February 25, 2002 - In her new novel "Fingersmith" author Sarah Waters tells a tale of deception and love in Victorian England. This is the third novel she has set in this time period, each dealing with an issue of the time, prostitution, pornography and the treatment of women in asylums. The term fingersmith was a name given by the Victorians to petty thieves. Sarah Waters told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr "Fingersmith" grew out of her own fascination with what were called the "Sensation" novels of the 1860's. They were a genre of immensely popular books featuring melodramatic and highly complicated plots.
March 4, 2002 - On this Mainstreet Radio report, MPR’s Chris Julin looks into the Ely school district starting a "wilderness high school." School officials are trying to recruit a dozen students from cities around the state. The students will go to Ely High School, but they'll also spend lots of time traveling the Boundary Water wilderness in canoes and on snowshoes.
March 4, 2002 - The sex industry is making waves in small town Minnesota. Strip clubs are moving out of the shadows and onto Main Street. More than a dozen rural Minnesota cities and counties wrestled with adult business regulation in the past year. Some sociologists say sex is everywhere in American culture. But most people are still afraid to talk about it. As a result, the sex industry is cashing in. In the first of our series "Adult Entertainment Targets Main Street," Dan Gunderson reports adult-oriented businesses and strip clubs are making profits in new locations, from new customers.
March 5, 2002 - Something that happened in the little town of Cosmos this winter frightened people in other small towns for miles around. Residents of the Meeker County town of 600 woke up one morning in November to find a strip club on one corner of their main intersection. No one saw it coming, and like many small towns Cosmos had no laws on the books to regulate an adult business.
March 6, 2002 - The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees free speech and freedom of expression. Those protections extend to adult businesses. While pornography and strip clubs remain hot button issues, the legal debate has shifted. So, has its location. The argument is no longer whether sex oriented businesses can exist. Now the question is how to regulate them legally as strip clubs and adult bookstores move to small cities and towns. Erin Galbally continues our series "Adult Entertainment Targets Main Street" with a report on the newest phase in the legal battle to regulate the sex industry.
March 11, 2002 - Somali leaders in Minneapolis are aiming strong criticism toward the police department after officers shot and killed a Somali man wielding a machete. Police say the man was a threat to officers and bystanders. But the incident has triggered an uproar by Somali immigrants who say the use of such force was unneccesary and want Police Chief Robert Olson fired. The incident has also called up past criticisms of how the Minneapolis police interact with people who are mentally ill.
March 12, 2002 - Minneapolis police, public officials and community members continue to search for answers following Sunday's shooting death of an apparantly mentally ill Somali man. Police shot the man after he allegedly refused to drop a machete and a crowbar he was carrying. Somalis in the south Minneapolis neighborhood where the shooting happened are angry at what they call excessive force used by the police. And mental health advocates say the shooting points out the shortcomings of the system that is supposed to help avoid such tragedies.
March 12, 2002 - Somali community leaders in Minneapolis are appealing to the African American community to join them in protesting the police shooting and killing of a mentally ill Somali man last weekend. Minneapolis officials say the officers acted in accordance with police regulations. But the Somali leaders told a predominantly African American crowd this morning the death of Abu Kassim Jelani is a case of police brutality. Some members of the African American community said they can sympathize with the Somalis.
March 12, 2002 - Members of the Twin Cities Cambodian community are mourning the loss of a long time advocate. 44-year old Darina Siv was executive director of the United Cambodian Association of Minnesota. She died of cancer on Friday. Siv immigrated to St. Paul in 1982 after escaping Cambodia's Khmer Rouge,In the late 1970's, Siv escaped the Khmer Rouge and fled to a Thai refugee camp. She met her husband in the camp and they moved to St. Paul in 1982. Siv wrote about her life under the Cambodian regime in" Never Come Back: A Cambodian Woman's Journey." Jane Kretzmann of the Bush Foundation, directed the state's Refugee Program in the late seventies and eighties when survivors of the Khmer Rouge were relocating to Minnesota.
March 14, 2002 - MPR’s Michael Khoo reports that a Twins ballpark bill has limped across the finish line in the Senate. It's the first time a stadium bill has succeeded in the House or Senate since 1997. The bill survived several potentially lethal amendments and passed only after lawmakers scaled back a proposed statewide tax on sports memorabilia.