April 20, 1999 - The 90's have been tough for independent bookstores. They've lost customers to big chains such as Barnes & Noble and Borders. The newest threat is Amazon.com and other Internet superstores, but as Minnesota Public Radio's Jon Gordon reports, independent booksellers are starting to fight back.
April 26, 1999 - Minnesota Brewing Company bottlers and brewers are on day three of a strike against the company over changes in work rules. The money losing brewery says it must cut costs.
April 29, 1999 - Tales of torture and abuse are the stuff of nightmares: this weekend a such a story is being retold, but this has, if not a happy, at least a hopeful, ending. The Macalester College theater department is presenting the world premiere of "Return to Kanburi" a remarkable story of how Eric Lomax, a British soldier tortured in by the Japanese during World War 2, found one of the men responsible decades later, and forgave him.
April 30, 1999 - The April edition of Voices of Minnesota celebrates the 100th birthday of jazz musician Duke Ellington. MPR's Dan Olson interviews Macalester College music professor Robert Leigh Morris and Terry Gross interviews Duke Ellington's son Mercer.
April 30, 1999 - MPR’s Lorna Benson interviews German poet Ursula Duba about her book "Tales From a Child of the Enemy." They also discuss the impact of war and atrocities on youth, and what’s happening to Serbian and Kosovar children.
May 4, 1999 - MPR’s Jim Bickal talks with musician and anthropologist Maya Lopez-Santamaria about “Musica de la Raza: Mexican and Chicano Music in Minnesota” CD. Lopez-Santamaria collected the music and wrote the book which accompanies it.
May 20, 1999 - A farm in southwest Minnesota probably is not the first place you'd expect a professional mezzo soprano to call home, but that is exactly what MPR’s Mark Steil found when talking with Gary Overgaard, a farmer, and his wife Emily Lodine, an opera singer.
May 21, 1999 - "Walking Out of History: The True Story of Shackleton's Endurance Expedition," an American RadioWorks documentary about Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance Antarctica expedition. MPR’s John Rabe presents various interviews, readings, sounds, and commentary.
May 24, 1999 - University of Minnesota officials are still trying to determine if allegations of a cover-up by athletic officials are true. An investigation is underway, but results are not expected for several weeks. Micheal Messner is a Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. He says if the charges are true, the U-of-M will be among a growing number of schools facing this problem.
May 31, 1999 - A PRI presentation of "The Mississippi River: A River of Song" by Smithsonian Productions. This program in series is titled “Land of Lakes and Immigrant Songs.”