May 25, 1996 -
May 28, 1996 - Midday’s Gary Eichten talks with Ann McBride, president and CEO of Common Cause, a non-partisan citizens' lobby organization dealing with issues of money in politics, government ethics, and government responsibility. The organization's current focus is campaign finance reform and special interest influence. McBride also answers listeners questions.
May 28, 1996 -
May 28, 1996 - The eldest member of the Shakopee Mdwakanton Dakota tribe, Louise Bluestone Smith, died recently at the age of 85. In the last few years of her life, Smith received some half a million dollars a year in profits from the Mystic Lake casino -- along with the other 150 or so members of the Shakopee tribe. But until the end, Smith lived in the modest trailer in which she'd spent most of her life in poverty. She spent her last years in a tireless and unsuccessful legal effort to stop tribal chairman Stanley Crooks from enrolling new tribe members. Smith said many of the new members did not meet the tribe's requirement of one-quarter Shakopee Mdwakanton blood. Smith insisted that her fight with the tribal leadership was not about money, but about the integrity of the tribe. In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio in 1994, Louise Bluestone Smith said the casino business has brought her people dramatic wealth, but also introduced greed -- a concept that she says was foreign to the Dakota people when she was a child.
May 29, 1996 -
May 30, 1996 - MPR’s Dan Olson profiles playwright Rebecca Rice and her play Everlasting Arms, which is being performed at The Penumbra Theatre.
June 3, 1996 - Midday’s Gary Eichten talks with with veteran broadcast journalist Sylvia Poggioli, who has been National Public Radio's Central Europe correspondent for years. Poggioli covered the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. She is in the studio to talk about post Cold War Europe, life as a foreign correspondent, and answers listener questions.
June 5, 1996 -
June 5, 1996 - Spike Jones shares his views on why Black community members are wary to communicate with Minnesota police officers. Jones discusses efforts by residents in acting independently of police to curtail crime and bring about a safer environment in neighborhoods.
June 6, 1996 - Midday discusses same-sex marriage and the Defense of Marriage Act. MPR’s Gary Eichten gets different perspectives on the ‘definition’ of same-sex marriage from guests Fritz Knaak, attorney and former State Senator; and Minneapolis family law attorney Suzanne Borne. Knaak and Borne also answer listener questions.