June 2, 2004 - Chris Roberts profiles Venus, a transgender musician and visual artist from Duluth. Roberts interviews the artist, spouse, and Twin Cities filmmaker who follows the band All the Pretty Horses in documentary “Venus of Mars.”
June 3, 2004 - By the end of the 2004, the Twin Cities will have nearly 5000 new Hmong residents as they arrive from Thailand. They'll join the more than 20,000 Hmong who began arriving here in the 1970s. While this new wave of refugees will have some obstacles to overcome when they arrive, they'll have some advantages their predecessors never did.
June 4, 2004 - The U.S. Justice Department has determined that no federal criminal charges should be filed against two Minneapolis police officers accused of sexually assaulting a suspect last October. Officers Todd Babekuhl and Jeff Jindra were accused of sodomizing Stephen Porter with a toilet plunger handle during a drug raid at a north Minneapolis home. Minneapolis police say the determination means the case is closed. But some community activists say the case isn't necessarily done yet.
June 7, 2004 - Mainstreet Radio's Annie Baxter reports that for thirty years, St. Cloud has had an ordinance on its books that forbids immigrants from driving taxis. It wasn't enforced; in fact, most people had forgotten about it. City officials were embarrassed to learn of the ordinance recently, and promptly swore they'd get rid of it. The matter is under consideration in the city council, but even so, Somalis say they can't get jobs as taxi drivers...and they're wondering why.
June 10, 2004 - Mainstreet Radio's Rachel Reabe explores the history of the Great American Think-Off, held annually in New York Mills, Minnesota. in 2004, the amateur philosophers address the question of same-sex marriage.
June 10, 2004 - MPR’s Chris Roberts talks with champion air guitarist Jonathan Maki, who shares a few ‘tricks of the trade’ in the art form. Maki is one of the seven finer practitioners in the area to gather at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis for the U.S. Air Guitar Regional Championships.
June 10, 2004 - In the last two weeks, two men have died after being restrained by police officers, one in Minneapolis and one in St. Paul. In both cases, the police used non-lethal methods to take them into custody. Investigations and autopsy results are pending. Studies show that generally, there's not just one factor that leads to the fatality in these situations. Some say police officers can avoid these kinds of deaths, through better training. But law enforcement officials say police custody deaths are rare and the use of this kind of force is sometimes the only way to handle a violent suspect.
June 11, 2004 - As part of the Mainstreet Radio series “Meth in Minnesota,” MPR’s Tom Post reports on the various new challenges methamphetamine creates for Minneosta law enforcement.
June 14, 2004 - "Death is un-American," an "affront to the American Dream." wrote historian Arnold Toynbee in 1969. It was a time of social movements and big change: peace, civil rights, environmentalism and women's liberation. But a quieter revolution was underway, too - one led by a few middle-aged women who wanted to change our way of death. They were the founders of the hospice movement. It was a revolution without protest marches, but its legacy is profound. Today three in ten Americans will die in hospice care. In this new American RadioWorks documentary, John Biewen explores the birth of the hospice movement and traces its influence through one woman's final months of life.
June 14, 2004 - As part of the Mainstreet Radio series “Meth in Minnesota,” MPR’s Tom Robertson reports on a story of how meth has devastated the lives of one northern Minnesota family.