September 12, 1997 - Consumer groups argue bank fees are gouging customers at a time of record profits in the industry. In Minnesota and nationally, banks have increased service charges and added new ones. The fees add up to a lot of money. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Minnesota commercial banks collected more than 800 thousand dollars a day in service charges last year, a total of 293 million dollars. Complaints about fees have reached the Minnesota legislature, where proposals to reign in bank fees are pending. Here is an exerpt from the third of Bill Catlin's reports on bank fees.
September 12, 1997 - Slavenka Drakulic, the Croatian journalist and commentator, is out with "Taste of a Man", a bizarre love story. Drakulic is well-known for her New York Times opinion pieces, and her post-Iron Curtain books "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed" and "Cafe Europa: Life After Communism". "Taste of a Man" is not necessarily about the war in the Balkans. It involves a woman who has a torrid three-month affair, and when her lover is about to go back to his family, she kills him. And eats him. Then scours her apartment. She's heard all kinds of interpretations of "Taste of a Man"; the religious, the psychological, and the political. They may all be valid, but Drakulic herself thinks the cannibalistic Thereza may be a parallel with the amoral killer in Camus' "The Stranger".
September 12, 1997 - When we report on a labor shortage in outstate Minnesota, we're usually not talking about Rabbis. But for eighteen months, Temple Israel in Duluth had no rabbi. After Rabbi Sue Levy resigned for medical reasons, the synagogue depended on rabbinical aides to help with funerals and bar and bat mitzvahs, and flew in a rabbinical student from Philadelphia twice a month to help with services. Now, that student, Amy Berstein , has completed her degree, and has accepted a full-time permanent job in Duluth. That means she's one of two rabbis in outstate Minnesota. Berstein's formal installation ceremony will be held this evening:
September 15, 1997 - For almost twenty years, Leonard Maltin has been as important to the couch potato as a big bag of Fritos. As film critic for Entertainment Tonite and editor of the "Movie and Video Guide," Maltin may be one of the most influential critics around. He's out with the 1998 version of the "Movie and Video Guide," which concisely reviews more than 19,000 movies, and he was in town last week.
September 15, 1997 - While the Metrodome is being cast as the albatross around the Minnesota Twins' neck, just 16 seasons after it was built, sports commentator Kevin Hennessy mourns the passing of the Dome and its unique attributes.
September 15, 1997 - "Useful" isn't a word most artists commonly hear when someone describes their work, but it's the ideal word to Wadena-based artist and designer Arthur Apissomian. He is the creator of a new material called PermaProse, a combination of glossy magazine paper and various adhesives tough enough to make furniture. With this new material, he turns what could be your average table or canister into an everyday work of art. Minnesota Public Radio's Gretchen Lehmann reports.
September 16, 1997 - Mainstreet Radio’s Mark Steil reports on workers at Oak Hills Living Center, a New Ulm nursing home in southwest Minnesota, who unionized several years ago and currently are locked in a bitter strike with management. They want higher pay, but government Medicaid policies and other regulations make that a difficult goal to reach.
September 16, 1997 - The Twin Cities, with its plentiful parks, shimmering lakes, vibrant cultural life ,and booming economy is a pretty good draw these days for "out-of-staters" ... as long as you can withstand the deep freeze of winter. But for some people who move here, there's another deep freeze operating that can hurt a newcomer's ability to make friends. That's one of the reasons the group "Twin Cities Transplants" was formed, to help take the edge off what can be an icy reception for non-Minnesota natives. Minnesota Public Radio's Chris Roberts -- a transplant himself -- went to a semi-regular meeting of "Twin Cities Transplants" to find out more. The next meeting of Twin Cities Transplants will be October 16th around 6 P-M, at City Billiards in Minneapolis. If you're interested in findi
September 17, 1997 - Most of us would be stumped if asked to quickly outline the borders of the 9th Federal Reserve District.... but not Aldo Moroni. He has just finished a huge clay model of the entire 9th district to hang in the lobby of the new Federal Reserve Building in Minneapolis. He told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr he wanted to create more than a map of the area... but something of the spirit of the upper Midwest. (Sound up and under... continue under entire piece) Think about it too much and the convolutions of scale of Aldo Moroni's sculpture "This River, This Place" can become mind-twisting. First of all there's the big stuff... it weighs 5,000 pounds
September 17, 1997 - The Twin Cities rock radio dial is shuffling again. In a week or so, X-105 will switch to something between the current hard rock format and the old alternative rock format of the former Rev-105. Meanwhile, 93-7 The Edge will get harder-edged, perhaps in a bid to compete with Rock-100, which starts with Howard Stern in the morning and plays hard rock the rest of the day. The Edge and 105 are owned by Cap Cities ABC, which also owns the giant KQRS. Chancellor Broadcasting recently bought Rock-100, which used to be BOB, the country station. Chancellor owns six other stations in the market. Robert Unmacht, editor of the M-Street Journal, a weekly broadcast trade newsletter, says while the reshuffling is possible because of the radio aglomeration in the Twin Cities, what's happening is the legacy of old FCC actions conflicting with the market's growth.