general [that] might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter-terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day.”
The Guardian produced this short film about the whole incident.
Manning’s plead guilty to 10 lesser charges, but it’s not part of a plea deal. He faces life in military custody.
4) ST. CANSECO
Star Tribune sports columnist Jim Souhan thinks the St. Paul Saints should sign former slugger and steroid user Jose Canseco. Canseco the Saint. I’ll just let the irony of that sink in.
Canseco would be perfect for the St. Paul Saints. He’d bring attention whether he played well or not. He’d probably say or do something crazy. And he might occasionally make contact with a fastball.
He’s even willing to pitch, so the Saints’ biggest worry might be keeping the Twins from signing him.
Actually, he might be on to something here. Would you go to Midway stadium to see a way-over-the-hill former star?
Update: Canseco himself responds to the idea. Because we’re a family-friendly establishment, I’ll just summarize it: He’d do it in a heartbeat.
5)IT’S HERE: SEQUESTRATION
The latest Washington deadline has failed to generate the hoopla the previous one conjured up (remember the “fiscal cliff”?). Does that mean our political leaders will change tactics? The Washington Post editorial board hopes so:
TO GOVERN IS to choose. By missing Friday’s deadline for averting $85 billion worth of across-the-board spending cuts to defense and domestic programs, Congress and President Obama have chosen not to govern. Instead, each side has concluded that its interest lies in letting the “sequester” proceed as scheduled — and then trying to win the political blame game.
“Obama is trying to convince us the sequester is a terrible problem, when in fact, it’s a terrible solution,” Stephen Colbert said last night.
And that brings us to Today’s Question.
TODAY’S QUESTION
Once again, the White House and Congress have missed a deadline to negotiate a deficit-reduction deal. Indiscriminate budget cuts, known as sequestration, will now take effect. Today’s Question: How does the failure to avoid sequestration affect your view of government?
WHAT WE’RE DOING
Daily Circuit (9-12 p.m.) – First hour: Friday Roundtable: The battle over sequester budget cuts
Second hour: Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Coming together for rational dialogue
Third hour: Michael Moss on ‘Salt Sugar Fat,’ how we got so addicted
MPR News Presents (12-1 pm): — David Gergen on our broken political system–and what to do about it
Talk of the Nation (1-2 p.m.) – Science Friday
All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) – MPR’s Dan Olson profiles the refurbished instruments at the Cathedral of St. Paul.
